Eye bee leave yew...Linda. As Boyd says 'Most people could not read nor write - check out the 1901 Census'... it is these spellings etc that actually add a little colour to our ancestors rather than just a list of names/age and are a wonderful little insight into the people involved. ...'education became compulsory in 1880 and it obviously took a generation for that to work its way through to adult spelling in documents'...even carried into 1911 which shows how slow standardization (=sterilization) took... While at school Gaelic was taught..my son is in school but his Gaelic is completely different to what I learned, for example a Fox was 'Madra Rua'..now it is 'Sionnach', but if my sons ask me to help with a word he is told it is wrong.. so which one of us is correct?? A fluent Gaelic speaker in Kerry does not understand what a fluent Gaelic speaker from Donegal is saying....because it is a different language! as is Scot's Gaelic, Manx Gaelic etc...While they have a common origin, each one developed over time independently....Similarly names changed in different areas. Times were hard in 1700's/1800's so who cared if their name was spelled correctly or not...many didn't even know how to spell it, they could pronounce it and that is all that mattered to them. I haven't even checked my own baptism record.. I presume it is correct, but what if it is not? Do future generations presume I could not spell if it is incorrect? How many people today check their church records?? Dh (P.S. My grandparents weren't illiterate.. :-)) but they can't tell me what the correct spelling is due a slight difficulty....they died!!) On 15/12/2011 17:59, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > From:lmerle@comcast.net > Subject: Re: [S-I] Surname Spellingssss in Deeds/Wills by Clerks > To:scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: > <1001577109.1218746.1323968129154.JavaMail.root@sz0165a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > Hi Dave, we need to give up the notion of 'correctness' when researching surnames. That's a 20th century notion -- a correct way to spell a surname. It assumes the person spelling it knows what the correct spelling is, but when your grandparents were illiterate, how could they possibly tell you what the correct spelling 'is'? There is no correct spelling because the name actually had never been written down, except by some priests and clerks.

How about variations in place names? For some while now I've been collecting spelling alternatives for Killymallaght, a townland in co. Londonderry. >From official sources only, my "score" is now .... 53 not out! Oh how we love the Irish in their (our) glorious confusion. Can't wait to meet up again with some old schoolmasters who were somewhat tolerant of my "natural and cultural heritage" that allowed "creative spelling". Sincerely Dave Mitchell Cape Town South Africa -----Original Message----- From: D H <hallmark1@utvinternet.com> Sender: scotch-irish-bounces@rootsweb.com Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:08:32 To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> Reply-To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [S-I] Surname Spellingssss in Deeds/Wills by Clerks Eye bee leave yew...Linda. As Boyd says 'Most people could not read nor write - check out the 1901 Census'... it is these spellings etc that actually add a little colour to our ancestors rather than just a list of names/age and are a wonderful little insight into the people involved. ...'education became compulsory in 1880 and it obviously took a generation for that to work its way through to adult spelling in documents'...even carried into 1911 which shows how slow standardization (=sterilization) took... While at school Gaelic was taught..my son is in school but his Gaelic is completely different to what I learned, for example a Fox was 'Madra Rua'..now it is 'Sionnach', but if my sons ask me to help with a word he is told it is wrong.. so which one of us is correct?? A fluent Gaelic speaker in Kerry does not understand what a fluent Gaelic speaker from Donegal is saying....because it is a different language! as is Scot's Gaelic, Manx Gaelic etc...While they have a common origin, each one developed over time independently....Similarly names changed in different areas. Times were hard in 1700's/1800's so who cared if their name was spelled correctly or not...many didn't even know how to spell it, they could pronounce it and that is all that mattered to them. I haven't even checked my own baptism record.. I presume it is correct, but what if it is not? Do future generations presume I could not spell if it is incorrect? How many people today check their church records?? Dh (P.S. My grandparents weren't illiterate.. :-)) but they can't tell me what the correct spelling is due a slight difficulty....they died!!) On 15/12/2011 17:59, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > From:lmerle@comcast.net > Subject: Re: [S-I] Surname Spellingssss in Deeds/Wills by Clerks > To:scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: > <1001577109.1218746.1323968129154.JavaMail.root@sz0165a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > Hi Dave, we need to give up the notion of 'correctness' when researching surnames. That's a 20th century notion -- a correct way to spell a surname. It assumes the person spelling it knows what the correct spelling is, but when your grandparents were illiterate, how could they possibly tell you what the correct spelling 'is'? There is no correct spelling because the name actually had never been written down, except by some priests and clerks. ------------------------------- 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