One has to realise that up until recent times, the idea of "correct" spelling - of names or words - was unheard of. Ministers, clerks, etc. wrote down names according to how they EXPECTED them to be written, or how they HEARD them spoken. If they came from a different part of the country, their expectations would differ from the practice in the current location. Even if the family were litereate, their spelling of the name would reflect their own decision on spelling it. One can find 40 or 50 variations of a single surname. A simple example: Blues/Blue/ Blew /Blews/Blaw/Bleu/and so on. All sound much the same when spoken. Often the spelling used reflects a particular part of the country. Johnstone usually comes from the Borders counties, Johnston is common in Aberdeenshire,. Johnson is predominant in Orkney, but these are generalisations. I was told by my father that our surname was lways spelled Johnson, but when I researched the family line in Ayrshire, at early 1800s the name appears as Johnston in the parish registers. So, you can find as many reasons for spelling variants as you find people with suggestions! Gordon Johnson.

Right now we are dealing mostly with 3 spellings of our surname: Johnson, Johnston & Johnstone. A link was posted sometime ago on one of the groups that I participate on. I decided to take a look. It was an index of names from back in the mid-1500's from an area of Scotland not on the borders. I was wondering if there were any Johnston/es or variations listed. What a surprise! I found 17 variations for our surname, and here they are: 1.. Jhoneson 2.. Jhonesone 3.. Jhonson 4.. Jhonsone 5.. Jhonsoun 6.. Jhonston 7.. Jhonstone 8.. Jhonstoun 9.. Johneson 10.. Johneston 11.. Johnson 12.. Johnsone 13.. Jonsom 14.. Jonsone 15.. Jonstoun 16.. Jonkeson 17.. Jonkesone Everything but the modern spellings of Johnston & Johnstone and the kitchen sink are here, and there may be more. So when we're doing research into our family's history we need to keep in mind that there have been or are at least 19 ways to spell our surname! Doesn't that make you feel good? lol. ;-) Good hunting, Cliff. Johnston "May the best you've ever seen, Be the worst you'll ever see;" from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Johnson" <gordon@kinhelp.co.uk> To: <dumfries-galloway@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 9:13 AM Subject: Re: [DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY] name variants > One has to realise that up until recent times, the idea of "correct" > spelling - of names or words - was unheard of. Ministers, clerks, etc. > wrote down names according to how they EXPECTED them to be written, or > how they HEARD them spoken. If they came from a different part of the > country, their expectations would differ from the practice in the > current location. > Even if the family were litereate, their spelling of the name would > reflect their own decision on spelling it. One can find 40 or 50 > variations of a single surname. A simple example: Blues/Blue/ Blew > /Blews/Blaw/Bleu/and so on. All sound much the same when spoken. Often > the spelling used reflects a particular part of the country. Johnstone > usually comes from the Borders counties, Johnston is common in > Aberdeenshire,. Johnson is predominant in Orkney, but these are > generalisations. I was told by my father that our surname was lways > spelled Johnson, but when I researched the family line in Ayrshire, at > early 1800s the name appears as Johnston in the parish registers. > So, you can find as many reasons for spelling variants as you find > people with suggestions! > Gordon Johnson. > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message