In this case the "variant" is not so much a variant the family actually used, but rather a different way of reading the name when it was spelled wrong in the actual record with difficult-to-read handwriting.
Regular readers know that Trautvetter is one of the families on which I am working.
This is the index entry on the 1880 agricultural census for Michael Trautvetter in Hancock County, Illinois:
There were not too many Michaels in Walker Township. That's how I found the entry by searching for individuals who had the first name of Michael and lived in Hancock County, Illinois, with "Walker" as a keyword match.
This is part of the actual 180 agricultural census entry:
The original image is blurry and, if memory serves, the microfilm is blurry as well. Michael Trautvetter is on line 4.
I can make out the image, so that's not a problem--but the image is why I need to include Ancestry.com as a part of my citation/
We blogged earlier about agricultural census records.
