There are two ways to spell Douglas and Douglass. Can anyone tell me why?

Question:One of those names is from an ancestor so I am curious.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: One of those names is from an ancestor so I am curious.

Your ancestor was probably recorded at least once each way. If he were mine I wouldn't ovelook "Duglas", either. Names are not in a dictionary, the way "Mississippi" is. Every person, minister, clerk and registrar took their best shot. Some missed.

My grandfather Wilken's family spent half their life telling people "That's 'E-N', no 'S', please" but they are down as "Wilkins" 20% of the time. My friend has a Matthews line. One of her ancestors is down as Matthews, Mathews and "Mathis" - all on the same document.

I say the old language was updated and lots of words and names where shortened. Douglass used to be the old proper way but because the change in time they eliminated the last s because of the way the name sounded.

As you go back in your family tree and find actual records, you are going to find variations in spelling of many names, givev and surnames. Literacy wasn't as common in times past as it is today. Sometimes it depended on how a clerk wrote a name in a document. Also you have to understand what one person says and the other person hears can often be 2 different things.

Actually I don't believe they saw spelling the same name the same way as very important in years gone by.

Europeans as a rule did not have surnames until the last melennium. The Normans introducted them for taxation purposes. They were based on being the son of someone, i.e., Johnson or Jones for son of John, Williamson, Williams,Wilson for son of William. An occupation, Smith, Fisher, Miller, Baker, Taylor, Wright, Carpenter, Clark(clerk) etc. or some charateristic about a person, Small, Stout, Short , Sharp,
Black(meaning black hair. We had someone on this board a few days ago asking about Ballard which was a derogatory name for a bald headed person.

By the time they got through taking or being assigned a surname, legitimate sons of the same man could each have a different surname and still each shared their surname with others with whom they were not related.

Imagine for a minute.. you lived 100 yrs ago, never went to school, didn't have a dictionary or computer.. but you still knew who grandpa was. The local records were entered by other persons, who put what they thought to be right.
OK? Let go of today's standards, to find records made in the past. Spelling doesn't mean a whole lot. In genealogy, the goal is finding family connections.
Every time I explain this, I am looking over my shoulder for an English teacher. Most of whom may never have looked for their ancestors.

Names have spelling variations for several reasons. Most likely because names evolve with time, and with migration. Even English itself has evolved from Old English to our current version. With that some families changed, and others did not. Further, most people were not literate 100 years ago less aone 200, and there was no absolute firm way to spell a any name. It was pronounced. Dictionaryies were not even in existance util the late 18th century, and developed over the centuries.

For my family the main example is Joanna Zelinski, although the problem exists with all my lines. Joann was born Yanina in birth cert, Joanna on baptism, but in census listed as Jennie, and on her children's birth certs as Jeanne, and on her hospital admission and death cert as Jean. Her father Adam, came to america as Zielinsky, and used Zeilinskey, Zeilinsky, Zilinsky in his signature (he was literate). His children, and wife after his death used Zelinski, and his son changed his name go Greene (Zelinski means Green), and his other son used Zelinski but that son's children changed their name to Zelinsky after reading the papers Adam signed.