Yes Diana! I realize that but I find it rather odd for my A. Beightol name was spelled this way on my great grandmother's death certificate. Also, I found it odd for her to be born in Wyoming and married in Pennsylvania and had her daughter born there too. Than all of sudden my great grandmother is married in Nebraska. That is why I can't wait for the 1880 census to see where the whole family went. Matthew D. Friend --- Diana Gale Matthiesen <DianaGM@dgmweb.net> wrote: > Well, I jumped the gun a bit. This *is* your > couple, which means the URL > to their page has changed to: > > http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/6/Straub/FGS/JacobStraub-HannahGordon.htm > > By the way, BEIGHTOL may be a phonetic misspelling > of German BECHTOL, so be > sure to check that spelling, too. > > Diana > > > ==== STRAUB Mailing List ==== > This STRAUB list is currently available for > adoption! > Interested in becoming the list manager? Go here: > http://resources.rootsweb.com/surnames/adoptrequest.html > > > ============================== > Ancestry.com Genealogical Databases > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist2.asp > Search over 2500 databases with one easy query! > ===== An American Portrait - The Friend Family http://www.geocities.com/friends1995/index.html The Friend Family Association of America http://www.friendfamilyassociation.org/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com

I agree that this geographical hop-scotch is bizarre. But my guess would be that some of the records are incorrect. The problem with death certificates is that they depend on the knowledge of the informant who, well, may be misinformed. One of my great-uncles was the informant on the death certificate of his mother and two of his siblings. He gave three different birth dates and places for his mother, all three of which were wrong. He obviously didn't know when or where his mother was born, but wasn't going to admit he didn't know. Death certificates are very accurate as to time and place of death, the accuracy of information on them goes downhill from there. You might find this page of interest: http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/Misc/Common/ReliabilityDeathCertTombstone.htm As for spelling, our ancestors were mostly illiterate. They didn't know how to spell their names, so they got written down however some clerk thought the name he was hearing might be spelled. And if it was an English-speaking clerk writing down the name of a German-speaking person, the spelling of the name got slaughtered. You might find this page of interest: http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/Misc/Common/Spelling.htm But I have some interesting findings, while I'll put in my next post. Diana The Friend Family wrote: > > Yes Diana! > > I realize that but I find it rather odd for my A. > Beightol name was spelled this way on my great > grandmother's death certificate. Also, I found it odd > for her to be born in Wyoming and married in > Pennsylvania and had her daughter born there too. > Than all of sudden my great grandmother is married in > Nebraska. That is why I can't wait for the 1880 > census to see where the whole family went. > > Matthew D. Friend