Mary Richardson wrote the following email to the Rensselaer Co. mailing list. It presents an interesting way to be clear about surname plurals. I thought it was worth passing it on to this mailing list. Cliff Lamere ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks, Cliff. I shared your comments with my fellow list administrators. One of them responded that he uses the same convention that I use to clarify surname plurals: "I do appreciate the apostrophe issue though, and although not a grammar freak, I do like to avoid ambiguity where possible. That's where an often used genealogy (how many folk spell that incorrectly?) convention has a big advantage - the use of capital letters for family names. One of my names is CUMMING, and there is the similar, but nowadays distinct family of CUMMINGS. I can simply use CUMMINGs to denote the plural and be fairly confident to not be misinterpreted." Regards, Mary Richardson