How many times were we told in school, growing up, and in our jobs that our spelling counts??? Our kids bring their spelling lists home proudly every week to show off their scores. But what about in historical records? Not so much...
Why is there so much discrepancy with names and spelling? There are a few things to consider here. First is accents. Censuses were taken by hand in the days before internet and bubble cards (those things you fill in with #2 pencils). The person giving the family's information may have a thick heavy accent, so the way they say their information and then the way the census taker hears the information both influence how that information is recorded.
I have also personally found some catholic records written in Latin. I don't read Latin. Fortunately the churches that have sent me the information have translated them for me. And this also influences how the information is interpreted. Different people may translate the information a little bit differently depending on how they were taught the language.
Literacy may have also played a factor in the interpretation and relaying information on records. Another theory I have is who is providing the information. Let's say a child of immigrants in the only one who can speak English. The child is the one giving the information to the census taker. The information the child is giving is only as good at the child's education.
When looking at other records, such as death records are only as good as the informant's memory or the information the institution has at the time of the decedent's death.
So what does that mean for genealogists?
Soundex is available to help search records. In short soundex is a method of applying a code to a surname. More can be learned by Google searching soundex or in a future entry of my blog.
Learning alternate spellings of last names and be flexible when it comes to searching first names. Various of both can be found in records.
Always look at the original document when possible. Even transcription errors can lead to alternate spellings of a surname or first name. Ever look at old hand writing? If you haven't yet, you will. (And another good future blog topic). Reading old hand writing can be difficult and lead to misinformation or alternative information or spellings.
Take care and happy hunting all!
Recently I was talking at work to a colleague and she said to me "we all come from people who were on the Mayflower". We got into the deep discussion that all people are eventually related, but that led me to think about how many Americans, myself included at one point, think that we ALL are descended from the Mayflower Pilgrims. Those of us who are have roots in the United State understand how that's not really true and that it's truly a treat as a genealogist to discover that one is descended from a Mayflower pilgrim....or even luckier....pilgrims. I'm not sure I made myself very popular when I said that not everyone is descended from Mayflower Pilgrims, there were many, many more that immigrated since then and people who have no English ties at all. Of course, it wasn't said to be hurtful, just a fact. (For some reason I keep thinking about Greek immigrants when I think about this.)
A quick Google search of the term "Mayflower Genealogy" returned 385,000 hits. Some sites that I've personally used include Mayflower History, Sail 1620, The Mayflower Society, Plymouth Ancestors.org and The Alden Kindred of America website which is specific to John and Priscilla (Mullins) Alden as well at the most common major genealogy websites like Ancestry and Family Search. A Google search of the some of the other surnames and the word genealogy shows that there are independent websites for most of the other pilgrim travelers with genealogy information available. This is not an all-inclusive list by any means and there are many other wonderful websites out there to help with your research, these are just some of the websites that I've personally used. Remember to always give credit to wherever you find your sources....nothing is more irritating than someone else stealing your hard work...not to mention the potential legal issues you can create. (But that's a topic for another time.)
Over the summer I was in a local cemetery with my parents and we came across this marker in the cemetery. This wasn't one that we were familiar with so we decided to do a little research. (Thank you smart phone!) We discovered that this particular symbol stood for Royal Neighbors of America. (We also decided that discussing these markers would make a good blog series.)
