In addition to the widespread illiteracy of the time, paper to record information was considered an expensive luxury. For people struggling to pay for the basic necessities of living maintaining family records was not very important. Spelling of a name, birth and death dates, etc. were well down the list in relative importance. The family bible became an key site to record family data.
Dean Adams On Sun, Nov 24, 2019 at 8:44 PM Jane Linkswiler <jcl...@cox.net> wrote: > As I understand it, Thomas Jefferson used to see how many different ways > he could spell words. Spelling was not standardized til the mid 1800’s. > > > > Til I heard that, I used to be soooo proud of my spelling…. > > > > Jane in Phoenix > > > > *From:* LegacyUserGroup <legacyusergroup-boun...@legacyusers.com> *On > Behalf Of *Linda Greethurst > *Sent:* Sunday, November 24, 2019 6:21 AM > *To:* Legacy User Group <legacyusergroup@legacyusers.com> > *Subject:* Re: [LegacyUG] Surname Changed When Immigrated ;-) > > > > When I started my genealogical research many years ago, I was told to > ignore spelling (one s or double s; D or T; -son or -sen; kn or just n; > etc). Say the name out loud - if it sounds familiar, consider it and > research it. Best lesson I learned. > > The reason was that the average person before 1880 usually got no more > than an 8th grade education and more likely only 5th grade. Spelling was > not a top priority. Don't get hung up on spelling and which version is > correct. > > Sure enough - I have a legal document with the main person's surname > spelled 5 different ways. > > Linda > -- > > LegacyUserGroup mailing list > LegacyUserGroup@legacyusers.com > To manage your subscription and unsubscribe > http://legacyusers.com/mailman/listinfo/legacyusergroup_legacyusers.com > Archives at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyusers.com/ > -- Dean
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