Letters that can be misunderstood (germanic, surname, German, records)

[bjh]

Here's some letters that can be misunderstood or misreported when you're looking for someone you know "should" be there. Many of you will be familiar with these. Anyway, I hope these may help.

Similar sounding letters:
A clerk or enumerator might misunderstand a spoken name. Like my Perrin family can be reported as Berrin or even Baron.

B=P or P=B (all of these can be interchanged, btw).

V=F

T=D

S=Z

J=Y, some Germanic names start out with a J pronounced like Y, then get changed.

Spelling:
The joys of deciphering penmanship!

F=PH

L=S - in old handwriting, as many of you already know, the small 's' looks like an 'l' compared to modern handwriting

M=N

V=W

I=J

N=V

[Cindiana]

Even uppercase L may be mistaken for an S. I've had family with last name Large indexed as Sarge. I've also had someone with the last name Ilg, indexed as Sly. The I did look like an S, and the top the the G was not closed, so it looked like a y. This is a good topic, I'm sure many names have been missed due to letters beng misreported.

[kevxu]

In reading 19th century Canadian records I have found that the capital letters "S" and "I" are often very difficult to tell apart in some styles of penmanship.

I have also found - very frequently - that transcribers for Ancestry.com confuse small letters "u" and "n"; thus coming up with some of the most bizarre names I have ever seen.

And the confusion of small "n" with "r" seems common as well; thus, Moon becomes Moore when the imagination of the transcriber decides the end stroke of their "r" has to be an "e."

I sometimes wish for more commonsense and less creativity in transcribing.
When the head of a family is surnamed Moore, or worse Moou, and the next three members of the household are Moon - where is the warning light that should say, "Stop. Look again!"

[bjh]

Originally Posted by kevxu

...I sometimes wish for more commonsense and less creativity in transcribing.

When the head of a family is surnamed Moore, or worse Moou, and the next three members of the household are Moon - where is the warning light that should say, "Stop. Look again!"

Truly! Where's the common sense?

--
Verbal misunderstandings can apply to first names too. I have a male ancestor named Madison (before it became a girl's name ) who was sometimes reported as Mathew because he went by Mad, though that does sound kind of funny to me. Mad and Matt are not very different in sound so it's easy to see how the census taker got the name wrong.