Michael John Neill's genealogy website. Things that cross my path, general research suggestions, and whatever else ...with a little bit of attitude. I don't post "news" just to post it, never post a press release (edited or otherwise), don't feign excitement, and pretty much say what I think.
03 July 2007
Are You Thinking about Alternate Spellings?
Sometimes when we start work on a new name or a new family, we forget the things we learned years ago on "old" families. One of these things to think about are alternate spellings. While doing a little preliminary work on the "new" Blain family, I realized that one of the alternate spellings I need to keep in mind is Blair. While this is not really a spelling or pronunciation variation, the final "r" in some cases can easily be read as an "n. " Soundex based searches will not catch this variation, but an appropriate wildcard search would.