It happened last night the nightmare of all genealogical transcribers. Before retiring, I was reviewing the will abstracts I have been preparing for publication. As I scanned the will abstract for my own fourth great grandfather, I realized that I had made a mistake in interpreting the married surname of one of my distant great aunts. No wonder I had anxiety dreams all night!

In the clear light of day the nightmarish aspect has turned to cold, hard reality. How many other entries have I misread in past years because of unfamiliarity with the names in a new area, ambiguous handwriting, or just plain fatigue? How many index entries might have ended up in the wrong section of the alphabet because I simply couldn't figure out that initial letter of the surname? How often will readers of the books I prepare fail to scan that index widely enough to catch the unintentionally "disguised" names for which they are searching?

In addition to the potential for error implied in the mortality of every transcriber, other elements can cause those names to appear in an unexpected format. The clarity of clerks' handwriting varies widely between records. Some seem barely discernible, while other records are set down in the most beautiful copperplate script. Although context will give clues to the meaning of unclear words in a sentence, there is very little help with names. The transcriber has to acquaint himself or herself with the typical style of the clerk as well as standard writing practices for the location and time period.

Even with all these efforts, some entries will remain as enigmatic as the Sphinx. Spelling was not standardized until relatively recently. Modern proponents of "inventive spelling" would have been very comfortable with the results created by even the most serious record keepers. Even so, I still wonder what the scribes were thinking when they spelled the same name three or four different ways within one record. The only logical excuse for such behavior is that they must have been more concerned about the other elements of the document.

Another characteristic of the records to consider is that the pages that our eyes see are often not the originals. For example, the deeds I view on the microfilm for my area of interest are probably at least two copies away from the original document. Even the version first recorded in the county records was penned into the book by a clerk. In later years, the county leaders often became aware that the "original" records were wearing out and therefore funded the preparation of a second copy. Thus, the transactions recorded first in the very early 1800s were recopied in the 1880s. That later set of records is the one now available to me for abstracting.

Names can be problematic as they were often in a state of flux between the foreign language patterns they had followed in the Old World and the many variations created by a move to the New World. In addition to the decision about whether or not to translate the meaning of their names into the language of their new homeland (i.e. Zimmerman/Carpenter, Gerber/Tanner), they were also having to decide whether or not they wanted to retain the spelling with which they were familiar (if they were even familiar with a spelling) or follow the sound of the name as it was spoken. So if you are looking for the name originally spelled Kauffman, you'd better check in the "C" section of the index to see if some of your people ended up there. Likewise, don't overlook the Cincades while searching for Kincaids. Though they have the same initial letter, would you recognize that Rippleagle and Riplogail are potentially the same name? You should also be aware that St. Clairs often became Sinclairs or even Sincklers.

Considering all these variations on a theme, it might be advisable for those of us who are reading the documents a century or more later to verbalize what we are reading. I'm sure the more militant librarians would be aghast at such a suggestion. So we might want to keep it to a whisper or even a mental recitation in the most stringent of circumstances. But oral pronunciation might help us to catch Farace when we thought we were looking for Faris, Merricle in place of Miracle, Mahew instead of Mayhugh, and even Cassol or Casil for Castle.

When glancing through indices or secondary sources prepared by those of us whose heart is in the right place, but whose eyes and brains can sometimes fail, readers would be wise to allow for a margin of error. If the rest of the family, or even the rest of an unusual name, looks familiar but we don't recognize a portion of one entry, be sure to check it out. Remember that the person preparing your source probably did his or her best to decipher what was written, but might have come up with less than perfect results.

Just a quick side note about indexes. When we can't find an entry on the page referenced by the index, we might employ that allowance for error again by glancing at the preceding and succeeding pages. Indexing has to be the price all writers of references must pay for the minimal acclaim they might receive in the research world. Very minor changes in the body of the text can throw an index marker onto another page if we forget the cardinal rule of indexing: Do it at the very end after all the modifications to the text have been completed. And keep in mind that most indexes will not tell you that there is a second or even third reference to that name lurking on the same page, so don't stop with the first occurrence. Make sure to scan the entire page.

In summary, those of us who prepare the transcripts, abstracts, and indexes wish we were infallible. But, we aren't. Nevertheless, we hope that our offerings to the world of research might be viewed with some tolerance in light of the majority being on target and helpful.

In the meantime, until perfection is attained, let's all keep whispering those names as we read along. When reading transcribed records, liberalism can be a good thing.

	Lorraine Indermill Quillon began her family history research at age 18 in her hometown of Boulder, Colorado. She has since exchanged the grandeur of the Rockies for the sedate beauty of the Virginia Blue Ridge, where she lives with her husband and five children. Her 25-year-old home business is centered around family history preservation, also abstracting records for publication whenever she can. Since she feels that the best part of history is the "story." She is delighted to have found some very interesting ones among her own ancestors.