Watkins (Hoppy) (General)

by rookancestrybest , United Kingdom, Thursday, May 06, 2010, 19:52 (5392 days ago) @ Lincolnian

Could it be related to Mr. Jones' occupation as a publican?! On a serious note, transcription is difficult, I saw an original record (census) of one of my ancestors born in a place I could not make out for the life of me and searched in vain for places which looked like the same spelling, but the transcriber saw what I hadn't and the town they transcribed made far more sense! There's another original record of someone's marriage and I know for a fact the religious minister wrote what he thought he heard rather than the name, he'd crossed out attempts at real name, probably because he'd never heard of it and changed it to a name which sounded similar which he would have known! Some of it also relies on the literacy of the person who wrote it originally too. One American record I have seen refers to Cheltenham as Cheltinghom or something similar!!!!