Name Variations

For starters ;-)

The name "Dionicio" and "Leonicio" appear to have been used interchangeably.

Maria del Carmel called Carmel or Carmen
Josefa and Sanjose
Jose, Josef, Joseph

I had not thought of name variation in terms of spelling as there
were no standardized spellings. For example:

Anything with an "s" could also be found with a "z" and sometimes a "c" or an "x."
The letter "b" could always be substituted for "v." "F" was often spelled with "ph."
The Spanish "ll" was frequently spelled with "y" or one "l" might be dropped:
The "h" may or may not be there: Ortega/Hortega
The letters "i" and "y" are interchanged;
sometimes "hi" and "y" are
interchanged: Hilario/Ylario
The letter "j" is frequently spelled with "x" or sometimes "g": Tejeda,
Texeda, Tegeda
The letter "t" is frequently interchanged with "th": Torres/Thorres or Marthin/Martin
"U" is spelled with a "V": Ulloa/Vlloa

That said, I have found Xauregui spelled at least ten different
ways; the same family may have used a shortened form of the spelling as in
Xaure or Jaure while others spelled it Xauregui, Jauregui, Xaurigui,
Jaurigui, Xaurigue, Jauregui, Hauregui, Haurigui, Xaurequi, Jaurequi,
Xauriqui, Jauriqui, etc.

When I started my research, I was surprised to see that the accent
marks and other punctation marks associated with Spanish were not used.
Also, anything that could be abbreviated often was.

~Deena Ortiz~

=================================

Deena, I agree with you, but I think you left a few out.

H and G. Huizar vs Guizar; Huerta vs Guerta.
I and E. Carrion vs Carreon; Arteaga vs Artiaga.
The S at the end can always be dropped. Conchas vs Concha; Campos vs
Campo; Correas vs Correa; Torres vs Torre.

Also you can combine some of the rules; for example...LL equals a Y,
which in turn equals an I. I have seen Ayon spelled Allyon, Ayyon,
Allon, Alon, Aion and of course Ayon.
Also you have to think about bad handwriting: a, u, and o generally
look similar. For example, Gaeta vs Gueta. Godina vs Godino.
And some letters are doubled or not: l, s, t, and r. Valensuela vs
Valenssuela; Torres vs Tores; Enrriques vs Enriques.
There are several articles on genealogy.com that talk about many of
these rules. They talk about names in general but I think some of
the rules may apply to Spanish surnames. Two of the articles are:
Spelling Doesn't Count --> http://www.genealogy.com/62_donna.html
[[[Look at the end for this article]]]
Name and Word Spellings --> http://www.genealogy.com/00000015.html
[[[Look at the end for this article]]]
Hope they are useful.
Angie Godina

===============================

Stupendous!!

There you go, you got it. Best analysis I've seen yet. People, save this
message. Print it out and do all you can short of framing it have it handy.
Memorize it word for word, letter for letter. Excellent breakdown Deena!!

Everyone as soon as you integrate the INFININTE variations in name
spellings, given the basic rules and guidelines that Deena has put
together,the better. Just accept it, and move on. Your research will
proceed at a faster pace once you understand and are open minded to the fact
that spellings of names and simple common words was not standardized back in
the old days. Do not mentally restrain yourself when confronted with
differences in spelling or grammar.

You have to understand that the letters that Deena has specified all relate
to a specific sound or phoneme. The letters B and V both produce the exact
same sound. In proper Spanish, there is no difference between "B de burro"
y "V de vaca," as they say. The sound produced in Spanish is a bilabial
voiced obstruate, meaning with both lips pressed together as your vocal
chords vibrate and push air between the lips. The two letters are merely
orthographic representations of the same phonemic articulation, whereas in
English they are not. Example of B/V interchange, one of my surnames,
Valdivia: Valdivia, Valdibia, Baldibia, Baldivia.

Same with the letters S, Z, and C before i and e. In Spain, the letters
Z and C (which sound like the English TH in "boTH") have a different sound
than the letter S, which is normal. But there is, however, regional
dialectal variation. Depending on where your ancestors came from, or from
what region in Spain a group of settlers came from that settled a
particular region in Mexico, they would bring with them their particular
variant in accent and dialect of Castellano (Castilian Spanish). Throughout
most of Mexico, especially Nueva Galicia (now Jalisco, Aguascalientes,
Zacatecas, and Nayarit), the Extremaduran and Andalusian variation was, and
now is, spoken. These don't have the lisp that other Spaniards have.
That's not to say that the lisp (when saying Z or C) did not make it across
the pond, as there were many Madrileños, Palencianos, Sorianos, Leoneses,
Vizcaínos, etc, that came over. It's all depending on the region where a
particular scribe, priest, or official was from who happened to write down
the document you see on microfilm.

