On or about 09:46 AM 6/26/2000 -0700, Janice Chastain Lund wrote: >I see all these messages about LANDES and LANDERS so since I have the 1850 >actual census records for Indiana, decided to look up one of the LANDERS >names....just as I suspected.....the way the census person wrote it, it was >LANDES but could have been "read" as LANDERS. By the way, I know the family >I was looking for and their real name was LANDES. > >Just my 2 cents worth! Jan Lund Jan, there are several examples of the name "changing" as different people transcribed it. Landers, Landes, Landess, Landis, Landiss could all refer to the same person at different times. It shows up differently in different censuses, probate records, even on tombstones. It appears that the original Swiss spelling was most likely "Landis". In fact, as of May 2000 that is still a common name around Hirzel, Switzerland. Many of the families became "Landers" when they appeared in the US, but they often changed again later on. My branch of the family has used "Landiss" since about the 1820's, although William Landiss (b. 1769) appears as "Landes" in the 1850 census, and paid taxes as "Landers" in 1812. His son Isaac (b. 1788) was listed as "Landiss" in the 1820 census, and on his tombstone. Confusing, ain't it<G>? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up, you get a lot of scum on top." Edward Abbey =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=