I agree with you, and for myself I've just determined that all names are by the known birth name (women caused me to lean in this direction:o) I used the name I thought it was until I have the birth cert or equivalent and then go by that name. The wonderful thing about notes or aka is that can gather other info about docs having different spellings I'm finding out! Sue At 05:26 PM 5/13/2001 -0500, Donald R. Newcomb wrote: >"Newcomb" even though the Canadian cousins spell it "Newcombe". I defer to >their spelling when it is known. For lines I research, I use the spelling I >find in the official records for each individual, regardless of how other >generations spelled it. Sometimes this is the median (most common) spelling. >One example is the Childerstone surname. This is found as everything from