William McAfee in his excellent CD Rom ‘Researching Derry/Londonderry Ancestors’ makes the following interesting, illuminative and informed statements based upon his experience of data-basing thousands of surnames: ‘Not surprisingly, the spelling of surnames in the original sources varied a great deal both within and between documents over the centuries. The names in these documents were entered by various officials and there is some evidence to suggest that this led to regional spelling of surnames, particularly in the earlier sources. Certainly, the spelling of surnames had become more standardised by the time of the Griffith's Printed Valuation of 1858/59. Remember too, that the originals of the seventeenth-century Hearth Money Rolls and the eighteenth-century Religious Returns were destroyed in the 1922 Four Courts fire. The only sources we now have are transcripts of those originals and many of these are typed, suggesting that they are probably a transcript of a transcript. Let's not forget that the databases are further transcripts! In transcription it is relatively easy to mistake an "e" for an "a" or an "r" for an "n" and so on.’ ‘Surnames in seventeenth-century sources were written down by officials who, if they were not familiar with the spelling of a surname, spelt it phonetically in a way that made sense to them. For example, McGoldrick can be spelt as Megolrake, McCandless as Micandlass, Ewing as Youing, Brewster as Broster and so on. However, the greatest problem with names in early sources is the fact that the spellings of some surnames in these documents are completely different from their modern equivalents e.g. in earlier documents Alexander often appears as McCalsenor or McElsinor.’ > Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:19:06 +0000 > From: hallmark1@utvinternet.com > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [S-I] Surname Spellingssss in Deeds/Wills by Clerks > > Ehhhh LOL....love it! > > > This family that signed the Covenant using two different spellings were the family where one of them was the County Registrar.....even today some use > one spelling some use other. > > > > > On 15/12/2011 17:59, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > > Re: [S-I] Surname Spellingssss in Deeds/Wills by Clerks > > > > Standardisation of surnames occurred really as a result of the introduction ofcivil registration of births in Ireland from 1864. > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message