How Do You Spell That? Dealing with Surname Misspelling in Genealogy

My grandmother’s maiden name was Sidney Roghers. Now… I’ve seen the last names Rogers and Rodgers, but only my relatives spelled it Roghers. I always wondered why it was so different. Well, a couple of years ago my mother told me why. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Why Can’t I Find My Ancestor?

While you’re researching your family tree, you may start searching for Great-Grandpa Elroy by typing in your last name. However, there’s a chance you won’t find him there. Where is he? He should be right there on that 1900 census! Before you throw in the towel in frustration, try changing the spelling of your last name.

But…why? The longer you’re involved in genealogical research, the more you’ll realize that spelling was, well, something that lent itself to a bit of creativity.

Here are a handful of the more common reasons for surname misspelling:

• Formal education was not mandatory back in the “good ol’ days” and people didn’t know how to spell their names.
• Civil servants recording names on a census or immigration record spelled names the way they thought they sounded.
• Immigrants from foreign countries spoke with unfamiliar accents, so others couldn’t understand what they said when asked how to spell their names.
• People arriving in America from other countries wanted to feel “American”, so they changed the spellings of their surnames to help them fit into their new country.
• Bad handwriting is not a modern-day problem. Often people just couldn’t read the name written in the family bible.

Sometimes a family had a surname that was misspelled so often, they just caved to the misspelling. My husband’s great-grandmother’s maiden name was Ploeger (pronounced ploo-ger). After the family immigrated from Germany to America, those outside of the German community started misspelling the name Pluger. Eventually, some branches of the family just went with this spelling, probably because they were tired of correcting it all the time.

In fact, my kids’ surname is Phalen. Looks normal enough, but it’s another misspelling! When their ancestor Richard Phelan came to Wisconsin from Kilkenny, Ireland in the 1800s, a census taker recorded their name as Phalen. Most likely it came down to what was probably a thick Irish accent. Since Richard couldn’t read or write, as his children grew up the misspelling stuck. Though, interestingly, it is written as Phelan on Richard’s tombstone.

How do you deal with variations in spelling when you’re searching for your ancestors?

Here are a few tips:

1. Do a surname search and look for all the common variations of your surname. Keep a list of these variations handy as you research your ancestors. If you don’t find an ancestor using one spelling, try the other variations.
2. Use the wild card function when you’re searching. To do this, type in the first two or three letters of the name and then an asterisk (like Ro*). The search will return any surnames that include the letters you typed. You can also use a question mark to replace a single letter if you want more specific variations (like Ph?l?n).
3. Similar to the wild card search, make sure you don’t check any filters that return exact spelling for the surname unless you want that specific spelling. You can actually use this function to pinpoint specific variations of spelling, but block off a chunk of your calendar because it’s time-consuming.

Back to the story of how my grandmother’s maiden name become Roghers…

My great-grandparents, William Rogers and Emilia Wucherpfennig were married in 1902 in a German Lutheran church in Marathon County, Wisconsin. The old German pastor who performed the ceremony spoke with a heavy German accent and pronounced the name Rogers with a rather guttural g.

When he was filling out the marriage record, he asked William how he spelled Rogers. William replied that he didn’t know. The pastor responded, “Then I’ll spell it the way it sounds.” Well, the way it sounded when the pastor said it was “Roghers”. William saw the spelling in print, liked it, and decided to keep it. 

So that’s how my grandmother was born a Roghers instead of a Rogers. If you ever run into anybody named Roghers (especially in southwestern Wisconsin), they’re most likely descended from her brother Hilbert Roghers, making them my cousins. At least surname misspelling makes tracking down relatives easy!

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Misspellings aren’t the only inaccuracies in genealogy. Check out our article on inaccurate family stories and how to use them for research anyway!

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Image Credit:
Header image by Andrys Stienstra from Pixabay
Family files of Gerald and Ruth Dilley
Phalen family photo archives