...A portion of an article I wrote some time back is hereby shared with you. You might say they are areas in which I had problems at one time or another. Barbara Jean ~~~~~~~~~~ "Rightly or wrongly, people often judge credibility by the written presentation. To be the professional genealogist and to look the part, it is important to learn the proper spelling of important and often used words: GENEALOGY (is sometimes wrongly tried as 'geneology' and nothing shouts "I don't know what I'm doing" louder than the misspelling of this key word). Try this little test, to assist in remembering the correct spelling. The first letters of each word combine to spell GENEALOGY. ~~ Genealogists Examine Needed Evidence At Lots Of Grave Yards ~~ CEMETERY (is not with an ..ary). EMIGRATE is to leave one country, or region, to settle in another. REMEMBER...EMIGRATE begins with the letter "E" and so does the word "EXIT" as in EXITing a country. IMMIGRATE is to come to a country of which one is not a native, usually for permanent residence. REMEMBER...IMMIGRATE begins with the letter "I" and so does the word "IN" as in coming INto a country. ITS is a possessive word, but it does not take an apostrophe either within it or after it; i.e. The horse lost its shoe when running. IT'S is a contraction for IT IS, and the apostrophe in this case is reserved for IT'S; i.e. - It's a good day to go swimming. RECEIVE is likewise deceiving, and is not spelled as it sounds. Remember the little ruling verse you learned in grade school -- "Write I before E, Except after C, Or when it sounds like an A, As in neighbor and weigh." (e before i: receive, deceive, ceiling, conceit, vein, sleigh, freight, eight); (i before e: relief, believe, niece, chief, sieve, frieze, field, yield; EXCEPTIONS: seize, either, weird, height, foreign, leisure, conscience, counterfeit, forfeit, leisure, neither, science, species, sufficient. THEIR, is a pronoun (THEIR home is lovely); as opposed to THERE, being an adverb (THERE is the house). YOU'RE is a contraction ('contraction'...meaning a shortened form of a word or phrase) of YOU ARE (You're reading this now.); while the word YOUR is a pronoun (I Like YOUR idea, or ...the cemetery is on YOUR left). The proper placement of QUOTATION MARKS is another thing worthy of a mention. When making a quote saying -- Mrs. Smith told me, "The cemetery closes before dark." -- notice the final quotation marks are on the OUTSIDE of the period/punctuation. When writing, lots of people think they belong ahead of the period and, though it seems right, that is not correct. To get a better feel for proper usage, pay special attention to where those quotation marks are placed as you read a reputable newspaper or magazine."