Often the spellings were changed accidentally when the person came through the U.S. immigration facilities when landing in America. Even though the name might have been spelled Stephens in the native country, the person taking information at time of landing might have spelled it Stevens. I find both spellings in my family history.

And a little help from the half-literate census takers who single handedly renamed almost half of the colonists from the European countries with names that were hard to pronounce. for example Stebbins became Stevens and Stephens... -----Original Message----- From: Lois Wolff White [mailto:lwhite@murieta.net] Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:48 PM To: STEPHENS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [STEPHENS] Stephens spelling Often the spellings were changed accidentally when the person came through the U.S. immigration facilities when landing in America. Even though the name might have been spelled Stephens in the native country, the person taking information at time of landing might have spelled it Stevens. I find both spellings in my family history. ============================== Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237