In a message dated 8/26/2005 3:18:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: In reply to Beulah's e-mail.....another thing to take in consideration is that these old records were written with quill pens ...you can't always control the amount of ink so that would account for some of the 'misspelling'. A tiny blob of ink could cause an e to look like an a or visa versa. Having worked with courthouse records for years I have never heard of people telling the clerk what to write......The clerk records from the original, today the original is scanned into computers...No chance for mistakes....I am glad I never had to write with a quill pen for hours, I might be prone to shorten words....and that was the days when if you hired an attorney or someone who could read and write they charged by the number of words which is why we have so many words in legal documents that have nothing to do with what you want to say. Happy Huntin' DeMona