Posted By:	Jane Wheaton
	Email:
	Subject:	Re: the ways to mis-spell "Newman"
	Post Date:	March 10, 2009 at 15:22:13
	Message URL:	http://genforum.genealogy.com/newman/messages/5853.html
	Forum:	Newman Family Genealogy Forum
	Forum URL:	http://genforum.genealogy.com/newman/

I haven't searched for Newman, but I have had some very creative interpretations using Ancestry.com. Sometimes due to really bad handwriting or very dim originals, sometimes who knows why. I have had good luck by just using three or four letters of the surname followed by an '*'. For instance, Newm* would return: Newman, Newmen, Newmon, Newmin, etc. plus a variety of others that probably would be some other surname. Sometime this just returns too many to follow but if you have a birth date or location you can use that to narrow the results. Sometime the letter 'e' gets transcribed as 'a', sometime even 'o'. I would start with Newm*, then substitute the 'e' with every other reasonable vowel. You might try flipping the given name and surname. I found my Thomas Gibbs in 1830 Hancock Co. KY transcribed as surname THOMAS, given name Gibbs. The 'W' could have been transcribed a 'uu' or 'vv'. I found one of my Carroll ancestors indexed as 'Canoll' because the r's had been written loosely and spread apart. This suggestion is what I consider the last resort and is really only useful if you have a some clue about where they might be. You can look through page by page. Tedious to say the least, but I have found things this way. I'm pretty sure that's how I found Thomas Gibbs in 1830. Finally, even though you may be positive that your person should be in a certain spot, there may have been pages that were damaged and unable to be transcribed. Not much you can do about that. I hope you find something useful here. Good luck! Jane