Tuesday Tip: Great Reminders -- Why U Can’t Find Your Ancestors

    Recently I’ve been researching a few surnames that have strange variations.  Meaning I’ve come across unlikely, and sometimes, wrong spellings. But who knows how they were rearranged, whether deliberate or not, over many years.  We only know that it’s important to stop to think about every possible way the name may have been pronounced, spelled or understood as our ancestors changed their location and/or interacted with others.  As I was reminding myself to keep these variations in mind, I remembered a related article posted at Rootsweb.   It was helpful for me to read it again and I thought I’d pass it along. Click on the link below to consider more solutions to finding those hard-to-uncover family members: 
Why U Can't Find Your Ancestors
Misspeld Knames — A Commun Probblem for Reeserchors
     One of the suggestions in the article is to think of all the ways that your ancestor’s surname might have been spelled (or indexed) and make yourself a list to use in doing thorough  research.  So,  I tried a mind workout with a few of my ancestor names.  How have I found them in the past, or how could I imagine they might be hiding away in those old records? Here goes:
   Albers could be: Aulbers, Ahlbers, Allbers, Albeers, Ulbers
     Birkenstock could be: Biergenstock, Beerginstock, Birgenstok, Birkenstog
     Keen could be: Kihn, Kien, Kean, Keene
     Kraut could be:  Krout, Krote, Kraus
     Niehaus could be: Niehues, Niehus, Neehouse, Nihus
     Weber could be: Webber, Wieber, Veber
     What kind of name variations could you develop? Have any suggestions for me?  I hope this helps you in thinking differently of your family and leads to finding some of those elusive ones. 
    Thanks for visiting Indiana Ties,
     Nancy
 
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