Genealogy Chat

I have problems with one of my surnames,Macbeth,it has been spelt MacBeth,McBeth,Mackbeth and even McBeath!!It is very confusing!!

I have an issue with McNeillie/Menelley, but most of my ancestors were surprisingly consistant for a group of illiterates with a tendency to wander all over the British Isles dragging their regional accents behind them. If I do get a confusion (Wakeham/Wakem) I go with the spelling that is in use today. If that's not applicable, I use the one that appears on most of the records.

Hi all, I've got a load too, including Burnett/Burnitt, Dennis/Dinnis, Fonge/Funge/Founge, Meloney/Melonie/Miloni/Milioni/Molony!! And yes, it IS very confusing, and in the early days, like Jacqueline, by passed most of the ones with the different spellings, and wondered why the families kept petering out after a couple of generations! Debbie

I have same problem with my Stevenson branch of the family, half of them spell it Stephenson! Do you think they knew it would give us hours of headaches? lol

I have been tracing the line of Plummer but having had contact with someone else who has the same ancestors, I find that some children with the same parents were spelt Plumer or Plomer. I had discarded these each time I came across them.

I have the different spelling problem with a lot of my surnames,the worst one being Gold to gould,which isn't even pronounced the same! Also half the children in a family would have the former and the other half the latter!

I have the same problem with ATwood and ATTwood. The records from 1700s just have one T and then someone decided to add another. I've also found the branches who emigrated to America just used one T. Even now most English families have TT and USA one T. I just make sure I have at least one person with each spelling so I don't miss any new names.

I'm having the same problem with one of my names too! My maiden name was Cartlidge so that's how i've entered everybody's names but i know a lot of my family furthur back were spelling their name CartlEdge. It seems to alternate between these two spellings through out the years so it makes your searches it bit more difficult, unless of course you can use a phonetic search. But where there is no phonetic search i end up putting CartlIdge then trying CartlEdge!! It makes things twice as long but hey, who said genealogy was easy!! Best of luck. Tracey, Bolton

thanks sonja , can be confusing , hope i dont miss out on any contacts because of spelling. which means i now have both varients in my tree.regards,jackie.

I have had a similar problem where my ggf changed his name from BROOKES to BROOKE on his return to England. It was extremely difficult trying to find any relations as 2 generations were all born in South Africa. All the information I kept getting back was for BROOKES! There was not a BROOKE family to be had in Sth Africa!! lol Eventually a cousin (who I didn't know existed!) saw a post of mine on Rootsweb and together we sorted the problem. I now, and so does he, enter the names as they are put on certificates etc but we have made copius notes to the effect that the s got lost somewhere! We are now on the trail to see why it was changed! We suspect a falling out between father and son (ggf and gggf) and a very large, but terribly British, dummy spit by the younger! Sonja

i have found 2 different spellings on the surname i am searching.my greatgrandads name was different on his marriage cert from his death cert, also his first 2 children were spelt different from the other 11 children.seem as time went on it changed to mccarroll instead of mccarrol. which spelling should i use in my tree, could someone advise me as genes connected have both varients in there site.