To cite an example of another surname, Aceves, using both previous examples
of B/V and S/Z/C variation, I present the following: Aceves, Aseves,
Azeves, Acebes, Asebes, Azebes, Acevez, Asevez, Azevez, Acebez, Asebez,
Azebez. Indeed I have seen each and every single one of the twelve
variations out there. Searching this name on the IGI is a real PAIN (PAYNE,
PANE, PAINE, PAYN) because the IGI does not differentiate between all 12
variations on the name.

The letter H is indeed silent, so sometimes there was no need to even write
it. My last name itself had this same variation many times: Hernández,
Hernándes, Ernández, Ernándes.

I could go on and on forever trying to come up with a list of all the
surnames that this happened to. Just mind Deena's excellent advice and next
time you see a variation in spelling, do not be shocked or surprised. That's
just the way it was back then.

Steven F. Hernández

===========================

http://www.genealogy.com/62_donna.html?Welcome=1058232408

Spelling Doesn't Count
by Donna Przecha
Print this article
Printer-friendly version
Playing with Variations
Having a firm spelling of one's name is a fairly recent occurrence. Donna
Przecha shows you how to use variations in spelling to find more
information about your ancestors.

Frequently when you ask beginning researchers what surnames they are working
on they will say, "Browne — with an e" or "Vaughan — that's an" or "Prichard —
without the t." While it may seem that they are being extra careful
to get the right family, they may be making a big mistake. When it comes to old
documents, spelling doesn't count, especially with names. Instead of narrowing
the field of research with exact spelling, it is important to
enlarge it as much as possible with every possible spelling. One researcher
said she could add five generations onto another researcher's line, but
the second person wouldn't accept the information because the name
was spelled Browne and her family only used Brown.

Prior to Samuel Johnson publishing the first Dictionary of the English
Language in 1755, there were no spelling rules. Even today there
really are no rules for spelling names. You can spell your name any way you want.
With modern records, once you have a social security card
(now issued at birth), a birth certificate and a driver's license or passport, it is
usually too much trouble to vary the spelling. Records are computerized,
can easily be crosschecked and if everything doesn't match exactly, you
don't exist! While a person is pretty much committed to the parents' way of
spelling the surname, it is easy to see there are even fewer rules
nowadays for spelling first names. Sherry may be Sherree, Sheri or even
Shayree. Laurie could be Lori, Laurey, Lauree, Laury, Lory, Lorie, Loree, etc.

Unusual given names might be spelled phonetically in documents. Given names,
then as now, often had nicknames. While Liz or Beth for Elizabeth is easy to
understand, in many cases, the nickname used in the 17th century does not
stand for the same name today. Polly was a common nickname for Mary.
Marguerite might be called Daisy since the former is the French word for the
flower.

As previously mentioned, nowadays people are usually consistent in spelling
their surnames. Why weren't our ancestors consistent? There are two big reasons:
1) The ancestor may not have been literate and 2) the record was
created by another person. If the ancestor was unable to read and write, he
may not have known how to spell his own name at all. Even if he had
memorized the spelling, a literate person recording the information may not
have asked. Records we use for research are mostly church records,
civil records, wills and census records. These were usually written by a
non-family member — a clergyman, census enumerator, town or county clerk.
The recorders may have thought they knew best how to spell a name
and did not even bother to ask. The illiterate farmer would not presume to
correct an educated minister. For more information on common variations and
why they occurred, see Genealogy.com's Name and Word Spellings.

You should write down every possible spelling variation and check each one.
This can be time consuming in an alphabetical list (much easier if it is
Soundex) but it is essential. The name Truesdell can begin Trus or
Trues and end with dale, del, dell or dle — quite a few possibilities. However,
one essential marriage record was recorded as Trasdle — and missed because
the researcher (yours truly) did not cast a wide enough net! The
family, of English origin, lived for a while in Quebec where there are many
French families named Truedell. Strangely enough, these two names never seemed
to be used interchangeably. However, it is necessary to scan the
Truedells in an index looking for any with English given names. You may find
in an area two surnames that are very similar but it almost seems that
everyone knew they were different and made a special effort to keep them
straight in records.

Another reason for spelling variations could be an accent when saying the
name. It is very difficult to know what type of accent a person had 300
years ago. One name that has two different spellings is Royce and Rice. To
American ears this seems very different, but anyone who has watched an
English TV program is probably aware that people with heavy regional accents
may say "royte" for "right." On the other hand, if you have watched Archie
Bunker on TV he routinely says "chice" (rhyming with rice) for "choice."
So either spelling, Royce or Rice, might be pronounced either way, depending on
the accent. If this can happen with a one syllable English name, think
of the possibilities with foreign names.

