| |
Due to a variety of reasons there are many documented variations of the spelling the surname which is pronounced "BAYTEE/BAYDEE" or "BEETEE/BEEDEE". Some seem to be more common than others depending upon the origin of the specific individual. Before surname spelling became more standarized in the 19th/20th centuries, they were often spelled as they "sounded" to the person writing the surname. Complicating this is the fact that many of our ancestors were illiterate and thus the only record of the spelling of their surname comes down to us from court clerks, ministers, census enumerators, attorneys and other officials...some of whom were not that far from illiteracy also. For example, read Meriweather Lewis' journal of the Lewis and Clark expedition. He had been Jefferson's Secretary for many years and today probably couldn't pass a 3rd grade spelling test.
We have many examples of where researchers "missed" significant information because they didn't search for the various spellings. Even our more frequent spellings of BAITY, BATY, BEATTIE, BEATTY, BEATY, BETTY, BETY, etc. provide a wide range in any alphabetical listing.
The following list is by no means exhaustive, but should provide guidelines for the researcher. Many of the following variations are evidenced in the 1850 U. S. Census records. Some of these are most probably typically the spelling for a different family. For example, the Beede family out of 1700s New England has a migration pattern from England, unlike most of our Beattys at the time. Occasionally, however, one of our Beattys is spelled as Beede in some of the records. In Lineage three we missed for a long time the record of one of our ancestors because the marriage documentation listed him as Bettis. We have learned that to limit one's research to a spelling or two is at best naive and usually will result in missing some important information.
— Ray Beaty, October, 1998
|
