Hi everyone! Here's an interesting article from Rootsweb Review. Enjoy! Rick B -------------------- Using Rootsweb By Joan Young Don't Let Name Spelling Stand in Your Way My maiden name is MYERS. I can remember my parents telling me that the name had always been spelled MYERS in our family. What a shock when I began researching many years ago and found my great-grandfather's baptismal record with the name spelled MEYERS. Then I found that his father and grandfather are listed as MEYERS in the 1850 census as well. A couple more generations back the surname was spelled MEYER. Early generations of MEYERs are buried in Lower Bermudian Cemetery in Adams County, Pennsylvania. How can you argue with a name spelling carved on a tombstone? In the Upper Conewago Brethren Cemetery in Adams County, my ARNOLD ancestors are surrounded by members of the STUDEBAKER family. This family's claim to fame is that they had a wagon shop and crafted Conestoga Wagons. Their descendants later manufactured the Studebaker automobiles. One tombstone in this cemetery clearly bears the inscription "Sarah STEWTHEBAKER." Alas, Sarah was married to a STUDEBAKER, but she will forever be known to the world as Sarah STEWTHEBAKER. A photo of her tombstone can be found on the USGenWeb Tombstone Photo Project page, on the Adams County USGenWeb site. Before the days of driver's licenses, Social Security numbers, and military registrations that require a fixed name spelling, people didn't give much thought to how their surname was written. Not all spelling variations you come across are permanent-some merely reflect a different spelling on a single record and not an actual change of name. (For more information on names, see the RootsWeb's Guide to Tracing Family Trees: Lesson 2.) Budding genealogists tend to get bogged down looking for "correct" name spellings and overlook variant surnames, or even translations of their surname from another language. Such a rigid view of name spellings can keep you from successfully tracing your ancestors. "Foreign" names were shortened, translated, and changed outright by families who wanted to fit into the American melting pot. But more often names simply evolved based upon their sound. In some countries where patronymic naming systems were used, permanent surnames were chosen after arriving in America. A Welshmen named Humphrey ap [son of] HOWELL may have become Humphrey HOWELL. Or, he may have become Humphrey POWELL, based upon the contraction of "ap" and "HOWELL." Early Swedish immigrants to New Sweden (the area surrounding what is now Wilmington, Delaware) sometimes took their patronymic name as a permanent surname while others chose "aliases" such as RAMBO and MINK. Others shortened their patronymic names; JONASSON became JONES. The evolution of surnames is not exclusively an American phenomenon. My French Huguenot ancestors left France and settled in Germany long before coming to Pennsylvania in the mid 1700s. The spelling of their surname changed over the generations from CHERDRON to SHETRONE and finally SHEDERON as they intermarried with Germans. Whatever the cause of name changes and spelling variations, make use of all available resources in tracking your ancestors. That includes checking any and all possible spellings. Be creative and sound out the names. Consider translations in your hunt for your ancestors. Your German METZGER ancestors may have become BUTCHERs in America. Many search engines allow you to use Soundex or Metaphone searches for surnames. WorldConnect's advanced search engine allows Exact, Soundex, or Metaphone searches. RootsWeb's Guide to Tracing Family Trees: Lesson 9 explains Soundex. Metaphone is similar to Soundex in that it is based upon the sound of a name rather than its spelling; however, some feel it is more accurate than Soundex. Try both to catch variant spellings of a surname. RootsWeb's Surname Resource page is another excellent reference for finding variant spellings and may give you suggestions for additional spellings to check. Take a fresh look at the surnames you are researching. Consider additional spellings and, above all, be creative in your searches. Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 19 March 2008, Vol. 11, No. 12