My Great-Grandmother is Nancy Elizabeth Wright. Her family traces back to the founding of
Nashville, Tennessee where her Great-Grandfather, James Wright died in
1816. In tracing these multiple
generations I have come across many variables of ‘Wright’ in official
documents.
Will of James Wright,
Davidson TN Will Book 7, page 101
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In grade school we learned of Homophones. These words are a
type of homonym that sound alike but have different spellings. When our ancestors spoke to the government
official writing the document they didn’t always proofread (or maybe they
couldn’t read at all) to make sure their surname was spelled correctly.
Wright has several homophones:
Write, Rite, & Right. This
can pose a challenge when searching documents or indexes. Using the ‘Sounds Like’ as a search choice at
Ancestry or other online genealogy sites will sometimes show results for these
spelling variations, but not always.
Another alternative is the Soundex Search. A Soundex is a phonetic algorithm for indexing names by sound, as
pronounced in English. It is a letter
(being the first letter of the name) followed by 3 numbers based on the
phonetic sounds. The soundex for Wright
is W623. So this search would not give
results for documents using ‘Right’ or ‘Rite’.
This document is the 1836 Tax list for Davidson County, Tennessee. Martha ‘Right', the widow of James, is
listed as are her sons George, Simeon, and John. This document would not have been found using
a Soundex Search for ‘Wright’.
And just when you think you have covered all the possible
variations to a surname, a wildcard will show up in the mix. Sallie Wright, the daughter of James, married
George Heard in 1822. Their son John
Vincent (now spelled) Hurd’s death certificate is shown below.
The maiden name of his mother is recorded as ‘Rice’. It does sound a little like Wright.
When researching, take time to think about all possible spellings
your ancestor’s name may have been recorded.
Find out how it may have been spelled or pronounced in his native
language, if not English. Never
automatically discount a document because your ancestor didn’t spell his
surname the same as you do now. Check
the index for all possible spellings and verify based on the document content
as to whether it pertains to your family.
Surnames can have multiple spellings even within the same document.
Nancy
Elizabeth Wright Slaughter (1883-1963)
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