What's in a Name?

On this page spelling with double H

Very Often, when dealing with old documents,  we researchers and historians find the names of ancestors and relatives spelled wrong...or at least wrong as far as you have always known the family name to be spelled.  Sometimes you know what the family preference was for a given name, but often you don't know because existing records show a name a particular person spelled several different ways. A hundred or more years ago people who could read and write were not so common as they are today and those that could write often spelled words like they sound, regardless of what today is considered the "right" way to spell it.  

A while back though I was researching the family of my wife's paternal Grandmother. Gladys Fern Clark.  Clark is pretty easy, not usually found messed up in old written material, however, the mother of Gladys F Clark was Louisa Ann Welchhons before her marriage to James Clark.  The Welchhons family was one of the hardest nuts to crack because the name appears in all sorts of records spelled a variety of different ways.  Welshonce, Welshons, Welchance, Welshans, Welshous, and Welchanch, Welchouse and Welshhons.  I finally got a look at the Welchhons Family Bible and discovered the name was not even spelled the same way on the same page of the family information recorded in that Bible.  

I wasn't sure what to do as far as adding their names to my family tree, which particular record is correct, and which one is the one most often accepted as correct by the family?  Since I don't know anyone alive today who might shed some light on the question I felt I had to pick something, right or wrong.  I wanted to be consistent in the spelling of surnames throughout the tree, even if some old records show spellings different from what I am using on my tree. 

On this page a single H was used.  

I finally settled on the spelling of Welshhons because that was the spelling carved into their tombstones at the cemetery where Louisa and her parents are buried as well as some cousins of her father.  That spelling was consistent for a half dozen burials at that cemetery though I don't remember seeing that spelling anywhere other than those tombstones.  It may or may not be the preferred spelling of any Welshhons living today, and may not be the way Louisa's family thought the name should be spelled, but I opted to record that on my tree in order to be consistent through the tree. 

As researchers, we probably put more importance on name spelling than did some of our ancestors.