Hi Everyone, Just thought I would post a reminder that when handwritten records were transcribed, they spelling often suffered horribly due to bad penmanship on the original documents. I have been working with the 1880 U.S. Census for southern Monterey County and have discovered numerous misspellings for surnames, some are so far off the mark that if I didn't have a variety of other resources to use for cross-referencing, I would miss a lot of the people I am trying to isolate. Examples of the differences: Transcribed Census Actual Names --------------------------------------------- N.J. MYERS................A.J. MEYERS Joseph NUTRAP.............Joseph NATTRASS Cathbert WATRESS..........Cuthbert NATTRASS W.S. COPLY................W.S. COPLEY Samuel GRAVER.............Samuel GROVER George INGELES............George ENGELS Henry RISH................Henry RIST Luke RESH.................Luke RIST John MATTHES..............John MATTHIS Joseph LANDRAW............Joseph LANDRUM Hirum BUCH................Hiram BUCK Just about all of the old records, prior to the use of the typewriter, are subject to misreading due to penmanship. I've been having lots of fun entering the 1871 Great Register into a database. I keep a typed list of the dozens of surnames I am looking for handy so I can determine if a scrawl is actually one of the names I want to record. As you can see from the above, even fairly simple surnames can get pretty mangled. I have a group of French surnames that I doubt I will be able to figure out due to my lack of expertise in French pronunciation. I do a lot better with the Spanish surnames. BTW, if you are looking for a Hispanic widow, don't overlook searching under "DE". My great great grandmother, who was married to LISK, is recorded on a BLM land patent as "DELISK". She had apparently signed her documents MATILDA FELIZ de LISK and whoever transcribed the documents didn't realize that the "DE" indicated that her married surname was plain old LISK. Hope this helps, Anita C. Monterey County