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The spelling of surnames

crimble

master brummie
A valuable lesson I learnt early on in my research was don`t be blinkered on how your name is spelt on records. As a family my cousins and our respective parents were comparing our trees only to realize that we spelt our Gt / Grandparents name slightly different and yet we were raised together and some even buried together so knew our link was 100 percent accurate. We put it down to accent especially the good old Brummie accent.! We had spellings of Weetman, Wheatman, Weatman and even Whietman on a census. So please bear that in mind when searching. Good hunting
 
A valuable lesson I learnt early on in my research was don`t be blinkered on how your name is spelt on records. As a family my cousins and our respective parents were comparing our trees only to realize that we spelt our Gt / Grandparents name slightly different and yet we were raised together and some even buried together so knew our link was 100 percent accurate. We put it down to accent especially the good old Brummie accent.! We had spellings of Weetman, Wheatman, Weatman and even Whietman on a census. So please bear that in mind when searching. Good hunting
I've had a similar experience but i think it may be down to the fact that in the nineteenth century and beyond there were many that couldn't read or write. I have a double barrelled surname in my ancestry but the last name was never on any census just the first, work that one out:05.18-flustered:.
 
i know the feeling on trying to find family on my fathers side the name is spelt five different ways O'BYRNES O'BERNS O'BURNS O'BEINES and O'BEIRNES
josie
 
Beware of any Surname with a "w" in the middle,

My searches for an elusive Howell family branch ended up found as "Horrell"

the "w" is quite easily transcribed as "rr" & the "rr" found as a "w" in other searches.

Anyone else had similar tricky ones, Then had to prove to Ancestry to change the flippin thing
 
Do not be too critical of people in "olden days". Today if I spell my surname (JEE) to someone, it is quite common to then see it written Gee by that person afterwards, or , worse, have them tell me they don't have any record of me (having looked for Gee). Our brains often hear what they expect to hear and ignore the sound !!
 
when asked my name ( TRUELOVE) i am always asked how to spell it it it very easy to mistake it for toolove as i have had letters with that spelling
josie
 
The worst name I came across in my tree was Richens - Richins, Richings, Ritchings, Ritchens, Ritchins and once Richards.

And Simmonds wasn't much better.

It can be hard going to explain to someone who's not really interested. My step brother's name started off as Mayall in Gloucestershire 200 years ago and ended up as Mayo. Without any Irish connection much to everyone's surprise.
 
The IGI is a good place to start. For instance, there was at last count, 17 different spellings of my own surname (SHEPPARD) from SHEPD to SHEPPHEARD, and 24 different spellings of the surname PIERPOINT. If doing a bulk extraction of, say, births, it pays to have such a list in front of you as many other surnames will be interspersed between the variants of your name and it's quite easy to miss a few.

Maurice
 
The Gloucester influence does some amazing spelling effects. McCutcheon in a Gloucester accent results in McCutcheon spelt Meintchean, Macouchin, Mecutchean and Meccutscheau. The most unusual in Birmingham it only McUthron.

To be fair transcription alone can result in some challenges. The worst is probably Ferneyhough transcribed as Fairclough. It is not as though either name is short on recognisable spelling options in their own right. That said I have been asked to spell Jones!
 
For my "Yapp" ancestors I have found, Yopp, Jopp, Tapp Lapp, etc. I have to check addresses to be certain, one "Black Country " relation was transcribed as being born in "Dodlai" though!!!
On my maiden name people insisted in adding an E.
rosie.
 
I think a lot of incorrect transcriptions are on Ancestry purely because the names are ones they are not familiar with. In the US there are many names that are European (Italian names a plenty), but when they come to English names, it appears the Americans have never heard of them. My Jefcoate family are transcribed as Jefcrate on the 1881 census and Tefcoate on the 1851. It's a north Warwickshire name, and probably never been heard by the transcriber. It used to make me feel frustrated and even a bit cross, because at close inspection you can see clearly what is written, but then again, handwriting styles present a problem. That's why I feel British census returns should be transcribed by a British person, then I am sure there would be less mistakes.
 
I have found similar problems on Find my Past where the name is wrongly transcribed and so doesn't come out when you tap it into the search engine. Going back a few generations in our family the surname Huffer crops up but on one set of records it is transcribed as Haffer, only painstakingly searching through addresses brought up the result for me....

The Irish Census online was transcribed in India which has brought with it a lot of mistakes as people not familiar with western European surnames are transcribing the records.

Simon
 
My mom's family name is Rickards which often gets wrongly transcribed as Richards as the old fashioned way of writing the letter k often looks like a h.
 
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