Hi Joy I would suggest Author & Auther plus variants are alternatives rather than any of them being the correct spelling There are to many of those spellings in the census , BMD etc for them to be just mistakes , Arthur outweighs the other spellings by a Country mile but the alternative spellings are significant in number Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) > Having read about Arthur or Auther in a census, it has occurred to me that > times were very different then and, just maybe, the spelling of Auther was > the correct way in those days just as Arthur is correct in our time now :) > > Joy

On 2011/01/02 11:56, Nivard Ovington wrote: > I would suggest Author& Auther plus variants are alternatives rather than > any of them being the correct spelling > > There are to many of those spellings in the census , BMD etc for them to be > just mistakes , Arthur outweighs the other spellings by a Country mile but > the alternative spellings are significant in number I'm inclined to agree with you. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that in some cases, when the census schedules were collected from the householders, even the enumerator had problems transcribing the handwriting he was presented with into the books that we see today. And, like we transcribers, he was told "Transcribe As Seen"! hence, some of the variations. -- Regards, Mike Fry Johannesburg