No matter what any of your more senior relatives have told you, your surname "hasn't always been spelled that way"!
(1) Illiterate ancestors: Many of our ancestors couldn't read or write. How could they know how to spell their surname? The early records may have a variety of spellings. The first literate generation may have used none of those. [Fossitt, Fossett, Facett, Fositt, etc. became Faucett.]
(2) Name changes: Some folks tweaked the spelling of their surnames. Prefixes were dropped to make the name "more American." Suffixes may have been dropped for the same reason. Some folks translated the European name to English. Others added a letter or subtracted a letter at the end [Smythe became Smyth.] Still others completely changed their names; some more than once.
(3) Indexing: Census enumerators may have misspelled a surname. In that case, the name may not show up when you search Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org. [Crousore indexed as Crown.] The indexer may have made a transcription error.
(4) Other records: Clerks and other officials frequently wrote what they heard. That opens the door for all sorts of possibilities concerning regional or local dialects, poor listeners, etc. You also have transcription errors [a for o, m = nn, etc.] The possibilities are endless! Don't forget some folks had poor handwriting!
(5) Sibling rivalries: Every now and then you have siblings who change the spelling or settle on a variation. This goes along with #2 above. Seth Mahurin dropped the "Ma" while one of his brothers didn't. The Prall bothers who settled in Hunterdon Co., NJ during the 1730s decided on "Prall," but their brother who settled in Bucks Co., PA opted for "Praul."
There's always the possibility of a spelling variation. Think inside, outside and beyond the box. Get creative. My Cawby research turned up about 60 spelling variations. Another Cawby researcher found over 100.
CHECK FOR EVERY SPELLING VARIATION YOU CAN THINK OF - THEN TRY FOR A FEW MORE!!!!
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