« Reply #2 on: Monday 02 April 18 11:48 BST (UK) »
I tend to use the same spelling shown on the earliest baptism or marriage record. One of my lines starts off as "Shearen" at the start of the 19th century. Then two brothers move across country with one banch moving inland and still using the "Shearen" surname", but my direct line moved southward when he was 21 and was shown on the census as "Sharring" (obviously his broad dialect dictated the spelling). Thereafter my branch used the spelling "Shearing", presumably by that time education of the poor had become important to the state.
The result is that I have "Sharring AKA Shearing"
Aberdeen: Findlay-Shirras,McCarthy: MidLothian: Mason,Telford,Darling,Cruikshanks,Bennett,Sime, Bell: Lanarks:Crum, Brown, MacKenzie,Cameron, Glen, Millar; Ross: Urray:Mackenzie: Moray: Findlay; Marshall/Marischell: Perthshire: Brown Ferguson: Wales: McCarthy, Thomas: England: Almond, Askin, Dodson, Well(es). Harrison, Maw, McCarthy, Munford, Pye, Shearing, Smith, Smythe, Speight, Strike, Wallis/Wallace, Ward, Wells;Germany: Flamme,Ehlers, Bielstein, Germer, Mohlm, Reupke