Common Misspellings



Oh, there is a list of very common misspellings to terms used in relationship with your family history research.

One of the most common yet with also acceptable but confusing spellings is Descendent and Descendant. Note the last three letters can be ‘ent’ or ‘ant’. Both are acceptable in reference to a person descended from a specified person based on an American dictionary. Using an English (Oxford English) dictionary there are slightly different meanings, a descendant being descended from a particular ancestor, and descendent simply descending from an ancestor. So a fine line there. You are a descendant of your grandmother Mary Jones or you are a descendent of the Jones family of Atlanta, GA.

Here are ones that are misspelled. A family name is ‘surname‘, not ‘sir name.

A confusing set of terms is immigrant and emigrant. An immigrant refers coming into someplace, an emigrant is leaving someplace. Another way to look at it: E is for exiting one’s homeland and I is for incoming to another nation. Add to that is migrant, referring to moving.

Misspelled is ‘decent’, which should be descent.

The term ‘copywrite’ should be written ‘copyright‘.

Writing cemetery is the correct way but not using any ‘a’ in it such as ‘cemetary’.

This is found in land deeds and is confusing. The grantor is the one who sells or gives (grants) the land while the grantee is the one who receives.

You are searching your ancestors. Yet, people misspell the term as “ancesters,” “ansesters,” or “ansestors.”

The spellings of geneology and geneaology are NOT the correct version of Genealogy.

Finally, Ancestry (referring to family lineage, pedigree) is the correct spelling of the term, NOT ‘ancestory’.

Related FamilyTree.com Blogs:

Genealogical Terms

Humorous Genealogy Sayings

Gallery of Words

 

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