Hi all, For those of you receive the weekly RootsWeb Review, I apologize for the duplicate info. For the rest of you, maybe it will help you on your family quest. kemis * * * 1b. TIPS FROM READERS Creative Spelling for Genealogists By Lori McLeod Wilke http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~formyfamily/ Who would have thought that Smald K. McLEOD was actually my grandfather, Donald Ross McLEOD? But that is exactly how he was listed in the 1920 Census index. If I hadn't known better I would have gotten a persecution complex while browsing that particular index because my granduncle was also listed incorrectly as "Worteleam" McLEOD! What was his real name? William Norman McLEOD. Those are examples of extreme issues encountered while browsing census indexes. While the experience was frustrating, it was also educational. I learned to not give in when I know that I know that my relative was in a particular area at a particular time. I eventually found Smald K. and Worteleam, I mean, Donald Ross and William Norman by going image by image through the area where I knew they would have lived in 1920. Another example involved searching an index of wills in Sumter County, South Carolina. Three generations of researchers had looked for the estate file (probate) of our Daniel McLEOD who died in 1852 in that county. None had been able to find it. Out of curiosity I looked at the estate file of another Daniel McLEOD who died a few years later than ours and was surprised to find the appraisal of the estate of MY Daniel mistakenly filed in with the other Daniel. I went back to the index and read that there was a file for a David McLEOD with a death year the same year my Daniel died and with a widow administering the estate with the same name as my Daniel's widow. Pulling the records revealed that the indexer had mistakenly headed that particular file as that of a David and not a Daniel McLEOD. Mystery solved. It pays to look at everything more than once and to spend time going through the files that you just know don't connect to your family. The persons doing the indexing and the filing do not know the family lines the way we researchers do, and therefore mistakes are easily made, even if not so easily found! [Editor's note: The calligraphic look-alikes -- Daniel and David -- are a common problem for researchers as are phonetic equivalents, such as Sincere for St. Cyr and other spelling irregularities, such as Cowper (pronounced as Cooper). See "Why U Can't Find Your Ancestors: Misspeld Knames -- A Commun Probblem for Reeserchors": http://rwguide.rootsweb.com/lesson8.htm and "Do You Ear what I Ear?" by Michael John Neill: http://www.ancestry.com/dailynews/07_27_99.htm#3 ] * * * REPRINTS. Permission to reprint articles from RootsWeb Review is granted unless specifically stated otherwise, provided: (1) the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) the following notice appears at the end of the article: Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 3 November 2004, Vol. 7, No. 44. * * * *