Genealogy Chat

Hi, how likely is it that names could get mis-spelt on Ancestry etc? I believe i have found members of the same family, but with certain names spelt slightly different. my gg'grand mother was Ellen Wemyes Nicholson, i have then found who i believe to be my grandad and on Ancestry his name is christopher Wemy_s Elliott, and then who i believe to be his sister Ellen Wymess Elliott. I know his sister is Ellen because of the census. I know the best way is to get their birth certs, but i was just curious if anyone thought this possible.

with an unusal name like that i would have thought it highly likely tha they would be mistrancribed/mis -spelled jess

If you're just looking at the transcribed results, then the chances of finding a mistranscription are quite high. When I find errors, especially ones that are unlikely to be picked up by soundex or wildcards, I try to submit corrections whenever I can: they get into the searchable bit eventually, and it gives people a bit more of a chance of finding their ancestors. Enumerators also made errors: often they wrote down what they thought a name sounded like, without checking: personal names and place-names. If you 'know' how a name is spelled (been to Wemyss Bay, for instance?) then you don't ask. You won't be surprised to know that I sometimes have to force people to listen to how I spell my surname, otherwise they waste a lot of time looking for me in alphabetical indexes and failing to find me! Sometimes the script is difficult to read - faint, florid, just scruffy. Christine

I agree that the unusual names are those you think will be easy to find, and then turn out to all be mis-spelled or mis-transcribed. I would be quite happy to accept those names you listed are all related, but would obviously want to back it up with further evidence, such as census records etc. Best of Luck! Sarah

Thanks all, will order Ellen's birth cert and make sure she has the same parents.