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Diabetics R Us

Yes, standardised spelling only arrived when people learned how to read and write. In the old days, clerks and people that could write wrote down the words as they were pronounced by the person speaking. It was all phonetic. This includes people's names. Hence surnames that are pronounced the same but have different spellings, such as Fielden and Fielding, Howarth and Haworth, etc. This also meant differences between regions due to dialect. Family history nerds like me find looking at parish registers a nightmare sometimes.

Hello, fellow family history nerd! :)

The name spellings happened a lot at Ellis Island in New York harbor when the immigration officials phonetically spelled the surnames of people who could not speak English. And the census-takers, too.

A fairly common example is the surname Englund. Yes, with the U. My own surname, and my mother's maiden name, show up in different records with about 3 different spellings.

Fun fun fun!
 
Menzies in Scotland is pronounced Ming-is, so Menzies, as his first name, is just shortened..
This Scottish name is traditionally pronounced, as it still is in Scotland, /ˈmɪŋɪs/ ( listen) MING-iss, since the English letter ⟨z⟩ was used as a substitute for the now obsolete letter ⟨ȝ⟩ (yogh) in the Scots language (Menȝies).

Mr Campbell could of been........... Emperor Ming, now there's a thought :wideyed: o_O

There is in my family tree a person called Blackmore he had two sons ones surname was Blackmore the others Surname became Blackmar both called William they both went to America where the Blackmar also gained a variant Blackmer as in Sidney Blackmer.
 
The eldest XL son's infant school headmistress was called Farquarson pronounced Farkson and the youngest son's headmistress was called Goodswin pronounced Gudsun. There must be a gene for teachers ;)

Hmm ... I wonder if the US TV producer Mark Goodson was a distant relation ...
 
There is in my family tree a person called Blackmore he had two sons ones surname was Blackmore the others Surname became Blackmar both called William they both went to America where the Blackmar also gained a variant Blackmer as in Sidney Blackmer.

So may names often start off as something different, in their spelling and pronounciation.
 
It's like Godwinson to Godwin to Goodwin in many cases Godwin became Goodwin because the anglo saxon word God was pronounced Good.
 
It's like Godwinson to Godwin to Goodwin in many cases Godwin became Goodwin because the anglo saxon word God was pronounced Good.

Oops! I should have read your post before making my comment. It's early and I'm old!
 
In old English, any word with a double "s" in the middle was written as "ff" and similarly, any name that began with an "f" was written as "ff" . One of my family names was Crossley, written as Croffley and another name was Fielden, written as Ffielden.
 
In old English, any word with a double "s" in the middle was written as "ff" and similarly, any name that began with an "f" was written as "ff" . One of my family names was Crossley, written as Croffley and another name was Fielden, written as Ffielden.

Whenever I try reading an early edition of something by -- say -- Jane Austen, I find myself lisping the initial "s"s printed so that they look to me like fs. lol

I read somewhere that surnames starting with ff are written with two lower-case fs rather than one capital F. Is that correct?
 
Hi all

Home from our long weekend away but a quick turn around as we're off to France on Thursday for the Easter break.

Hope you're all well today.

Good Luck parking it in London!!
We stayed at the Caravan Club Site at Abbey Wood and got the train in.
Poor old Paris, what a tragedy. All that history.
Very sad, we got to see Notre Dame last year on our second attempt.
 
There is the 'poshing up' or fashion for changing names to sound more upper class but without the change in pronunciation such as Wriothesley from Risley pronounced Risley and Cholmondesley pronounced Chumley and Menzies from Ming. great stuff!
Ah! And Mrs Buoquet from Mrs Bucket !!
 
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