It's worth noting that it often isn't the case that the family members themselves changed the spelling of their surname "at will", and may in fact have even been unaware of the changes at all (if they were illiterate or 1st generation immigrant non-English-speaking). The real culprit was often the government official -- whether county clerk, tax collector, census taker, etc. -- who wrote the name as they thought it should be, with different officials having different opinions on spelling. My general rule is to follow the spelling as it comes from an original signature -- not the transcribed signature on a recorded deed, but an original, first-person signature such as that on a pension application, original affidavit, original probate receipt or the like. If you don't have an original signed document, then you really don't know whether or not you have the spelling in the form the family member themselves thought it should be -- you have somebody's interpretation, transcription or estimation of it, which may or may not be spelled the same way. Ken S. ----- Original Message ---- From: Dwayne Meyer <dwaynemeyer@sbcglobal.net> To: rowanroots@rootsweb.com Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 10:12:37 AM Subject: Re: [ROWANROOTS] WHAT WOULD YOU DO? Harbine is the phonetic spelling of the German name Harbein. The 2nd letter of an ei combination is the syllable that is pronounced. dwayne Joan Marie Meyering <nidotoni@ipns.com> wrote: I have a theoretical question and since you folks are so good at sharing opinions, I would like to throw it out to everyone because I am at a loss on how to handle it. The HARBIN lines mostly go back to southern MD and were originally from Dorset and Somerset, England. However, there were families about the same time in Berks County, PA, whose name was originally HERBEIN or HARBEIN or HERBINE or HARBINE., and they hailed from Germany & pretty much stayed right in Berks, or went to OH via Washington Co., MD. They varied their spellings at will and in some cases the final "e" of the HARBINE got dropped which made it HARBIN, so I of necessity have had to pursue them to some extent. Generally, if I see a HARBIN with ancestors from PA, I drop them. I am wondering how I should enter these German guys in my program though so that they will all appear under one name regardless of how they are in censuses, etc. I've entered many of them with the original spelling (e.g. HERBEIN) but a note in one of the elective fields that the name appears in records as (e.g. HARBINE), but that almost seems to be doing it backwards to me. But if I enter them the way I find them in records (with a note of their true origins in an elective field) , I am going to wind up with several alpha listings instead of one grouping. Will someone please clear my confused thinking once and for all? Thank you. Joan Marie ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROWANROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROWANROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message