Is that “S” an “L” or is that “L” an “S?” These two uppercase letters are easy to confuse. And that’s why when looking for Sargents I always remember to look for Largents as well.
There are others as well. Could your Feather family be hiding with some Leathers?
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I have ran into this problem when working on my family history especially with the Census
Have a William Martin Breedlove whose middle name was passed down as Mankin.
Have a Joseph Tissott whose last name in the marriage register was transcribed as Lysat. The “T” could have been an “L”, the “ys” should have been “iss”, the “ss” was in the old form with the long “s”.
My great grandfather whose name was O'Rourke was listed in the census as Aluke. I could never figure that one out unless the transcriber was not a ntive speaker aor reader of English.
We have to try and think of both what a name might sound like AND how it might look when written – this can test the imagination!
My Bott ancestors have often been cited as BOLT, BATT or BUTT!
It's one of the most common problems in searching indexes.
Ros
The census taker in Yazoo County, Ms for 1850 was guilty of making an L appear as an S. Some census transcribers appear not to have noticed, thus errors abound. If Mr. “Lmith” was born in “Souisiana,” you can be sure an error was made!