Thank you everybody who answered my question. My only disappointment is.. I wanted to be right!! LOL Jim

Yes, Jim, but look at the history here. At one time son-in-law meant "step-son." The terminology changes, as does the method of clearly specifying the relationship. There were other constructions, such as "_____ at law" implying a legal relationship. Over time (now, there's one -- I just typed "overtime" then realized that that's another example. I meant "over the course of time" not "works over-time" -- now spelled overtime) the meaning, and the construction has changed. It is only important that everyone understand what is being said. My guess is that some enumerators used hyphens and some didn't. BUT, we (the users of the index) need to have a common construction. In this case, the people setting out the indexing gets to make the decision. Even if it wasn't "right" once it was made, it needs to stay that way. The point of these hyphens is clearly keep the words together. There is an interesting article about this here: http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/punc-hyphen.html I was always taught (Arizona schools) to hyphenate relationships -- something we do a lot in this business -- so this did not surprise me. Others in other areas of the country could easily have been taught the opposite. And, thank you for your service to all of us for doing the indexing! Pat In Tucson -----Original Message----- From: roots-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:roots-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Jim Tarbet Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2012 6:50 AM To: Roots@rootsweb.com Subject: [ROOTS-L] spelling question Thank you everybody who answered my question. My only disappointment is.. I wanted to be right!! LOL Jim ===== If you would prefer digest mode to mail mode, drop a note to roots-admin@rootsweb.com and ask for the digest... ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message