Naming Conventions - (Family Names)

As with the spelling of Given Names, the recorded spelling of Family Names has varied through time. Often such spelling was dependent on how the writer of the document, register, etc. interpreted what he/she heard, particularly if they were unsure of the "correct" spelling, or as branches of families moved away from their home areas the the spelling of their surname may also have changed. It is only relatively recently, with increased personal literacy, that the variety of surname spellings have been accepted in their modern form and that we have become so "dogmatic" about how we spell our names.

• Example: the surname Thackeray can be found in many variations - amongst which are Thackray, Tackera, Thackrah, Thackerah, etc.

With so many different ways to spell surnames, it has been difficult to manage large amount of information acquired by this project. To ease this administration difficulty the most common variants found in the context of this project are used to display family names on the website.

• from the example above, the most common spelling found and used in the project database is Thackray (rather than Thackeray)

However, the earliest recorded spelling of surname currently for each individual (if different) is shown in the "Recorded form of (family) name" field in the Individual's record.

Searching Family Names with different spellings

In order to search for family names spelled differently to those used on the website, use the Advanced Search facility on the website and either:

1. Scroll to the bottom of the page, then open Other Events using Click to Display; you should then be able to search for variants on the "Recorded form of name" field.

or

2. Enter the family name spelling you are looking for in the Last Name field, then from the drop menu to the left of this change the search "condition" from equals or contains to metaphone of. This will then list all family names which sound like the one you are looking for.