Well said Angela! The name question does get ridiculous sometimes and people often fail to realize that literacy has only become widespread in the last century or so. Consequently names were often written down by struggling clerics just as they sounded. A rather proud cleric might well have been tempted to add a little flourish of academic flair by adding a subtle, and suitably silent 'e'. The Scots and the Americans pronounce my family name URRY as in 'fury', the English pronounce the name as in 'hurry', the Irish pronounce it as in 'gory' and these different pronunciations have naturally led to different spelling of the same name. One of my more illustrious ancestors of the 17th century, signed his name differently on several very official documents. I guess he just couldn't spell! Thank you Angela, for your frequent and interesting contributions to the list and for keeping the more passive listers such as myself, so well informed. Mark URRY Marans, France. URRY Family History at http://www.marcireau.fr/urry/ -----Original Message----- From: Angela McMurtry [mailto:palmtreeqld@optusnet.com.au] Sent: 13 March 2004 03:54 To: ISLE-OF-WIGHT-L@rootsweb.com 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 ______________________________