19 January 2015

DeMoss or DeMofs: Is That an "s" or an "f?"

In old style English script what was meant to be a double "s" looks like an "f." The end result is that frequently a name like DeMoss gets transcribed as "DeMofs," DeMof," etc. While it's my personal belief that it should be transcribed as "DeMoss," the fact remains that many transcriptions include the "f."

And if they do, Soundex searches for DeMoss and wildcard searches for "DeMos*" won't find your DeMoss ancestors listed as "DeMof." 

1 comment:

  1. My first experience with the double S was with a census record where there were many people with the last name of BASS. It appeared as "BAP" and I had never heard of such a name!

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