This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/TGw.2ACEB/54.82.93.109.110.118.119.1.1.1 Message Board Post: I don't have a source listed. Both were from messages on the web and I have no primary source associated with either. I strongly suspect one of those sources was transcribed from the other. The best I have seen is a "minimum age" or "maximum age" calculated from census age ranges. The marriage I have is from Maryland Marriages which is a web compilation for which I could find no specific source and which looks like a fused collection (which appears to have been quoted twice with same date in messages). I'm working on the census records of Lesher/Lusher and Coffman/Kaufman from Maryland foreward. Violet Gadd Coonts in "The Western Waters" uses the spelling Lusher with regard to Jacob so there must be one early Randolph record that uses that spelling. Lusher appears to be used by the George line and by the Milton-Melker individual in Henry's line. Also I have found both a George Coffman and a John Coffman in Maryland records which seems to support that spelling transition occurring in Maryland. All the Kaufman or Kaufmann or Kauffman spellings relating to Maryland appear to derive from a Lutheran minister that was probably trying to be "pure German." Names around Baltimore, that may be direct emigrants seem to use both C and K variatnts. And also tending in this direction are the Caufman and Coofman and Coppman spellings in western Maryland records. Then also, all that went to the Valley of Virginia (Shenandoah) and to Kentucky seem to have stabilized on Coffman. This spelling transition seems to parallel the Hochwaerter, Howarter, Hovatter changes. Several researchers have claimed that Christopher made the change after coming to Randolph (Barbour), but clearly Jacob who went to NC and then AL made the change to Hovater so there was no one left from that family to use the earlier (older) spellings (all others known by that name were daughters). The Lutheran minister in Elizabethtown and Frederick appears to be the only one that elected to use Hochwaerter spelling in the U.S. The Pennsylvania variations appear to be phonetic variations around Howarter and Howerder. Modern Europe all seem to use either Howarter or Howärter (German & Austria).