Hi! A very familiar problem indeed. When growing up on the Island, our family surname, FOUNTAINE, was said to be a separate entity from another family, FOUNTAIN. There was no relationship at all, we were told. As I have delved deeper into the tree, I find that not only are we related, both families are from the the same ancestor: Frederic FOUNTAIN who arrived on the Island sometime between the 1851 and 1861 census. Why was the 'E' added? Possibly because of the standard of literacy of the clerk who recorded the name sometime, or as a way perhaps of distancing one half of the family from the other due to a feud, or more likely a scandal. (My grandfather was born in the Carrisbrooke House of industry to a solo mother -Oh shock, horror!!) Also, regarding spelling, we had a friend, family name was GARDNER, who totally disregarded any other spelling; i.e. GARDINER, GARDENER etc, No matter how often we told him that spelling was at the whim of the enumerators in 19th Century censuses, he would not have it. I understand he gave up in the end being unable to trace his lineage back any further than three generations. Derek in Vanuatu (31C partly cloudy and showers) ----- Original Message ----- From: " Angela McMurtry" <palmtreeqld@optusnet.com.au> To: <ISLE-OF-WIGHT-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2004 1:54 PM Subject: [IoW] Name Changes > Martin > > The million dollar question Brown or Browne / Clarke or Clark / Cowan or > McCowan or Coan. > I have this problem all the time. > > For myself , I use the most common form in the family but always make a note > in the file somwhere to tell me another spelling has been used . > > > What I do get frustrated with are some people who contact me re Clarke and I > have their family in my database but they reject the details because ' mine > were CLARK without the E ' .. lost count of the number of times Ive been > frustrated with people ! Any name I research I always check for spelling > variations particulary in Census. > > More puzzling are those families who decide to have a complete name change > . One of my IOW LALLOW families decided to adopt the surname LAWRENCE and > use LALLOW as a middle name . > I have kept them as Lallow but made a note they opted for Lawrence . All > gets a bit confusing > > Angela > > > >

Hello all, I have been following the change of name spellings with interest. Derek's email was of particular interest. A great-uncle of mine changed his name from Parcell to Purcell. He was the only sibling to do this and it seemes that he made the change when he was around 20 years old. He has led me on quite a search to prove that the Purcells and Parcells were one and the same family. It never occurred to me that he might have had something to hide! John -- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 7.0.211 / Virus Database: 262.4.4 - Release Date: 13/03/2004