When researchers find letters or wills that they believe were written by
their ancestors, they are sometimes dismayed by the spelling and grammar
they find — "was borned" in the family Bible is not unusual. Since
there were no spelling rules prior to 1755 in England or, 1828 in the U.S.
when Noah Webster published the first American dictionary, you should
not worry about spelling. Prior to 1755 everyone spelled as they
deemed fit. Since English words come from Latin, Greek, Anglo-Saxon, German,
Danish, French and a host of other languages, there are many different
ways of forming the same sound, depending on which language rules you are following. One scholar might have felt it appeared more learned to use Latin or
French roots whereas a more practical person might feel a word should be
spelled as it sounded — bot, not bought. (This argument continues to this
day with many linguists proposing radical changes in spelling so that
words are spelled as they sound. This would make spelling easier for
future generations but would create years of confusion for those who learned
the old rules.) Even in the 19th century it is obvious from looking at
letters and wills that standard spelling still was not widely accepted.

Census, parish and vital records usually contain fairly standard information
so spelling of words is not too much of a problem. Some of these records
may contain occupations that may be spelled in a variety of ways — joyner
or joiner (carpenter). The bigger problem usually is an obsolete occupation
or name.

Beginners often make two common mistakes when reading handwritten documents.
They create spelling errors where none exist because they do not know that some
letters used to be written differently. The word we usually read as
"ye" as in Ye Olde Shoppe is not a strange, outdated word at all. The
letter that appears to be a y is actually a character known as a thorn
that stood for the letters "th." "Ye" is actually a very modern "the"
using an outdated symbol. In both typeset and handwritten documents, it
appeared that words with two esses were spelled fs. (For more information
on reading old handwriting see Tips for Reading Old Records.) The letter
that appears to be an f is actually the accepted way of writing the first s.
It was never intended to represent an f. The silent e on the end of
almost any word was common. Doubling letters was also popular — "shoppe"
being a good example of both. Perhaps the writers felt these extra
letters gave the word more substance and somehow made it more
important!

Reading wills can be a genealogist's biggest challenge. They will probably be
handwritten so you will have to try to decipher the script. Spelling
will be inconsistent with words being spelled differently within the same
document. The terms will often be archaic so not only will you not
know the correct spelling, you might not know what it is even when spelled
correctly. One very helpful publication is A Glossary of Household,
Farming and Trade Terms from Probate Inventories by Rosemary
Milward (Derbyshire Record Society, Occasional Paper No. 1). While this applies
primarily to terms in English wills, many of those terms will be
found in American wills. It contains many variations for some of the words. For
example, mattress could be mateshess, materes, materessy, matrice,
matrysey or ploughs might appear as plows, plogthes, ploes, plawes, plaghes,
plowgthes, plose, ployths or plosse. You need to be careful in sounding out
words because it would be easy to confuse ploughs in one of the above
variations with pillows which could be peylowes, pyllas, pillues or
pelowys. Unfortunately, in wills items are often listed with no description and
no context to give a hint where or how it was used. While these terms
are modern words when spelled one way, you will run across terms that
have no modern equivalent. You might wonder what a joynt table or cabinet
might be. It simply meant a piece of furniture made by a joiner. A maunde
(mande, mawnde) was a wicker basket and a portmantle (portmantue,
portmanoe) a trunk, words you might not find in a modern dictionary.

When you are working with words you know might be out of date and spelled
differently, you must be very careful. If you see "lyckerd butts", you
might assume that they are a number of casks (butts) storing alcoholic
beverages but it actually refers to the tanning of leather used for soles
of shoes.If you assume the "cressett" is a reference to the family crest,
you will be disappointed to learn it is a small iron vessel to hold
oil to be burned as a torch. While a sake, secke or seike is what it appears
— a sack — sacke is the name of dry Spanish white wines imported
from early in the 16th century. Noggin or nogging is not a head, but a
small drinking vessel. It can also refer to a small quantity of liquor.
Hassocks are not footstools but tufts of rushes or coarse grass.

When dealing with unusual terms and spelling, it might be a good idea to
consult someone more experienced in that field to make sure you are not
starting down the wrong path that could cause you much wasted time and money.

About the Author

I began genealogy in 1970 when we were living in Ogden, Utah for a short time.
I was immediately hooked when, on my first visit to the local Family
History Center, I found my great-grandparents in the 1850 Ohio census. I
have been researching ever since on my own family and for others. I soon
recognized the value of computer programs for keeping track of the data.
I was a founding member of the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego and
editor of the newsletter. I have written a third party manual on ROOTS
III and, with Joan Lowrey, authored two guides to genealogy software.
Using ROOTS III and WordPerfect, I have written several family
history books for others, but have yet to stop researching long enough to
complete my own family history!

