Cynthia Crigler posted this today on the GERMANNA_COLONIES-L List and I thought you might be interested. It does indeed explain why names have different spellings and sometimes why we have problems in our research. Can you imagine that one of your ancestors was named RACHMANINOFF? Would this person perhaps have written it down as ROCKMEOFF? ROCKETMANOFF? ROCKMANANDOFF? The possibilities are endless. SgtGeorge =========== >>Listowner Note: The following is a real note sent from a census >>taker in the 1800s to the government. This may explain why a >>lot of us have variations in the spellings of our names. LOL >> >>centsus rekurds "I am a cencus taker for the city of Bufflow. Our >>city has groan very fast in resent years and now, in 1865, it has >>becum a hard and time consooming job to count all the peephill. >>Thare is not meny that can do this werk, as it is necesarie to >>have a ejucashun, which a lot of pursons still do not have. Another >>atribeart needed for this job is good speling, for meny of the >>peephill to be caounted can hardle speek inglish, let alone spel >>there name." =========== George W. Durman sgtgeorg@concentric.net