You may be right but a couple of wills on the Devon Wills Project have the name as Sture (Steere): Sture (Steere) John, Northehuyshe, gentleman 1591 Sture or Steire Walter, Crediton, husbandsman 1574 I can cite one example where I discarded a possible baptism because the surname was similar but different enough to be unlikely but circumstantial evidence turned up that suggests it is the correct entry (I can't prove it). I was helping some distant cousins to get past their brick wall on the side of their family we don't share. They had looked in vain for an Ann Giles who married in Lostwithiel in 1825. On all census returns she gave her birthplace as St Neot. There was no baptism to be found in St Neot and, in fact, there was no Ann Giles baptism anywhere around the right time. I tried searching for baptisms at St Neot for just the first name, Ann, in case it was a case of an illegitimate birth where the mother subsequently married a Giles. No illegitimate Ann but there was an Ann Jewels baptised at the right time. Giles/Jewels? No, the vowel sounds are as different as Steer/Sture. Coincidentally, the mother of Ann Jewels had the surname Rundle which was the name of Ann Giles's marriage witnesses. As Ann married in Lostwithiel, I looked for any other Giles marriages there. There is a marriage 1836 for Margaret Giles and Robert Rescorla. On the 1851 census Margaret's birthplace is Cardinham c1820 but there is no baptism for Ann Giles at Cardinham (or anywhere else) around this date. However, there is a baptism at Cardinham 1818 for Margaret Rundle Jewel, parents Thomas and Marianne Jewel. And Robert and Margaret Rescorla baptised a son Thomas Jewells Rescorla at Lostwithiel. There is also a burial at Lostwithiel for a Thomas Jewells alias Giles (Margaret's father?). The age at death matches with the baptism of a brother of Ann's if their parents were Thomas Jewells and Elizabeth Rundle. Happy New Year, Joy --- Original message---- From : cjb@eng.cam.ac.uk Date : 02/01/2019 - 14:47 (GMT) To : devon@rootsweb.com Subject : [DEV] Re: Stear family of Kingsbridge In my transcription of the Aveton Gifford Parish Registers I added an index with people grouped by surname, and there are many examples of all the variants of Stear. see http://www-civ.eng.cam.ac.uk/cjb/ag/pr/agprindS.htm I came to the conclusion that Stear; Sture and Stert were distinct families but that Stear, Steer and Steere were indistinguishable.  I accept that my distinction is subjective, although the acid test is how the names sound.  My mother (who was a Stear) insisted that the Steers were a completely different family, but I have seen her father's own signature in both forms. It is fairly clear that spelling was very fluid.  There are examples in the AG marriage register, which for some periods had the actual signatures of bride, groom and their fathers, where father and son used different spellings of their surname in their signatures on the same document. The priest, or the parish clerk, or the census enumerator, would write down what they heard, especially if the family was not known to them. It probably is true that these names have a common origin, but surnames have been around since about the 13th century, 300 years before we have written records for common people, and well before most of the population was literate. All the AG entries can be found at http://www-civ.eng.cam.ac.uk/cjb/ag/pr/agpr2.htm (The commonest name in the village is Elliot, and I found at least 8 ways in which that was spelt!) Chris Burgoyne OPC for Aveton Gifford