The worst surnames to search for?

[oldcrone]

At the end of the day, you rue the common names in your family history (eg Smith anywhere, Davies in Wales).

But the more unusual names like Crone and Boys, you think will be easy-peasy, but of course, these are the names which will be mispelled on the original censuses, or mistranscribed by Ancestry!

Clare (or my new name Clara - mistranscribed by the GRO!)

[MarieC]

Martin, particularly Mary Martin.  I have three in my own family alone.  There are absolutely zillions out there!  But far too many of any Martin name I put in.  (At least I don't get rude stuff up, I suppose!!  Gotta be grateful for small mercies!)

MarieC

[nutkin]

I think I am the only peson in the world looking for these surnames:

Rockebrandt
Borgwardt
Torborg

 (The Full name is: Melsine Wilhelmina Rockebrandt Torborg)  Yickes!!!!!!!!!!!!

[prozac]

My nans real father, who died when she was a baby, was called Thomas Smith - we do not have his wedding certificate and we know nothing about him.  Trying to search for a death of Thomas Smith between 1917-1920 in the West Midlands is crazy - we don't know if he died because of the war, because of that flu thing after the war, due to natural causes, nothing, but it's not going to be easy until we get the wedding certificate I guess!  I dread tracing his family!
There is also Smith on my fathers side aswell.

My surname is O'Driscoll, my Irish ancestors come from Dublin, Swords and Cork - I'm not sure how hard that is going to be to trace yet...

The furthest ancestors I have are Adams and Burton (I love that combination ) and the Scott family from Sutton In Ashfield, apparently there were many Scotts there! 

[Headbanger Veron]

Mine is ELLESON - yes, not ELLISON - because everyone, including census enumerators, scribes at the GRO - and even present day doctors and dentists - think it's spelt wrong and "correct" it 

Veron

[wheeldon]

My worst name is Stewart, no disrespect to our American cousins but they completetly block the net up with talks about DNA testing - they all want to be related to royalty.  It makes it a nightmare to do searches.

[brigcs]

I have to include the surname Calland-Scoble in your list. Soemtimes I'm hunting for Calland, sometimes Scoble, Sometimes Callands, Sometimes well quite frankly anything that looks like Calland-Scoble. It is a nightmare!

Brigcs

[erthomas]

My worst name to search is Yonker.  I think I need to learn french in order to ever find this line    Baggett has proven difficult too

[Sooziecats]

On the other hand, uncommon surnames mean that no other so-and-so is searching for it, and you're on your own!

meles

..........and the bally things are almost always mis-spelled or mis-transcribed 

How true - I have even found Wanklyn transcribed as Waukling.  No wonder I missed them first time round.  It would be nice to find someone else who is researching my family - still at least I get to be the one to tell all to the family the gossip

Sue B