Dear Chris in New Zealand and friends, You ask about Arnot becoming Arnott. Really there were no universally accepted spellings of names of people or places. Much depended on the person writing it down. I have found Jane and Jean to be almost interchangable. One ancestor has her maiden surname spelled differently on almost every document (eg with each child's birth): McLellan, McLelland, McClounan, McClellan, McLownan. Don't asume more recent spellings are necessarily 'fixed'. A friend's son has managed to change his middle name from Graham to Graeme simply by putting the second spelling on all forms for the Scottish exam board the SQA and UCAS university entry (a mistake on his part, but effectively he has adopted the second spelling). Note that some spellings may be errors of transcription. The letters c, r and t can be confused. See http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/1hrS3.asp A note on phonetic spellings http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/1hrS4.asp Best wishes, Kay In dreich, foggy Edinburgh.

Many thanks to Louise and Kay for answering my spelling query. I have another query re the mailing list. I see that the email address below is AYRSHIRE-L@rootsweb.com . Yet when I had my membership confirmed the message gave the lists address as AYRSHIRE@rootsweb.com. I am on several Irish mailing lists and these have the '-L'included so I did wonder about this when I saw it missing. Would SKS please clarify this for me. Kind Regards Chris in NZ ----- Original Message ----- From: Kay Williams To: fabiochris@orcon.net.nz Cc: AYRSHIRE-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 10:35 PM Subject: Spellings Dear Chris in New Zealand and friends, You ask about Arnot becoming Arnott. Really there were no universally accepted spellings of names of people or places. Much depended on the person writing it down. I have found Jane and Jean to be almost interchangable. One ancestor has her maiden surname spelled differently on almost every document (eg with each child's birth): McLellan, McLelland, McClounan, McClellan, McLownan. Don't asume more recent spellings are necessarily 'fixed'. A friend's son has managed to change his middle name from Graham to Graeme simply by putting the second spelling on all forms for the Scottish exam board the SQA and UCAS university entry (a mistake on his part, but effectively he has adopted the second spelling). Note that some spellings may be errors of transcription. The letters c, r and t can be confused. See http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/1hrS3.asp A note on phonetic spellings http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/1hrS4.asp Best wishes, Kay In dreich, foggy Edinburgh. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Internal Virus Database is out of date. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.406 / Virus Database: 270.14.105/2562 - Release Date: 12/13/09 07:39:00

Adding to the spelling debate... think outside the square when researching... I found Susan spelt Thusan in Lanarkshire records... clearly the person reporting the birth had a lisp! The 'chap with the pencil' simply wrote down what he heard... Nyle