Help! Why can't I find my ancestor's surname?
Blurb
How often have you sat looking at a historical register or in front of a computer screen expecting to see your ancestor’s surname only to discover that it’s not there? You check every spelling you can think of without success then give up the search unaware that the entry is there but that you lack enough knowledge about English letters and sounds to find it.
Help! Why can’t I find my ancestor’s surname? is the solution to your problem. It describes the distortions that can occur between the time your ancestor thinks about saying his or her surname to the time you search for the surname in an online index. It explains that these distortions are rarely random and it displays sound charts and surnames tables showing how and why they occur. It includes lists of spellings for every letter and sound—as many as two dozen for a single vowel sound in some instances. And it provides guidelines you can follow to help find those elusive surnames.
This book is a gateway to a new world. Once you have read it, you will think about surnames in a completely different way. No longer will you be flailing in the dark, making stabs at spelling possibilities. When you follow its instructions, you will find that some of those previously abandoned surname searches are now successful.
Now available for ordering. Click here.
How often have you sat looking at a historical register or in front of a computer screen expecting to see your ancestor’s surname only to discover that it’s not there? You check every spelling you can think of without success then give up the search unaware that the entry is there but that you lack enough knowledge about English letters and sounds to find it.
Help! Why can’t I find my ancestor’s surname? is the solution to your problem. It describes the distortions that can occur between the time your ancestor thinks about saying his or her surname to the time you search for the surname in an online index. It explains that these distortions are rarely random and it displays sound charts and surnames tables showing how and why they occur. It includes lists of spellings for every letter and sound—as many as two dozen for a single vowel sound in some instances. And it provides guidelines you can follow to help find those elusive surnames.
This book is a gateway to a new world. Once you have read it, you will think about surnames in a completely different way. No longer will you be flailing in the dark, making stabs at spelling possibilities. When you follow its instructions, you will find that some of those previously abandoned surname searches are now successful.
Now available for ordering. Click here.
Letters and sounds of British and Irish Surnames (aka Surnames 'cheat sheet')
While the different spellings that represent vowel sounds and consonants are detailed in the relevant sections in Help! Why can't I find my ancestor's surname?, this cheat sheet brings some of the information together into a 'cheat sheet' to make it easier for researchers as they sit at a computer terminal or in a record office.
Table 1 covers the nineteen vowel sounds of English along with the common and uncommon spellings for these vowel sound as found in the surname variants listed in the Biographical Database of Australia. Table 2 covers the different letters of the English language and the spelling variants of these letters as found in the surname variants listed in the Biographical Database of Australia.
While this sheet works best in conjunction with Help! Why can't I find my ancestor's surname?, this copyrighted sheet can also be purchased on its own.
For purchasing details, click here.
Table 1 covers the nineteen vowel sounds of English along with the common and uncommon spellings for these vowel sound as found in the surname variants listed in the Biographical Database of Australia. Table 2 covers the different letters of the English language and the spelling variants of these letters as found in the surname variants listed in the Biographical Database of Australia.
While this sheet works best in conjunction with Help! Why can't I find my ancestor's surname?, this copyrighted sheet can also be purchased on its own.
For purchasing details, click here.