Help with editing a surname

Question

Mathieson-99 made a mistake in his second marriage to Bathgate-82 in the spelling of our surname.  It is now legal see Mathieson-99 profile I have scanned and posted a letter from General Register Office for Scotland.  Prior to that our family surname is Matheson.  Anyone after his second marriage is Mathieson.  Whilst I have been updating  many profiles with information I have.  There are at least 20 or more that need the surnname at birth changed from ie to e in the spelling.  When you edit the surname at Birth it seems to create a whole new profile and merges which I don't want to do if possible.  Cause it means hundreds of records with kids parents etc.  Help please

Comments

Hi Gail, I really cannot tell you exactly what to do about this spelling problem. I do know that the spelling should be as it was in the original records.

My suggestion is to go back to your question and add tags, Surname and Spelling, Mathieson, and Matheson. That will draw more attention to your question.

---

thankyou Kristina

Answer 1

The "merge" is a technical necessity - you won't lose any records that you already added.

Comments

Omg, This will take ages to fix up.  Thanks Gillian.

Answer 2

If the spelling of the name was changed at some time then you should enter the new spelling in the field for Current Last Name. You should not change the Last Name At Birth. That should remain as it was on the original birth registration or baptism record.

It sounds as though the situation you have is similar to one I have on my own tree where a whole generation of relatives were baptised as Cracket, but buried as Crackett.

Comments

Thanks Lynda.  The spelling of the names that need to be changed are the birth surnames as someone created them incorrectly and I adopted their profiles