There have been comments of mis-spelling of amateur (ameture), but the concept of mis-spelling is a modern one. If you don't have access to a dictionary, how do you know what the "correct" spelling is? So, until dictionaries started being published (Dr. Johnson produced the first reliable English dictionary in 1755), spelling was on a "as it sounds" basis. The solution was always to say the word aloud, and that would tell you what the word was, Dictionaries took a long time to get into common use. In older documents (I am currently working on documents from the 1670s) it is not uncommon for the writer (Usually a notary = lawyer) to be spelling the same word several different ways within the one document.. The same applies to genealogy: the older the record, the more likely that the surname is spelled differently form what you expect. I was checking some records of people surnamed Blues, and find them recorded also as Blue, Blew, Blews, Blewes, Blewis - which all sound much the same. The standard work "The Surnames of Scotland" by George Black (published 1945 by New York public library, and nowadays available as a reprint from Birlinn, in Edinburgh) is excellent for displaying the many spellings he found for each surname. It also gives many clues as to the origin of each surname - most other surname books simply borrow from his work! Regards, Gordon Johnson