Generally, when I find out I have different spellings I put the alternate spellings as an AKA. In PAF 4.0, which is the program I use, they have a title line for such things as Mrs., Dr., ENS or whatever title they have. Then they have a title line for things that would follow a surname such as Jr., Sr., M.D. II or III. In this section I put aka and the alternate spelling, either first name or surname. For the Mayflower passengers, such as Allerton, Tilley, Norris, etc. I write MAYFLOWER in the space. When I am going through my list of names and there are say more than one Isaac, having MAYFLOWER in the title that follows shows up in the list. If it is Mr. or Mrs. or ENS it does if I had put it in the first one. Now, for the Bonum versus Bonham spelling, I didn't know at the time I entered the Bonum surname there was another spelling variation or if I did, I didn't recognize it as a varient of Bonham as I didn't have any spelling in my database that was anywhere near that close. Plus the source I was possibly using at the time use Bonum rather than Bonham. I don't recall, but it really doesn't make much difference now as I've changed it to Bonham, which only leaves the one Bonum surname I have left and that is for an Elizabeth. Christie Trapp

Yet another suggestion along these lines... For my MAYFLOWER passenger surnamed ancestors (anyone whose surname is actually Samson, Howland, etc.), I go with the spelling used in the Silver books. Then for those with alternate spellings of their surname (MAYFLOWER lines and others), what I used to do is separate those spellings in the individual surname fields with a slash, i.e., "Bonum/Bonham" etc. However, some of us upload our databases to Rootsweb and although I wasn't always aware of this "problem" I did become mindful of the fact that too much "garbage" in the surname field would mean that our database information doesn't come up in your average search! Thus, if you have "Jones MAYFLOWER" or "Bonum/Bonham" in your surname field, for instance, neither of those will come up as a result in a simple search for the surnames Jones, Bonum, or Bonham! With that in mind, and still wanting all heretofore seen versions of the name spelling to be indicated in my database, with all those versions "searchable," what I do now is only give the progenitor of a line wherein there are many alternate spellings the surname with all the slashes, and then use only ONE of the alternate spellings for each of his descendants (usually an alternate spelling that is found someplace along with that person, perhaps on a census record or something like that). A good example of this "system," wherein a surname has many variant spellings, is actually found amongst my husband's Eastern European ancestors. The accepted spelling of the surname today is Guranowsky; however, we've seen it spelled Guranowski, Guranofsky, Goranowsky, Guranoski, etc. Using this "system," the progenitor would thus be something like "Israel Guranowsky/Guranofsky/Goranowsky/Guranowski" in my database, but one of his children (and luckily he had 12 children so there is plenty of opportunity for the variant spellings here!) is "Abraham Guranowsky," while another is "Mary Goranowski," and so forth. Doing it that way, that line in my database still comes up as a search result for anyone researching that family, no matter what alternate spelling they use for that search (and it's easy enough to follow the line to the beginning, through all the variant spellings, just by clicking on the "parents" links, etc....). In regard to my MAYFLOWER lines, if I am not sure if a person in my database is part of one of those lineages, it's easy to tell. I use the FamilyTreeMaker software and they have a display option called "Outline Descendant Tree" -- just start with the actual passenger at the top of the outline (John Howland, etc.) and choose the option of showing direct descendants only, with me as the ending point -- voila! There's my easy answer as to whether or not a person is part of one of my MAYFLOWER lineages -- AND that person (entered with just their surname, instead of including any MAYFLOWER indicators in that field...) will still come up as a result in a search for that surname of Rootsweb's databases too! :-) Just another way of doing things... Kathy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kathy Fenton Virginia Beach, VA (Descendant of Alden/Mullins, Brewster, Doty, Edward Fuller, Hopkins, Howland/Tilley, Rogers, Samson, and Standish) http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/f/e/n/K-Fenton/index.html Recycle yourself! Tell someone you want to be an organ and tissue donor! http://save7lives.org ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 6:19 AM Subject: Re: [MFLR] Surnames - Different Spellings > Generally, when I find out I have different spellings I put the alternate > spellings as an AKA. In PAF 4.0, which is the program I use, they have a title > line for such things as Mrs., Dr., ENS or whatever title they have. Then > they have a title line for things that would follow a surname such as Jr., Sr., > M.D. II or III. In this section I put aka and the alternate spelling, > either first name or surname. > > For the Mayflower passengers, such as Allerton, Tilley, Norris, etc. I write > MAYFLOWER in the space. When I am going through my list of names and there > are say more than one Isaac, having MAYFLOWER in the title that follows shows > up in the list. If it is Mr. or Mrs. or ENS it does if I had put it in the > first one. > > Now, for the Bonum versus Bonham spelling, I didn't know at the time I > entered the Bonum surname there was another spelling variation or if I did, I > didn't recognize it as a varient of Bonham as I didn't have any spelling in my > database that was anywhere near that close. Plus the source I was possibly > using at the time use Bonum rather than Bonham. I don't recall, but it really > doesn't make much difference now as I've changed it to Bonham, which only leaves > the one Bonum surname I have left and that is for an Elizabeth. > > Christie Trapp > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >