Hello Everyone,
Partly because I have been trying various spellings of our K-L-R
surname to find my husband's Ggrandfather's land record on the BLM
site, I have been looking, once again, at the many spelling variations,
that we run across, for this name.
Let us, for this particular discussion, assume that the name was KÖHLER
at sometime in the past. (Ours was.)
One way that a clerk might have written the name is KOHLER. From this,
we can use the common sense <VBG> of genealogy to look at some of
the possible spelling changes. Let's go back to the 101 class. Any
consonant might have changed for a "look-a-like" or a "sound-a-like".
And, of course, any vowel accidentally, or on the part of a clerk trying
to be efficient & correct, could have been changed for another.
So, for example, we might go this way, through a set of
changes: Kohler = Koller = Coller
And, then, many times vowels were added for various reasons:
Kohler = Koller = Coller = Collier
(I am not suggesting here that COLLIER is always/ever an alternate
spelling. Just that it is entirely possible that the name could turn up
spelled this way.)
Similarly, we might have a chain looking like:
Kohler = Rohler = Ronler
because of the sometimes look-a-like letters (in cursive writing) of K/R
and h/n. I have not happen to run across the name Ronler, but we must
not rule this out when we are searching.
And then, there is: Kohler = Koller = Roller
I think that we have even discussed this spelling in the past on
one or more of these K-L-R lists.
Kohler = Cohler = Coller = Collar = Callar = Kallor = Kaylor
= Kayler = Kailler = ???
Kohler = Kahler = Kaler = Caler = Caller = Oaller = Gallar =
Galiar = ???
Kohler = Rohlar = Rallar = Roller = ???
This is just a small sampling of the many, many changes that *may*
have occurred from one clerk to another and from one document to
another. I have not found the time to find each and every one of
the different spellings to check on whether all of them are 'valid'
spellings of names used today. **But, I do know that even in today's
world.... and even though we slowly and distinctly spell the name
KOHLER --which we happen to pronounce like COALER-- for people,
we very often get COHLER and COLER. (I even had a person come
up with GULER once... **after** I had spelled it for her more than once.)
Discussions welcomed. This is fun stuff.
Leslie (Bridges) Kohler - List Admin for most of the K-L-R lists