This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Wisner/Weisner/Wasner/Whisner/Wesner Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/WBWBAEB/51.2 Message Board Post: I read that the boats on the way to America made several stops. At each country they stopped a new manifest was written. This resulted in many different name spellings. Two brothers on the same ship could have arrived with different spellings of their last names. Lets don't forget that in the 1800s it was fashionable to spell ones name differently on different documents. The wealthy, hired people to think up differrent spellings of their names. My gggrandfather spelled his name Jacob Wisner b 1821 in PA. His daughter, my ggrandmother spelled her last name Weisner. Jacob was a charcoal burner and a farmer by trade. During the Civil War he was a bugler. He migrated from PA to Caldwell Coutnty KY and is showing on the census on the 1860 Caldwell KY census. The 1870 Spring Lake Dent Mo shows him and his family living there. His name is spelled Wasner in 1870. The Norman Dent MO 1880 shows his name as Wasner. After looking at the actual hand written census I think there is an error in the transcription. It looks like Wesner to me. My grandmother had a letter in her cedar chest she said was from an Uncle. I believe the name was spelled Whisner. On a KY site I saw an old letter to a client that had his name researched. I was suprised at all the spellings. I do believe one was Webner. If I can find that I will post it.