This is interesting stuff. I often wondered about my own family folklore which says that our spelling "FERIS" (with one 'r') was the original for our clan in this country, but that they changed it to two 'r's FERRIS for some unknown reason. It stayed that way for a couple of generations then they changed it back to 'our' original "FERIS" with one 'r'!! After reading your post, I see one possibility for them to have done this. But as we know, in researching this name there has been many different spellings used on documents for the same family. It is amusing to see that on one ancestor's marriage license, his name is spelled in four different ways on this one page document. I have learned to be careful to look for all spellings now, which I didn't do when I first started researching. Dee Feris Self Roosevelt4@aol.com wrote: > > carole > i had a lady write to me once about the spellings of farris.....she had found > that way back ago, the plantation owners had given their slaves their name but > changed the spelling maybe by just a letter or in our family, some farriss' > spelled it with one capital s at the end, then two capital s's at the > end......well i am caucasian and not very proud of that part our > history....nevertheless that is one story i have heard about the different > spellings of our last name......my father for some reason or another, changed > the spelling of farris ( his first 5 children were with one s), to farriss (my > brother and myself)..........we have the same father......now is just me and > my brother and we become more confused everyday..........thnx mary > > ==== FARRIS Mailing List ==== > Submit your "Most Wanted Farris" to me and I will place your query on the "FARRIS MOST WANTED" web site at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Cottage/1882/FMW.html