I would like to interject a bit of wisdom here. I have nothing to do with this line being discussed but read in another email that one researcher had to be careful researching the Friley/Fraley line because of the various spellings....one being Scots/Irish and one being German. A bit of learned wisdom....having researched in Eastern KY for over 30 years, I have learned that the spelling of a name does not matter. We should not attach any significance to the spelling of any name. If a name is spelled in a German manner it does NOT mean that the person was of German descent. This applies to all nationalities. The reason? By and large, most of the earliest of KY's residents could not read and write. At that time, we were a land of immigrants. The people who worked in the county court clerk's office obviously could read and write. When a record was created, the clerk who wrote it spelled it like he would have spelled it in HIS native language. If the clerk was German, he spelled it the way a German would spell it. If he was Scots/Irish, he spelled it that way. The spellings of names is, for the most part, a result of however the clerk creating the record wanted to spell it. I once saw a marriage record that had the father of the bride spelled 'Reyburn' and the bride's name spelled 'Reaburn' on the same piece of paper. I can't explain that one! <smile> Sharon Young Jebavy <>< Ancestors From Poore Fork, Harlan Co., KY 1811-1829
Sharon, Thanks so much for posting this. Your explaination contains a lot of wisdom on the subject of names. I would like to add also that while the county clerks should have known how to read and write, a lot of the times they would record names by how they sounded to the clerk. If the clerk wasn't sure how to spell something and asked the person how to spell it, it would not have been a surprise that the person would not know how to spell their own name or how to spell it correctly. So, the clerk would sometimes have to be forced to spell the name on how it sounded to his ear. Your advice is great! Melissa BarkerGenealogist for Tennessee and KentuckyE-mail: kaitysmom@peoplestel.net _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® goes where you go. On a PC, on the Web, on your phone. http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/learnmore/versatility.aspx#mobile?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_WL_HM_versatility_121208