Names in documents should be transcribed as they are written. But when writing about a person it’s easier for the reader (and the writer) to pick one spelling for a name and use it in every reference. I’m fighting that with a native of Ostfriesland, Germany, named Baltser Herren. His name is spelled numerous ways in a variety of mid-19th century documents in Illinois. But, I’ve decided to stick with Baltser Herren when writing about him. Herren because the family in the area tended to favor that spelling and Baltser because that’s the way I’ve seen it written most frequently.
And if I need to ever change the spelling in my writing, “find and replace” works much easier when you’ve consistently spelled a name in all your references to it.
But don’t forget, when transcribing…don’t change the spelling.
One response
Hi, I’m Dutch & use a Dutch genealogy program named Aldfaer. It has name fields like Firstname, Nickname & Surname, so I can fill in an alternative spelling in “Nickname”. But still it happens that I find out that I have 2 instances of one person in my Aldfaer file due to different spellings. The last time I had a man with one spelling & his first wife & second wife’ name unknown and the other one was with his second wife & first wife unknown. Also in the 17th century, so no exact birth dates or death dates. It wasn’t until someone reacted to a blog post about him that I realised they were the same person. So, good tip.