This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: waroper Surnames: Roper, Rosser, Rosson Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.roper/519.2/mb.ashx Message Board Post: More than a decade ago, I posted this thread to explore the possibility that some of the confusing records in Chatham, NC, might be ROPERs rather than ROSSERs. At the date of this post, I was seeing a lot of ambiguous records and liberally construing these as possible ROPER records. While there are a handful of ambiguous ROPER records for which it is important to correct the mis-indexing, in my view the early records from Chatham, NC, are NOT amongst these. Some of the early Chatham records are Indexed by Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org as ROPER records. In my view, these are either ROSSER records or ROSSON records. Today, I am CORRECTING the Ancestry Indices to reflect that conclusion, but posting this note for the benefit of other researchers. There are three of these ambiguous records in Chatham in the 1790 U.S. Census, ALL on the same page: John ROSSER, Sr.: 1 - 0 - 3 -- 0 - 4 [Chatham, NC 1790] (Ancestry Image 16 of 21) John ROSSER, Jr.: 1 - 3 - 6 -- 0 - 10 [Chatham, NC 1790] (Ancestry Image 16 of 21) Wm. ROSSER: 1 - 0 - 0 -- 0 - 1 [Chatham, NC 1790] (Ancestry Image 16 of 21) Ancestry is now showing these in its Index as: John ROPER John ROSER, Junior Wm. ROPER * * * Anyone having trouble distinguishing the "ss" and "p" should look at these additional names enumerated to the right of the ROSSER names in the SAME HAND on the SAME Census page: Solomon CHAPMAN Henry CHAPMAN David CHAPMAN ... Wm. COPELAND .. Joseph CRUMP Revd. COPELAND John COPELAND * * * Similarly, some of these same names appear in the 1800 Census for Chatham and they appear to me to be equally unambiguous "ss" rather than "p": John ROSSER, Sr.: 0 - 1 - 0 - 0 - 1 -- 0 - 1 - 0 - 0 - 1 -- 0 - 0 [Hillsborough, Chatham, NC 1800] (Ancestry Image 10 of 83) John ROSSER: 2 - 2 - 0 - 1 - 0 -- 4 - 3 - 0 - 1 - 1 -- 0 - 0 [Hillsborough, Chatham, NC 1800] (Ancestry Image 10 of 83) Abner ROSSER: 3 - 1 - 1 - 0 - 0 -- 2 - 0 - 1 - 0 - 0 -- 0 - 0 [Hillsborough, Chatham, NC 1800] (Ancestry Image 22 of 83) Joshua ROSSER: 1 - 1 - 1 - 0 - 1 -- 0 - 1 - 0 - 0 - 1 -- 0 - 18 [Hillsborough, Chatham, NC 1800] (Ancestry Image 23 of 83) Isham ROSSER: 0 - 3 - 0 - 0 - 1 -- 0 - 0 - 0 - 1 - 1 -- 0 - 0 [Hillsborough, Chatham, NC 1800] (Ancestry Image 66 of 83) One might argue whether some of these say "sser" rather than "sson," but I do NOT think that ANY of these records shows a "p" rather than an "ss." Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board. <br>