Is it perhaps a spelling variant of Eleanor used by the person who recorded the marriage? What was the nationality of the person who recorded the name in the record? It looks like a spelling that might have been used by a German in recording the name Eleanor - whether or not she was German herself. Another possibility: did you find this spelling in a Catholic church marriage record that was originally written in Latin? If so, then name was probably written in the original church record in its Latinized form with an ending to indicate the gender and case (which depends on its function in the sentence) of the name. Since Helena is the Latinized version (in the nominative case, i.e., subject of the sentence) of Ellen used in Catholic church records, then Helenam would be the form if it was used as the object of the sentence, as in "I joined in marriage Helen[am] and ...." (the kind of statement you find written by a priest in church records). If you have only a transcription of the record rather than the original, perhaps the person who transcribed it was unfamiliar with the Latin case endings and misread the name as Helenauer instead of Helenam. For some examples of other Latinized names and their endings (which depend on function in the sentence) see http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Atherton/sacredheart/mnotes.html Catholic records often followed a standard format, and names appear with various case endings depending on whether the person was the priest (subject of the sentence), bride or groom or child being baptized (object of the sentence) or witness (object of a preposition: "in the presence of..."). Geralyn Wood Barry in Oregon On 6/18/2010 11:28 AM, Pat Grady wrote: > My grandmother was Ellen, usually referred to as either Ella or Ellie. On > her marriage certificate in the U.S. she is listed as "Helenauer". That is > the only place I have seen that variant. Is anyone familiar with it? > >