Scottish Ancestors

[gilmore]

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(6) Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that your surname can be spelled, or mis-spelled, in various ways: Hicks, Hick, Hix, Hixe, Hucks, Kicks, or Robinson, Robertson, Robison, Roberson, Robuson, Robson, Dobson.
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Very often the records that you come across are not written by your ancestor but by clerks, especially court clerks here in the US, so what you see is how they spelled the name, not how your ancestor did.

Another important thing to remember is that the notion of correct spelling is relatively recent and did not exist before the early 19th century when dictionary usage became common. Before then everyone spelled words as they sounded to them. That was the way it had been done for millenia.

We have a photocopy of a deed from the 1750's in Virginia colony which was indexed under one spelling, contains a second spelling in the body of the deed, and my ancestor's signature was copied in a third spelling, the same spelling we use today, incidentally. Which was correct? All of them and none of them.

It could be worse. I am now researching a surname, Shofich, that seems to have been most commonly spelled Szyjowicz where it originated. One variation is Chwick. Another is Haifetz.