Spelling?

This is a blog dedicated to compling primary source documents on the Reneau family. But that's not as simple as it seems, for many reasons, one of which being that there are such a lot of different spellings of the name within the family. Take an "R", follow it with any vowel or two, and maybe another consonant, then put an "n" or two, then pretty much any combination of vowels and consonants and you have Reneau as it is spelled in America!

My default will be "Reneau" as that is how my great-grandmother spelled it, but I will preserve the spelling of the name in any document that I find it in. Here's a partial list of variants: Reno, Renno, Rennoe, Renoe, Renow, Rennow, Rayno, Raynoo, Raynaud, Reyno, Renau, Reano, Renaud, Reneaud, Reynaud, Regnauld, Regnault, Regnaut, Regnaud, Renaugh, Renaut, Renner, Reneauw, Reneaux, Renaux, Ranew, Renou, Renoult, Rennols, Reignolds, Reynolds, Reignolds, Rennols, Renaugh, Raynaut, Reynaut, Reinaut, Rinaldi, Rinor, Rignnow, Reynaud, Runner, Runnels, Ryno, Rynard, etc.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Fun to see the handwritten text of this document



This document is called a Crown Bounty, which shows an intent to emigrate to a colony, along with money granted to do so, from a fund collected to aid distressed Frenchmen.  It is dated September 8, 1687.  The fabulous thing here is that it lists the names of the females - so hard to find at this time in history!  The confusing thing is that it lists "Lewis Reynaud of Angemois, his wife and 8 children" then below appears to list only four children.  Several theories have been floated for this, but the current one in popularity is that Benjamin is their son, and his wife Mary and daughters Marianne and Mary are also being counted in the first total of "children."  (Sorry I cut off the total on the right column, but the math is easy to do.)

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