{"id":2070,"date":"2012-09-12T18:05:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-12T22:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncgenweb.us\/guilford\/?page_id=2070"},"modified":"2012-11-06T08:41:47","modified_gmt":"2012-11-06T13:41:47","slug":"things-to-know","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ncgenweb.us\/guilford\/things-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Things To Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our modern idea that everyone knows how to spell their name does not apply to early records.\u00a0 Standardized spelling is a relatively recent invention, whether you’re looking at documents here or in the Old World.<\/span><\/p>\n

Relatively few people in the Guilford area\u00a0at that point in time were educated to a considerable extent and knew how to write their name —\u00a0much less spell it.\u00a0 Look at early documents and see how many were signed with X’s or symbols of a similar nature.\u00a0 And, even if they memorized a whole signature, that doesn’t mean they could read the document they were signing.\u00a0 One of my ancestors signed a bond “John Forbis” despite the fact the clerk spelled his name “Forbush” on the top line.\u00a0 I suspect\u00a0John Forbis\/Forbes\/Forbush\/etc.,\u00a0did not know how to read.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is generally agreed that the clerks seldom asked people how to spell their names after asking them\u00a0to say\u00a0their names, because the general population knew how to pronounce their names but not spell them.\u00a0 And the county clerk was making these records for his own use, and not for publication 150-250 years later.\u00a0 He would write the name as it sounded to his ear, and anyway the rule of law is, “If it sounds the same, it is the same.”\u00a0 If a clerk was talking to a prominent person who he knew was well educated — and that was an exception in that time period, because it was a rare and expensive luxury — he may have asked for the correct spelling.\u00a0 Most residents of Guilford in the early years were trying to keep body and soul together, and were living and working on the land.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, people should not get hung up on how a name is spelled, or the variations that a county clerk used from court session to court session, or even on the same day or in the same document.\u00a0 It is a fundamental that we must look for any and all spelling variations, and I’ve seen some wild ones.\u00a0 It is what Elizabeth Shown Mills calls the “FAN Club” — friends, associates, neighbors — mentioned in the documents which will tell you whether it’s the same family you’re researching\u00a0— not the spelling.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even a first letter can change.\u00a0 I’ve also seen some documents for\u00a0two men\u00a0where the surname is spelled Duck, and\u00a0I can tell from the “FAN Club” that the men are actually members of the Dick family.\u00a0 And I’ve seen copies of the original records, and the handwriting is clear that it is an “u” and not an “i”.\u00a0 And the clerk should have known the Dick family well, as they were prominent in the community, the\u00a0family patriarch\u00a0William Dick sat on juries and even grand juries often, and\u00a0the same William Dick\u00a0owned and operated a tavern just across the road from the courthouse.<\/span><\/p>\n

While on the subject, people should also remember that “Sr” and “Jr” can not be interpreted the way they are today, either.\u00a0 When a clerk used those, he was simply indicating that there were two men in his jurisdiction who used the same name, and he was referring to the older one or the younger one.\u00a0 He was not implying any relationship between them, necessarily.\u00a0 They could be father and son, but they also could be grandfather and grandson, uncle and nephew, older cousin and younger cousin, or no relation at all.\u00a0 And\u00a0such designations were fluid and could change with a death or the arrival of someone else with the same name.<\/span><\/p>\n

Katherine Benbow<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our modern idea that everyone knows how to spell their name does not apply to early records.\u00a0 Standardized spelling is a relatively recent invention, whether you’re looking at documents here or in the Old World. Relatively few people in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2070","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncgenweb.us\/guilford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncgenweb.us\/guilford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncgenweb.us\/guilford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncgenweb.us\/guilford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncgenweb.us\/guilford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ncgenweb.us\/guilford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncgenweb.us\/guilford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}