Читать книгу Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy: The definitive reference guide to tracing your family history - Nick Barratt - Страница 145

This is possibly the most common reason for not finding an entry, the mis-transcription by the clerk originally entering the information. Unfortunately, this was not so uncommon, especially in the earlier registers when everything was handwritten, making it difficult to read original certificates and therefore entering an index entry in the wrong place was an easy mistake to make. Certain letters are easily confused and this should be borne in mind when thinking of variant spellings:

• A capital handwritten B, P, D or even K can be easily confused

• It can be difficult to distinguish a ‘t’ from an ‘l’, an ‘m’ from an ‘n’ or an ‘e’ from an ‘i’ when handwritten

• As letters were often handwritten with large loops they could be easily misread and confused

• Some surnames have common variant spellings. For example ‘Matthews’ may be spelt ‘Mathews’, ‘Doherty’ as ‘Docherty’ or ‘Johnson’ as ‘Jonson’. Certain forenames may also have alternative spellings, such as ‘Sarah’ for ‘Sara’, ‘Conor’ for ‘Conner’ or ‘Coner’, or ‘Jane’ for ‘Jayne’.

Each step in the registration process could lead to a misspelling. Hence, by the time an entry has been placed in the national indexes the name could have altered a great deal. Thus if you have encountered a problem in the national indexes, try searching the local registers.

Another problem is that in the nineteenth century spellings were not necessarily uniform and some people spelt their names differently at various times. The relatively low level of literacy would also lead to inaccuracies as it would not be possible for people to ensure their names were spelt properly. In such circumstances the individual writing down the information would have to spell the name phonetically, which could lead to problems with uncommon surnames.

The last thing to remember is the use of nicknames, as information may be recorded either as the full correct name or as the more informal nickname. Hence, when looking for the birth of an ‘Anthony’, ‘James’ or ‘Nicholas’, remember to search for the shortened versions of these names – ‘Tony’, ‘Jim’ or ‘Nick’ – if you have no joy.