Dear Cousins, First, welcome to several new subscribers! We are happy to have you among us. Please share your research interests with the List, and we will be happy to help in whatever ways we can. I am very far behind with uploading things to the website, but am trying to get that resolved. Increasingly there are great new sites that put up data and transcriptions of historical information. Even so, you have to be careful what you take for gospel on many of these sites. Follow up with your own research, and check with others doing research on the same areas or surnames. One web transcription of marriage records I encountered last year was attempting to be so accurate in copying old spelling used in these records that the name was totally obliterated. The "s" written in the middle of a word was often written as a sort of elongated "f." Copyists don't quite know what to do in this case. If the name is unfamiliar to the copyist, as is the case of a person transcribing a whole list rather than doing family research on familiar names, the end result is often distorted from the original name. One example of this is the name "Casey." For a very long time I suggested to Pennington/Casey descendants that they obtain original copies of several key documents in their research, even though abstracts of the documents were well circulated. One descendant has written me that three previous errors have been corrected by obtaining a copy of this will: " 1. Jacob Pennington's will mentions a daughter Abigail "Cassey", not "Cafey" as is commonly given in published transcriptions. "2. Also, "Jiarse" Noland, a son-in-law mentioned in Isaac's will, is actually "Piarse" Noland (other records show that Isaac's daughter Rebecca married Pearce Noland). "3. The [circulated] transcription of Jacob's will doesn't mention land on Beaverdam Creek of Little River willed to his daughter Charity (this land is later sold by Charity and her husband Randolph Casey), but published transcriptions do. This discrepency was explained when I [the descendant] read the will and found that there are 11 provisions, instead of the ten [the transcriber] inadvertantly left out. However, the provisions of the actual will are only numbered up to ten. But "fifthly" was used twice, one of which was for the Beaverdam Creek bequest!" When transcribers misinterpret names, what evolves in the research? Since Caffey "sounds like" Coffee or Coffey, I believe that it is quite likely that the original Caff(s)ey may have been interpreted as Coffey and then reinterpreted as Coffee. Coincidentally, there are also abundant Coffeys in the South, and some connected to Penningtons. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? A similar problem exists in my own Penning/Pemberton line. Each is a legitimate surname. But each seems to have been subsituted for the other over a long period of time. Once the name is in the records, (written by others) and the individuals of the name are represented in that way, it is terribly difficult to ferret out which is which. There is a great deal of information on the Coffeys in a transcribed portion of a Watauga County, NC History: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/8473/Arthur/contents.html As for "Jiarse" Noland -- let the buyer beware of a strange appelation! How many Jiarses have you encountered? How would you even pronounce "Jiarse?" This misnomer begs attention! Pierce (Pearce) Noland became a well known plantation owner and is given in Ancestry.com as a study example. Similarly, when I found the name of my g-g-grandfather given in an LDS submission as Marion "Lucres" Pennington the red flags jumped up. People simply were not named "Jiarse" or "Lucres." We do have the name Lucas in our family, and I thought this might have been misinterpreted. When I found further records I discovered the name was "Loveless," another misnomer for the surname Lovelace. This occurs when the symbol for a double "s" is misinterpreted. Another problem is mistaking capital "L" for capital "S." In my case this resulted in my looking for Mandle for too many years instead of Standle (pronounced Standlee,) and also spelled Stanley as well as Standley. In other cases Largeant, Largant has been misinterpreted for Sargeant and Sargant and vice versa. There are several good sites on the web for reading old handwriting, and our Cousin Michael has previously sent the following suggestions, which bear repeating: "1. E. Kay Kirkham, How to read the handwriting and records of early America (SLC: Deseret Book Co., 1965). "2. Kip Sperry, Reading early American handwriting (Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., c1998). "After 25 yrs of trying to interpret old records, I finally wised up to the fact that I needed help. These books have been very helpful and I wish I had read them long ago. It is easy to think you understand what you are reading while missing the boat completely. "The Kirkham book can be acquired cheaply used through BookFinder.com. The Sperry book I could not locate used, but is available new--try Amazon.com or Alldirect.com, if not found at BookFinder.com." A final warning: If someone is paraphrasing or summarizing history, take care with repeating it. Although I used secondary 19th century sources for some of my comments on Signers of the Declaration of Independence, I was told some of it was myth. But the debunkers didn't give citations! So who knows!? Another USGENWEB county page insisted Daniel Boone's brother was buried in their Ohio County, when actually he is buried in the same named county in Indiana! You tell me if he's turning over in his grave! Another "official" Usgenweb page sought to "blame the victim," in its portrayal of Charles I, who was beheaded in the English Revolution. Charley, they stated, was obnoxious and arrogant while being held for trial and execution! They seemed to be saying, "He deserved beheading, that Rotten No-Goodnik!" When we write history we must not only be accurate with facts, but also, never seek to interject hindsight, opinion, or interpretation of that time with a revisionist attitude. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com ========================================= --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads