Researchers studying Germans in America have learned to be extremely suspicious of the spelling or the conversion of German names into other forms. One cannot trust the index in a book. Just recently, I was reading deed abstracts for Orange County, Virginia, and encountered the name Finkt. It was a bit unusual but I was helped by a knowledge of the particular physical area where I recognized some of the neighbors. Also, I was helped by the first names, John Paul. The person is our Germanna citizen, John Paul Vaught, which is sometimes given as Vogt.
Reading patent abstracts for land in the 1730 time period, I noticed the name Plunkepee, which occurred three times. It was a name I hadn't seen before. I was struck by the first names, Paul, Nicholas, and Matthew, which I recognized as the same as the first names of the three Blankenbaker brothers who came in 1717. The area in which the Plunkepee land was located was also the same as the Blankenbaker land. One has to conclude that Plunkepee is just a variation of Blankenbaker.
Peggy Shomo Joyner, in her book "Abstracts of Virginia's Northern Neck Warrant and Surveys," volume 3, suggests in the index that the following are identical: Iler, Ilor, Eiler, Eyler, Isler, Oiler, Oyler, Ayler. This family is generally known as Aylor today. At Hebron Church the name was written as Oler, Öhler, and Aylor.
Perhaps readers have similar examples to recount. More to the point perhaps, how should one overcome the spelling distortions which are found? The task is not easy. Even the combined research efforts of many people over several generations have failed to detect equivalences.
One point which I make is to never trust an index. There is no substitute for reading the text and pronouncing the names and studying the context. This is how I found that Vaught could be spelled Finkt. In this case, as with the Plunkepees, the context was especially important. In some cases the sound is the important characteristic. For example, saying Carehaut aloud might make you suspicious that the name could be Gerhard. In this latter case, the first names were important clues, as four of the five first names were known Gerhards or Garretts. All of these examples are drawn from our Germanna families.
Here is a problem from an early will of a Germanna man where the spelling was not the best. The name of an individual is given as Coller. Who was this individual? If you fail to detect immediately who this was, don't feel bad. In the last few months, his identity has been found, which is probably the first time in two hundred years that it has been known.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.