That's good advice. Especially when you are looking at transcriptions rather than original records, you are apt to find T's transcribed as F's, too; I have found 'Tidd' transcribed as 'Fidd', I guess because of the old way of crossing the T's. If you scroll any list of transcriptions on ancestry.com you will see crazy names that aren't even names at all; these are just the transcriber's attempts to put down what they thought they saw on the record. More often than not if you view the original you will see something quite different, especially if you get a little practice viewing the old script. I found 'Hugh' transcribed as 'Thuck', if you can believe it; when I viewed the original it definitely said Hugh. You just have to think outside the box, and always check soundex when searching if you can't find it with the spelling you think is correct. I've had very good luck with that in the past. scanbar wrote: > Continuing on the name spelling, I have found quite a few names spelled differently because of what I believe to be scrvner's errors. One was Toung for Young. I stumbled over that one as I never thought of looking under "T". I have thought, [erhaps the top "v" of the "Y" was flattened a bit and another scribe mistook it for a "T". Also, the spelling could be "off" according to the accent of the one who is writing it. Try to put yourself in England. or whatever. in the 1600's and how might the name have been sounded then; or was it written in a U.S. southern or western drawl. Or how a person whose language was one other than English might hear it. > > Hope thiis helps. > > Barbara > Frequently-asked questions may often be answered by visiting the FAQ page for this list at: http://www.craigrich.net/mayfaq.htm > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MAYFLOWER-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >