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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2005-08 > 1123031365


From: "Diana Gale Matthiesen" <>
Subject: RE: [DNA] German Surname?
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2005 21:09:25 -0400
In-Reply-To: <006001c59799$6e2d9a40$fdccae51@oemcomputer>


> John Chandler said:
> English spelling is highly idiosyncratic and time-varying.

To which I can only say, amen!

This discussion of spelling at my web site may be of interest:
http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/Ancillary/OnE/Spelling.shtml

Although it is aimed at novice genealogists -- one's who are getting "hung up"
over spelling -- it makes some points not yet mentioned here. And I'll take one
quote from the page,

"To an illiterate person, their name has no spelling, only a sound. When they
said their name to a county clerk or census taker, how it got written down
depended entirely on the knowledge and diligence of someone who may have been
barely literate themselves."

Diana


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