.... thank you all for your help. What a wonderful hobby this is to be sure! I was aware of the use of nicknames in Scotland but not its appearance in the records; in fact this custom is still in use in certain areas of Scotland, I know old timers in East Wemyss, Fife use this convention. However, we are a lot more fortunate in Scotland. I have done considerable ] research on my husband's Norwegian ancestors and that took me almost 2 years to come up to speed. There they also used the farm name as a last name but when they moved to another farm their last name changed too! My favourite is of course my husband's G-G Grandmother; I came across her accidentally in the LDS transcribed records with a last name of 'Konen" which happens to be Norwegian for 'the wife'! This is relevant because I have searched some original microfilm from some areas in Scotland and have also seen where some confusion might arise when there are references, for example, David Thomson Wright son of William Thomson Wright where the Wright is the occupation and not the last name. There was no punctuation and the first letter of the occupation was capitalised. And now I am leaving sunny Florida for some months travel, including Bonnie Scotland. Happy hunting fellow family ferrets! moira Lilian Campbell wrote: > I have just completed transcribing the 1841 census for Urquhart and > Logie Wester and have come across a difficulty that could cause some > confusion with surnames. The transcription is for the UK Census > project where the rule is that we transcribe 'as is', even when one > can be pretty sure that what one transcribes is incorrect, in a few > cases. > > No relationships are given in the 1841 census. Households are > enumerated. One can be pretty sure that where first a man, then a > woman, followed by a number of children are enumerated, this is a > family unit of husband, wife and children. The problem arises when > some enumerators give what appears to be the maiden surname of the > woman, which is fairly common. They then give the children, usually > reverting to the father's surname for the first child and then using > 'ditto' for the remaining children. In some cases the enumerator > appears to have slipped up, does not enter the father's surname for > the first child but uses the ditto under what appears to be the > mother's maiden name. Following the 'as is' rule we transcribers then > have to transcribe the children under the mother's surname, which is > likely incorrect for the children. > > Just something that could be useful to keep in mind when doing your > research and using the 1841 census. > > Lilian > > > ==== ROSSGEN Mailing List ==== > To remove your email address from this list, visit this url: > http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cheps/maillist.htm > > >