Surname spellings (was Sending amendments to GRO)

Valid points. There is no perfect solution. If you don't backfit the modern spelling then in most (or all?) programs you will have multiple entries for the same person, or an arbitrary choice of which variant to use. You could not even have a standard choice eg the one used at baptism because some will not have a recorded baptism. AFAIK everyone retains the maiden name of a woman as the primary surname no matter how many times she marries. It's much the same thing IMO.

 

I normally use the name on the earliest record - with a few exceptions, such as my half 2gt-aunt where I use her "adopted" name ie the surname of my 2gt-GF, as it is the name used for every other record up to marriage and registering her children, and her name at baptism is attached to the baptism record (GEDCOM TAG) "description", making it visible on Ancestry.

 

I use the surname on the earliest record of a person as well. I have some interesting families where they all have different surnames! My Family Historian software doesn't seem to mind, so I don't understand the point about 'multiple entries for the same person'? Please explain in case I fall foul of this at some point?

 

Another suggestion which may help in some cases would be to use the spelling as given by the bride's/groom's signature on a marriage registration, if legible. At least that would provide how they thought the name should be spelt rather than how the official assumed.

 

I tend to use whichever variant or spelling of the name which appears most on that particular person's documents (whatever it is I can find). If a child uses a different spelling variant to their parents, then the child on my tree will probably have a different spelling.

On my Dutch Jewish side one name starts with "van Kollem" or "Kollum-Sofer" and in various places appears as van Kollem, van Kolm, Kolm, Kollum, van Kollum, van Collem, van Colm, Collen, van Collen - and occasionally it also got anglicized to Collins. In some instances, different children within the same family used a different variant of the surname. I usually chose whichever one appears most often on whatever documents I can find. Given that they were also Dutch, I occasionally have places where a "ij" spelling has been altered to "y" such as: "Speijer" to "Speyer".

The most difficult part is when they emigrate... figuring out how they spelled their name (or the enumerator spelt their name) can be difficult. I've never found the death register of my 4x great grandfather because of this - he died sometime before 1841, but his Dutch name was Coenraad Samuel Helschau Leben (or Leben Helschau, I'm not completely sure) but he's often referred to as "Charles Collins" in documents for his children. His anglicized name came from his mother, who was one of the before mentioned "Van Kollem" family, one who maintained the spelling.

 

The above are just two examples which prove there are different ways of doing things.
I tend to use what I call the given name at birth or baptism. For example if somebody is baptised as John James Rittson, that is his name.
I may find in later documents he is James John Rittson or Ritson.
In these cases I use the Description field in the life fact, like this:

Baptism
Date: 1 Jan 1830 Location: St Joseph's Church, Testtown
Description: Baptised as John James Rittson

Census:
Date: 6 Jun 1841 Location: 1 Smith Street, Testtown.
Description: In this census John's name is James Ritson

Marriage:
Date: 15 Jun 1855 Location: St Joseph's Church, Testtown
Description: John's name in the Parish register is John J Rittson

 

This referred to the Shakespeare situation where every document for the same person is spelt differently, rather than the case where siblings are different.

There is no perfect solution. The problem with using the earliest version (usually baptism) is that it can look silly if the vicar has clearly misheard or misremembered the name when there was already a well established spelling used for generations and used for all siblings and subsequent generations.

My personal preference is to use a common name for all members of the same branch and record any variant spelling in the notes or use the AKA facility. But each to his own.

 

One family I have been looking at recently produced 10 spellings of the surname. I have usually used the surname at baptism like many of you. I am beginning to wonder if I should instead use the last recorded name I have found for each person, be it marriage or burial. At that date the spellings seem to have settled more towards one spelling; in this case “Jerome”.

 

I'm afraid I mildly disagree Peter and agree with webwiz when he says ...'otherwise it becomes too messy'. With surnames I try to understand the reasons for spelling variations and make notes in my Tribal Pages when they occur and even write stories when I come across 5 or more variations (the record being 11). But I try to stick to one standard spelling; usually the one most often recognised as standard. I do the same with first names but am less troubled with those as I have a job to recall how living various family members spell their names. I and my wife are always mixing up Gill & Jill and Caren & Karen and we have to make notes in our Christmas Card list to ensure we get them right. As for nicknames or variation short forms I tend to show these in brackets, and record them under their baptismal names.

