Surname spellings have left me confused!!

[Comosus]

I too had trouble with my Scholey branch.  It turns out their surname before that was actually Schorey/Scorey/Schorah/Scorah and sometimes even Scorer.  As most were illiterate "back then", they didn't know how to spell their name.  It was up to the enumerator or the person filling in the marriage/baptism record to attempt to spell their name.

Andrew

[Tuganneth]

Hi
Concerning spellling of names
On some visits to  the familysearch LDS site
I keyed in the surname 'Dowley' (Cheshire)
and the results had shown  'Dooley' as well
I suppose it depended on how the clerk understood the name
Thanks

[Lendevon]

Some time ago I did some research on a Dartmoor family called HUGH, they then moved to the next village and instantly became the HOW family. It just depended what the vicar heard or thought he heard. During the 19th century many families moved from Devon to South Wales in search of work. The attempts of Welsh vicars to understand Devon accents often totally transformed their names.

[Clare Fowler]

When I first started out researching my family, I was warned of changing of spellings because of regional accents.  Because the Industrial revolution caused a lot of migration in certain areas from rural areas to towns and cities, accents may not have been 100% understood.  If the person recording the event was not able to spell the name, the registrar/minister would just have to make a best guess based on what he had heard.  A tip I was given was to hold my nose and say the name to see how the sound may change with a more nasal accent for instance - sometimes it really does help to see how things are altered!

Cheers,
Clare