To the Jefferson County, Ohio Mailing List, For various reasons, immigrants arriving in the United States sometimes changed the spelling of their surname. In some cases, they did this to "hide" the ethnic identity and Americanize their name. Often the immigration officials and clerks changed the spelling to simplify it, such as turning "Johannsen" into "Johnson". Surnames were subjected to a simplification process, in which silent letters and "excess" letters were trimmed off. Whatever the name sounded like, that was its new spelling, with variant spellings wherever the immigrant lived. Many examples of this "dumbing down" of an exotic, complex surname could be cited. Those prickly, unwieldy, consonant-rich surnames were unceremoniously planed down by the Yankee Word Carpenter. These name changes were even whimsical or capricious at times, entirely at the beck of the official who met the immigrant at the point of being registered. I have even read of an immigration official who had been receiving a host of Norwegian newcomers, and announced to one of them [whose name was Johnson], "I'm going to make you a Smith. I've had too many Johnsons today". We researchers needed one more hurdle to deal with! Randal W. Cooper <rwcooper@kellnet.com> Lorain, Ohio