It’s time for another 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks post! Since this week’s topic is about spelling, I thought I would talk about the spelling variations for one of my lifelong research projects.

I’ve been researching John Goodwin Hawksley and his sisters – Mary Hawksley, Sarah Brown Hawksley, and Margaret Elizabeth Hawksley – and trying to find their father since 1993. When I married my now ex-husband that year, people thought it was a great last name to have. Kind of unique, memorable, flowed well with my name (Wendy Lee Hawksley), and very British. You might think the name would be exempt from variations except maybe Hoxley, but that turned out not to be the case!

In fact, I’ve never found any of the Hawksleys in this family spelled as Hoxley. However, I’ve found them as Hawkesley and Oxley in marriage records, and Oxla in the 1851 Canadian Census. Surprisingly, I have not found a connection between this family and the Oxley family of Cumberland, Nova Scotia… Yet, anyway! Perhaps there is one back in England at some point.

However, I quickly learned that I should check a minimum of three different places in the alphabet when searching indices for this name – H, O, and, I figure to be safe, A. Though I haven’t found any variations beginning with A, I don’t want to discount the possibility of the name being found as Awksley or something along those lines.

So this week’s 52 Ancestors topic is a good reminder that what you see isn’t always what you get. Even if you think a name is straightforward, consider all the possibilities. Your Smith might be Smyth sometimes!