A clerk or transcriptionist can easily spell something in the way they are used to–even if the word is not supposed to be spelled that way.
I have two ancestors whose last name is Bieger. I’ve typed the name more times that I can remember.
Recently I had cause to mention the singer Justin Bieber in a comment on Facebook. It took me four times to spell his last name as “Bieber” instead of “Bieger.” I wanted to spell the name the way I was use to spelling names that started with “Bie” and ended in “r.”
Is it possible that a clerk’s “mistake” was simply a habit that they applied to your relatives name when they should not have?
One response
I located a “record of births” page for Wayne County, Michigan, December, 1889, which lists my person of interest (Lizzie) with the parents I expected: Mathew and Helen SPIELES. The very next line is “Benjamin SPIELES” son of David and Julia SPIELES — I can find no record of any of these three individuals, and I’ve tried. I’m guessing that a distracted clerk mis-wrote the name . . . or maybe not.