It's funny that Amanda should mention family name misspellings in the previous comments because I encountered the same thing last night.
I'd been looking for one particuarly elusive family group and knew they were present in a certain town at a certain time. When I finally found them it was because I realized that someone had transcribed the handwritten census roster incorrectly. They turned cursive "n"s into "u"s. You can see where that would be a problem. I especially was really pissed to learn that "Eufield" is North Carolina town that never existed. Feh.
I saw also that they spelled the person I was looking for's last name incorrectly. It wasn't even phonetic, it was just wrong. I know a lot of people make the same mistake in spelling that name, and the person telling the census taker the info didn't know any better because he couldn't read...I'm sure he didn't give a shit anyway - it was only his stepson. Yes, his own biological children's names were spelled weirdishly as well.
Now that I'm back on the trail I plan on taking a fact-finding trip sometime in the next couple of weekends. I'll spend the day in a town the size of a flea gathering vital records from the clerk's office.
I hope they have a McDonald's...or at least a gas station that sells potato wedges and Nehis.
Posted by Tiffany at May 3, 2005 05:35 PM