No particular difficulty as such, more that I asked the question because I thought it might bring forth some useful hints and tips and cause an interest in others. We quite often correct an error in the spelling of our own name nowadays. We also ask "How do you spell that (your name) if we are uncertain". I share the view that it is important to attribute a name correctly and at the same time I think we have a duty to note down our findings about name variations. I'm guilty as charged that I have never viewed - had the opportunity to view - film but I do purchase copies of official documents. >From what I have seen of responses it has indeed caused thought in others who have shared their knowledge, and provided us with some useful information. I use PAF 5.5 which is the most up to date English version. I have a full list of Individual Source headings, Census, Certificates, Parish records, Obituaries, to name a few, and realised that a family name ought not to be lost under the alphabetical list of Sources and comment, but be more prominent in the same way as a birth, christening, marriage, death and burial which is key information about our ancestry. Janet ----- Original Message ----- From: "M Keith Abel" <kabel@kingston.net> > Janet and Ray: > > Looking at the responses to name spelling I have done a bit of reflecting. > > Obvious typographical errors do not represent a name spelling change and I > haven't bothered to record them, although I suppose anyone checking through > my references could be saved a lot of time if I did. For example there is > a group of Abels in IGI where the name is spelled Abol. Looking at the > original handwriting it is obvious that the writer used an individualistic > lower case "e" in which the letter is actually written sideways. It doesn't > look like an "o" but the transcriber took it down that way. Surely the > transcriber could have realized that the writer did not write "Baptisod" in > the same references. Just one reason that after finding a reference in IGI, > it is necessary to go back to the original record. Similarly after a > massive search I found the reason I couldn't find "Hazard" in the index to > marriages in the Province of Ontario Marriage records was that the > transcriber had written "Maryford". I can imagine that the H looked like an > M and the z looked like an ry but the f had to be pure invention. > > Recording the spelling of names in their original form has never been a > problem for me (except in alphabetic indexes that I am prepared to live > with). I am not sure I understand Janet's difficulties. I forget where but > I have one family with three different spellings amongst the siblings. It > might look "funny" but the problem is small. > > Incidentally I am using the original PAF version 2.3 in an equally antique > 386 operating under DOS 6.0. This program won't operate properly with > windows. It can't execute a data sort with windows in the way) This has the > advantage of being safe from the visicitudes of viruses, worms and Trojan > horses. I communicate between computers by means of diskettes. > > M Keith Abel