A correspondent, John Wolfe, says that he is confused by the name of a daughter of Harman Utterback (Otterbach) and Elizabeth Heimbach. In some places, he sees the name as Elizabeth Katherina and in other places as Ailsey/Alice Katherine. He asks if these are the same person and if so, which one is correct.
In the different areas of Germany, the spelling of given names varies. For example, the name that we would say is Henry may be Henrich or Heinrich. The name we would say is Elizabeth may be Elisabeth or Elisabetha.
Even a simple and very common name such as Hans is sometimes spelled Hannss or Hanss. This name is very confusing as the baptismal name is often Hans but the marriage name may be Johann. (This was the case with my namesake in Germany.) This would be similar to baptizing a child here as Johnny while he would be known in later life as John.
Returning to the original question, Ailsey is a nickname for Elizabeth. Though Ailsey looks more like Alice, it is a nickname in the Nassau-Siegen area for Elisabeth(a).
There are regional variations in the spelling of names. It would be best not to say that any one of the spellings was the correct one. Perhaps Elke or Andreas would like to comment.
Since Mr. Wolfe is not a member of the list here at the present, cousins of his may wish to write him at computerwolf@yahoo.com.
(22 Nov 05)
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.