Is surname variation mostly just because people couldn't read and write?

[joboy]

and further to my earlier post I have a very minor ancestral relationship with the name 'Sedenary' which has been followed by many in rootschat.
When he must have arrived in UK I think has not yet been determined ...... however when he married he recorded/wrote his name as 'Jessepo Seidenary'
now there is no letter Y in the Italian alphabet and as to 'Jessepo' I can only conclude that it must have been some cockney at his disembarkation that recorded that name for him and quite likely that became his English name henceforth?
Joe

[youngtug]

I have the name Soul / Sole in my family, apart from the various other ways of spelling this there is the sudden appearance of Souls / Soles on some census papers. I think that the enumerate asked who they where and got the answer "we are the Soul,s /Sole,s"

[joboy]

I have the name Soul / Sole in my family, apart from the various other ways of spelling this there is the sudden appearance of Souls / Soles on some census papers. I think that the enumerate asked who they where and got the answer "we are the Soul,s /Sole,s"

Yes the pluralization of surnames is a real problem .... it was for me as my mother's surname was Flower and her line was from Reading Berkshire where I got severely confused as there were oodles of Flower and Flowers who when it was all boiled down were the same family.
It's all part of the joy of unravelling family history.
Joe

[HarryW]

Hello Everyone,

In my family tree there are a few odd surnames and I'm wondering if they arose just because people didn't know how to write.

For example I've just uncovered a Lison. I also have a Gollagher and a few others like this.

It seems to me that these could just be the more common Leeson and Gallagher except because my ancestors were illiterate, they were recorded differently on the census.

Does that seem like a reasonable explanation?

If you look at parish registers, you will find a lot of variation in spelling of surnames.   Quite often the same vicar will spell a name with a number of variations over time - and these people generally had more education than their parishioners.

[halhawk]

Meet my Priday family!!  I can make a guess at how it was pronounced, at least locally, from the most common misspellings - Pready, Preedy - but have also found them as Priddy, Pritty, Preaden etc.  And try looking them up in anything using OCR - every article that mentions Friday!

And then one of the Priday daughters married a man called Frowen - this one is a joy for mistranscription, although they themselves seem to have been fairly consistent in spelling - Frower, Frewen, Flower(s), Trower, Trowing, Frowing.  I keep finding new variations for them every time I have another look.

[snooziflooze]

I sympathise...my Stokes over time were spelled variously as Stoakes, Stoks, Stox, Stocks, Stockes, and even a Stuckes.

In fact, I faced one large brick wall for ages, until I accepted that the different spellings in the parish registers in the same town, were all the same family.  Mine!

Eventually, the good peeps at the local family history society put me straight.

 

[andrewalston]

Even when people were literate, they were unlikely to correct an authority figure who put it down differently. My one-name study has any number of these, with surnames at marriages being written by the clergy "incorrectly", while the bride or groom signed "properly". Of course it is the rubbish version which has been indexed.

Even the will of William Shakespeare, who I think we can all agree was literate, has his surname spelled in THREE different ways.

[Keitht]

I think most families could cite instances of this kind and not always because they were illiterate. Three examples which come to mind from my own family are

1.the Leicestershire Freestones, where different generations eithe omitted or included the final letter, resolved only when someone from the area explained that in the local dialect the name would have ben pronounced Freestun, whatever the spelling.

2. A 1742 will in which the man names himself and his sons as Sanders throughout and then signs the document Saunders

3. A living relative named Horn who, upon joining the army, was told that his name was officially Horne. The registrar had written it that way when his birth was registered snd that, so far as the law was concerned, was that.

Keith

[Erato]

"and that, so far as the law was concerned, was that"

That reminds me of a friend who filled out a government form and, in the space for middle name, put, "(none)".  For ever after, None was her middle name as far as that government agency was concerned.