Livingstone or Livingston Spelling?

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Canadian Livingstone
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Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:00 pm

Livingstone or Livingston Spelling?

Post by Canadian Livingstone »

Virginia Adams a recent visitor to our forum has asked about the significance of the Livingstone or Livingston spelling. To my way of thinking no matter what the preferred spelling might have been by those architects of the name change from highland Maconlea/Maclea to Livingstone/Livingston, ultimately personal preference I think has motivated our people to go with one spelling or the other. Certainly connections to old highland family and pride of Dr. Livingstone would influenced some to maintain the e, but the results I found after checking all of the Livingstone/Livingston census entries parish by parish throughout Scotland for several censuses in the 19th century were quite surprising to me. The preference seemed to be overwhelmingly even in the highlands for the Livingston spelling. I included a number of census records as means of comparison and make certain that it was a consistent trend. Here are the number of Livingstones and Livingstons that i found in the 1841,1851,1861 and 1871 Census records. I dont know how many were missed during the census and if this is a completely accurate representation but I hope that it gives one a pretty good idea of an approximate number of those with these names that were censused and what proportion used that name. I also realize that some of the names could be the spelling of the census taker and not the person censused, but hopefully that does not throw off the accuracy of this information too much. I should have probably included Levingston and some othe spelling variations but the exercize at this point was to study the amount and distribution of Livingstones/Livingstons in Scotland. Livingstones/Livingstons in th Scottish Census Livingstone
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vkadams
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Joined: Tue Jul 14, 2009 3:07 pm

Livingstone or Livingston Spelling?

Post by vkadams »

Very interesting indeed.
Richard Hartman
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Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 11:54 pm

Livingstone or Livingston Spelling?

Post by Richard Hartman »

I am finding that the spelling of names is often controlled by the person actually writing the record.
Canadian Livingstone
Posts: 2770
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:00 pm

Livingstone or Livingston Spelling?

Post by Canadian Livingstone »

Hi Richard, Welcome to the forum. I have heard that Scotland had a better educational system in the 19th century than elsewhere in the British Isles. I was surprised how well cousins of my Livingston ancestor from Islay could write a letter in English,but I am sure others struggled with the reading and writing of that language and for some being more comfortable with gaelic. I agree with you that on the census form you would expect the spelling to be to a large extent how the census taker thought it should be spelled and that there is no guarantee that he got it right. I have in the course of my family research seems some terrible examples of spelling surnames some of them not even remotely resembling the correct spelling by any stretch of the imagination. regards, Donald
Canadian Livingstone
Posts: 2770
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:00 pm

Livingstone or Livingston Spelling?

Post by Canadian Livingstone »

Please note these 1841, 1851, 1861, and 1871 Scottish census numbers represent Highland Livingstones and Livingstons in the County of Argyll only. Sorry I did not mention that in my previous message. A bad cold was clogging up my brain. Sorry about that. I was curious as to why the Livingston spelling was appearing in the Argyll Census records so often and I was trying to see determine the numbers for Livingston and Livingstone in the Argyll census. regards, Donald
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