But even so I do accept sometimes there are sound reasons for variations. In my own Tree for instance I separate the Westbury & Wedgbury factions and albeit reluctantly acknowledge I have some 'Spires' connections. Luckily 'Soundex' or ticking the variation spelling box locates them all and leaves me to record them as I determine. "Suits me Sir!"

 

Within your own tree it will be consistent but unless your cousins all happen to adopt the same approach, then they may still have a different surname spelling for a particular ancestor than the one you are using.

 

This is an interesting discussion. I have lots of examples of surname variations in my and my husband's trees and have never been sure which one to use where the name varies during that person's lifetime. The baptismal name is all well and good, but if they have used a different spelling consistently thereafter it's difficult to ignore that, and as Pauline says, cousins may well use different spellings.

I have a particular case in point, where the baptism of James in Oct 1837 has 'Reid aka Read' in the baptismal register. The surname is registered as Read in the GRO index. James's 3 older siblings were all Reed in their baptism registers (before civil registration), as was their father on his marriage - and he wasn't illiterate as he signed the register as Thomas Reed (and his baptismal register has him as Thomas Reed). However, from 1837 onwards, all subsequent documents for this family have the surname as Reid (BMD, burials and censuses). So what should the surname of this family be recorded as? It seems none of them used their baptismal surname spelling, and the father changed the spelling of his name as a young man (aged 27 in 1837).

 

Your indecision as to what 'Read/Reed/Reid' to go for is close to home with me also; although with the added problem of some having a 'sub' name before the Read. My first wife's maiden name was Read...actually tell a lie Onan-Read. (The history behind that goes way back when the Onan (not the Onedin ) line married into the Read line) and the name became hyphenated as Onan-Read. But not all her father's siblings followed through and his sisters declared their maiden name as Read, whether baptismal recorded as ' Onan-Read' or not.

I could live with that as I spent ages refusing to add Onan (which they now came to regard as a 'family' name to be perpetuated) to my first born's baptismal name, arguing she (for it was a girl) was not a 'Read'; a battle I won.

But when I came to research the Read arm (a most interesting family as I was to discover both as Read and earlier Onan) the variation 'Reed' began to creep in, although thankfully not Reid. In the end in keeping with by now my standard practice, I decided the spelling would be READ regardless (adding 'aka' notes of course) but would keep the Onan element where the hyphenated name persisted.

PS Sorry if an unfinished copy got posted in error as I hit the wrong button, so took it back to Edit.

 

I decided to go for Reid, the name under which the family appears in the 1841 census. One of this family was my husband's great-great-grandfather and, despite being baptised as George Reed in 1835, he used the name Reid throughout his life. I have numerous documents recording his 23 years of service in the Essex Police and he appears as Reid in all of them. His father Thomas had a brother who, whilst also being baptised as Reed, used the surname Read all his life. So I have recorded him and his family as Read. I tend to go for the surname that the person used during their lifetime rather than the one at their baptism. Clearly others will disagree, but that feels less confusing for me.

I can imagine double-barrelled surnames cause further headaches re consistency. I haven't come across any of those in my tree so far.

 

Pass!

Going back to the surname spelling used at baptism, this isn't always as straightforward as it might first seem. I have an ancestor baptised in a parish which kept two copies of their register, and her surname was spelt differently in each of the two registers.

There may also be differences between the register and the BT, with no certainty as to which of the two might have been written first. And should the later spelling be seen as a correction or a corruption - or just a difference of opinion? Or is it an indication that the spelling just didn't matter?

And some early registers gave the surname after both the child and the parent(s), so sometimes the surname spelling wasn't even consistent within the same baptism entry.

It's no wonder then that we all adopt different approaches when recording our family trees!

 

Yes I am also swayed by what they -as grown up family members - regard as their true surname and how they spell same. Of course that is not a 'catch all' for everyone, especially on my cousin's maternal line with her mother's maiden name as Twamley, but having an Uncle Twamlow and an Aunt insisting her maiden name was Twomlow.

I broke my rule of thumb and stayed with Twamley but had to smile when going back a generation I found HER Twamley mother's mother had been a Twycross. You couldn't make it up could you?

 

Agreed, and there was the case I gave above where two alternative spellings are given separated by 'aka'. I've only ever seen this once, in the case I quoted, but maybe it is more common than I realise.

 

Interesting that there are so many differing opinions as to how to handle this! I think that all of us who have a 'rule' will find that it gets broken on occasion, because our ancestors and relatives were mostly not following any rules, let alone the ones we've chosen.