Variations in the Spelling of a Surname (Announce)

by admin , Forest of Dean, Sunday, November 01, 2009, 06:13 (5504 days ago)

Most of us would have come across a remark like,

"that is not my family as the surname is spelled DAVIES, our family name is spelled DAVIS"

When you are tracing ancestors, one of the most common problems you will come across is the variations in the spelling of a surname. Here are some of the reasons why this happens.

Until the 19th century there were no standardised spellings for surnames. Around 90% of the population could not read or write, so spelling was not important.

Most documents were written by someone in authority, and when writing someone's name, they could only go by what was given to them by speech. So for example, if you have a REID ancestor who got married, they would give their name to the vicar, who would write it down as it was heard. Therefore, this line of your family can possibly be found under REID, REED or READ - and even REDE, all of which sound exactly the same.

Next time you are searching records and you can't find what you are looking for, try searching using a different spelling of the name and make use of features like Soundex which we have on our Web site, which lets you search the records based on how a surname sounds and not by how it is spelled.