Yes, I know it is frustering. My David Watters even got his naturalization papers under the name Waters. He went back many years later and fixed it. I also found that the indexes of the census can be wrong. When you actually look at the image it is a different spelling. I have found my Watters under Waters and Walters and went I go to the image I wonder how they got it wrong. It looks so clear to me. In the new LDS 1880 census he shows up as David Walters but if you look at the image it is definitely Watters. But I have found in the directories they are usually right. Thanks for you input. In a message dated 9/26/01 2:23:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time, mrwally@home.com writes: << It is a fact that the WATTERS surname was recorded several different ways including WATERS and WALTERS. In the MA 1880 census, there were almost 800 WATERS (probably about 200-250 families), approximately 60 WATTERS (probably about 15-20 families) and over 230 WALTER(S). In looking for a "David", I find only 3; two of them are WALTERS and the third is WATERS but none spelled WATTERS. I have found some of my WALTERS recorded as WATTERS. If that isn't bad enough, some of the Irish WALTER(S) were also recorded as QUALTER(S) and some even had the Mc or Mac prefix. This was also true of Irish McWAT(T)ERS. Some even omitted the "S". The point of all this is to remind everyone not to get too comfortable with the spelling of "your name". Bill Walters >>