Jillions of times, lol. "Wrong" spellings, or phonetically spelled names are as common as weather I think. Census taker no doubt wrote what he heard. I submit corrections on Ancestry.com sometimes ....there is a box on the right side of screen to do it, just click and give alternate name. You can even add a comment that other people can read. The corrected / alternate spelling will become available on searches. In searching census records or any other kind of record, be VERY flexible in what you think about your family's surname throughout time. Use Wildcard searches for instance, or Soundex. For HOUSE, try Hou** or How** or Hau** , for McLAIN / McCLAIN / McLEAN try all kinds of Wildcard searches, as well as spellings like MacLean or Macklin, Maclin, Mclin. I've found my line with all those spellings. And AGEE ..wow, weird things I've found like AGA, AGU, EGE, EGEE, AGE .....and can't find my great great great grandparents William AGEE b circa 1814 TN and wife Lenah / Leannah (Harvey) AGEE anywhere in the world on the 1850 census, no matter how I scan images or search. I'm willing to bet you will find most of your surnames spelled more than 2 ways ...probably 4 or 5 ways at least, and some of the spellings (or transcriptions) won't make a lot of sense. Makes online searches a real challenge ...but also searches in physical records also a challenge. Good luck! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Saunders" <saunders@utm.edu> To: <tnweakle@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 9:34 AM Subject: [TNWEAKLE] Census transcriptions >I had a man in from Michigan doing research on the IVIE family from > Gardiner. He had been frustrated because they could not be located in > Ancestry. After checking the film we discovered the name had been > mistranscribed as EVIE. > > That got me thinking--transcription is a subjective art, but generally > pretty accurate. Has anyone else had problems with mistranscriptions in > the census indices? I wonder how wide-spread the issue is. > > ***** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***** > Richard Saunders, Curator > Special Collections/Univ. Archives 731-881-7094 > Univ. of Tennessee at Martin fax 731-881-7074 > Martin, Tenn. 38238 saunders@utm.edu > > ***** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***** > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > TNWEAKLE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message