Hi All: I want to thank each of you for the help you gave me in understanding the umlauted "y" at the end of words in Swiss-German. I have pasted the comments below for the benefit of other listers. > In most cases it is a small "i". They seemed to end it with a flourish. But don't lock yourself into only the one spelling as I am sure you have realized there are more than one spelling to any given name. AFter all Shakespeare spelt his name 500 or more ways. > In Swiss-German the i - y - and even j are interchangeable. So what you saw may have been a y with a dot (usually two) over the letter. > > The old handwriting is quite difficult to read, isn't it ? The orthography in the old times was not fixed and so it is sometimes difficult to read words. The 'y' letter is called 'why' in english but it is called 'greak i' in french. That explains the origin of this strange letter. In the past it was used as an equivalent of the 'i'. But as it looks more elaborated in the handwriting it replaced the 'i' mostly in the endings. So do not wonder there's a dot over it. In some signatures of my ancesters some have an 'i', some a 'y with one dot' and some a 'y with two dots' and all this signatures are on the same document ! > > My family had the same name and I have found it spelled both FLURY and FLURI in the Church records. I was told that in 19th century German, "y" and "i" were sometimes used interchangeably, but I haven't checked the grammar books yet. To complicate matters, the name Flury is also prevalent in the French part of Switzerland, and I'm not sure how it would be spelled in those regions. > > I don't know the answer to your question but have noticed a similar thing with y's on the ship passenger list I am transcribing. If you learn anything about a dotted y that is not put on the list, would you forward it to me? I have also seen the single dot over o's and u's. > >