Learn More
• Discuss this topic with other researchers
• Have a question about researching your family history? Ask an expert
• Step-by-Step Guide: Name and Word Spellings
• How-To Article: American Surnames
• Ask an Expert: A Look at Middle Names

======================

http://www.genealogy.com/00000015.html

Name and Word Spellings

As you read through older records, you'll often find words and names spelled in a variety of ways, even in the same document. Even in more recent records, you may come across typos and other inadvertent spelling errors. While misspellings of words may only be slightly bothersome, spelling problems related to names can make deciphering records and tracing families difficult for today's genealogists.

For example, Roland Shumate, a Family Tree Maker user from Baltimore, Maryland, knows about name spelling changes firsthand. Roland's surname was thought to be German or Dutch, but it turned out to be French: Choaumote. The name had been changed when his ancestors immigrated in 1700. Roland's great, great grandfather's name was Jean Dela Choaumote. With the correct surname in hand, finding records pertaining to Mr. Shumate's ancestors is much easier. Why Do Spelling Inconsistencies Exist?

First, name spellings weren't standardized several generations ago, so many people spelled even their own name in a variety of ways. In addition, many people couldn't write, and those who wrote for them when the need arose sometimes had minimal spelling skills and just spelled phonetically, writing down what they heard.

More drastic name changes often took place when a family immigrated to the United States. The family may have Americanized its name by dropping syllables or difficult letter combinations, translating their name to English, or changing it completely. In addition, immigration officers often made mistakes or had to guess at more difficult name spellings, doing their best to spell out what they heard. You can find similar problems in census records when the enumerator interviewed newly-arrived immigrants. See our excerpt from Elsdon C. Smith's American Surnames. He details the ways in which immigrants' names changed upon arrival to the United States.

Finally, spelling mistakes exist simply due to human error. Record-keepers and transcribers aren't any more perfect than the rest of us! Problems with Pronunciation

All kinds of records were prone to spelling mishaps, including vital records, church records, and of course the immigration and census records mentioned above. Throughout all of these documents, the following letters were often confused due to verbal miscommunication: B and P, D and T, F and P, F and V, G and K, J and Y, S and Z, V and B, V and W, and W and R, depending on the accent of the person who was saying the name and the person who was writing it. In addition, C and S could become CH and SH. Also, double letters, such as RR or LL, could turn into a single R or L, and vice-versa.

Vowels were prone to change as well. I, IE, EY, and Y were often interchanged and the same happened with O and OE, A and AY, and other similar vowel combinations. E could be added to or dropped off of the end at will (and the same goes for S). Vowels could also be dropped out of the middle of a name, leaving several consonants in a row. These are all letter changes to keep in mind when you are looking for a family name in a record set. Let's take a look at an example.

Current spelling: Grover

Alternate spellings: Grovr, Grober, Groeber, Grower, Krover, Krober, Kroeber, Krower, Crover, Crober, Croeber, Crower.

Try saying all of these different spellings out loud. They all sound fairly similar, and with the right accent they could sound virtually identical. You might want to try the same exercise with some of your family names. The idea is to find new spellings of a surname that sound similar to the current spelling. Errors Caused by Handwriting

Other types of ancestor-hiding "mistakes" to watch out for have to do with handwriting. Older styles can be difficult for us to read today, and there are some styles that were not even taught in schools, but by notaries or others to their helpers. The secretary hand, the court hand, the italic hand -- each had distinct letter forms and abbreviations.

In some older handwriting styles, capital L and capital S often were written so similarly that it was difficult to tell the difference between the two. The same is true for capital I and capital J. In addition, rounded lower case letters such as A, O, and U could also appear identical, especially when the A or O was left slightly open at the top or the U was almost closed at the top. One final handwriting problem is the SS. This letter combination was often written as SF, and even a single S was occasionally written as F.

Remember, you can run into these types of errors not only when looking at handwritten documents, but also when you are looking at records that have been transcribed from older original documents. When reviewing a record with an unfamiliar handwriting style, it is important to record all the letters of the alphabet on a sheet of paper and list the variations that you come across. This self-training takes very little time and saves a lot of errors and forgetting. Just Plain Typos

Here are a few of the more common ones to watch for:

* Letter transpositions — "Grover" becomes "Rgover" or "Smith" becomes "Simth"
* Adjacent letters on the keyboard —"Grover" becomes "Grober" or "Smith" becomes "Wmith"
* Dropping a letter — "Grover" becomes "Grver" or "Smith" becomes "Smit"

Word spellings most often are just an inconvenience, but changes in name
spellings are much more significant. It is important to keep different
possible name spellings in mind when you are researching, so that you don't
overlook records that might refer to your family.