This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/XY.2ADE/393.1.2.1.2.1 Message Board Post: Just to make your day, the city of Ballarat (and a most gracious city it is, well adorned with C19 statuary, rolling swards and a sizable lake, not to mention the elgant hotels etc, well gilded - literally - it WAS a successful gold town) is spelt thus but the shire/electoral district, whatever, are spelt Ballaarat. Goodness knows how the original people said it! Australia is sprinkled with placenames which misrepresent the local language - even the nearby townships (hamlets) Delegate and Collector are derived, we learn, from Aboriginal names. No doubt it’s much the same in the USA.