{"id":62247,"date":"2020-10-09T12:44:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T16:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=62247"},"modified":"2023-11-08T16:04:38","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T21:04:38","slug":"genealogy-tip-correct-spelling-isnt-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/genealogy-tip-correct-spelling-isnt-everything.html","title":{"rendered":"Genealogy Tip: Correct Spelling Isn\u2019t Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega writes about the time she misspelled her ancestor\u2019s name in her search \u2013 and the great benefits of making that \u201cmistake.\u201d Gena is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

After finding the right newspaper(s) to search, one of the most challenging aspects of finding an ancestor is their name. Why? Our ancestors could be listed in the newspaper by any number of name variations, including initials substituting for a first and middle name, nicknames, and the countless possible misspellings of a first and last name. On top of that, women might be listed by their husband\u2019s name \u2013 and all of the variations of his<\/em> name. What\u2019s a genealogist to do?<\/p>\n

The answer: search more than one name variation and keep track of the possibilities you\u2019ve tried. And here\u2019s a tip that might not seem intuitive: don\u2019t assume that the \u201ccorrect\u201d spelling of your ancestor\u2019s name is the only \u2013 or even best \u2013 way to go.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this recently when I found an ancestor despite making a mistake in spelling his name.<\/p>\n

Peterson or Petersen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I searched GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a> for my grandmother\u2019s maternal grandfather, Lars Petersen. Except that I accidentally spelled his last name Peterson (with an o instead of an e).<\/p>\n

My initial search resulted in 1800 hits! I decided to narrow those results by just looking at Arizona newspapers, specifically the titles from Holbrook and Snowflake, since he lived part of his life in northern Arizona near those two cities.<\/p>\n

Using the search tools on the left-hand side of GenealogyBank\u2019s search results page allowed me to filter my results by location, which then narrowed the results to 91 hits \u2013 a number I could easily manage to go through.<\/p>\n

As I was going through these results, I was excited to find Lars in numerous newspapers, chronicling: the death of his second wife; his third marriage; his daughter\u2019s (my great-grandmother\u2019s) illness; his World War I soldier son\u2019s death from tuberculosis; and his comings and goings around town.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Snowflake Herald (Snowflake, Arizona), 19 October 1917, page 5<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, amidst the excitement of finding all of this information, I realized something was wrong: Lars\u2019 last name was Petersen, not Peterson.<\/p>\n

But searching on Lars Peterson did<\/em> yield relevant results, so that \u201cmistake\u201d wasn\u2019t a mistake at all \u2013 it revealed that there was more information out there that I had yet to find, using an incorrect spelling of his last name.<\/p>\n

After checking all the Peterson results, I then needed to start again searching on the correct spelling of his name: Petersen with an \u201ce.\u201d<\/p>\n

This search for Lars Petersen surprisingly only returned 507 results. Narrowing those results by the place again (Arizona and then Holbrook and Snowflake) returned 74 hits. What I found this time spanned notices of his homestead application, his visits to town, and the birth of a child.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Snowflake Herald (Snowflake, Arizona), 20 September 1915, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In my first search, I misspelled his name \u2013 but so too did the newspaper reporters, and I ended up finding useful and interesting articles about his life.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s a secret that\u2019s vital to researching your family history: the correct spelling isn\u2019t everything.<\/p>\n

How important was it to do both name searches? Very! Each search brought new information that was missing from the other. If I had only completed one search, I would have missed important vital record information about Lars and his family, as well as stories that gave me a look at his everyday life.<\/p>\n

And now I need to think of other variations of his first and last name, and do searches on those.<\/p>\n

The Correct Spelling Isn\u2019t Everything<\/strong><\/p>\n

The correct spelling isn\u2019t everything, and when you assume that your ancestor was only known by one spelling, you can inadvertently miss big chunks of your ancestor\u2019s story. I bet you\u2019ve had times where your name was misspelled. I know I have. So why would you search for your ancestor using only one variation or spelling of their name?<\/p>\n

Search again for that elusive ancestor. But this time, conduct multiple searches based on name variations.<\/p>\n

Because correct spelling isn\u2019t everything in genealogy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega writes about the time she misspelled her ancestor\u2019s name in her search \u2013 and the benefits of making that \u201cmistake.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":62269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[6215,12,2719],"class_list":["post-62247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-ancestor-name-research","tag-genealogy","tag-genealogy-search-tips"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/illustration-0215-2017-featured-graphic-computer-user.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62247"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95785,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62247\/revisions\/95785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}