Old or modern name spellings.

Question

I am working on the Buxtons of Coggeshall who bump into the Paycocke family so I would like to connect them. The problem is that the Paycockes have all been set up as Peacock (which is a known variant and the modern adoption). Paycocke has the greatest use though. The National Trust has Paycocke house, their home and Coggeshall Museum likewise uses Paycocke. The line ended in 1580 so using Peacock seems incorrect. There is also a Peacock coat of arms used which is probably modern. Any views or advise appreciated. I will contact the profile manager once I have some idea what to do. Peacock-2603 is at the top of the list.

Answer 1

On WikiTree, we generally operate on a "their conventions, not ours" basis. This is how surnames develop; as the spellings differentiate, they create entirely separate names. In these situations, we will tend to approach the spellings based on how documents from the era spelt the name. In this case, if all of the documents for Thomas "Peacock" spell the surname as Paycocke then this is the appropriate spelling, and visa versa.