tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3533717770805440813.post1733283037790985153..comments2024-03-27T08:47:53.648-07:00Comments on Nutfield Genealogy: Surname Saturday ~ Ratchford of Massachusetts and Nova ScotiaHeather Wilkinson Rojohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704949156266722016noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3533717770805440813.post-52192970370465887802020-10-17T09:56:58.344-07:002020-10-17T09:56:58.344-07:00From one came many. Names and number. Have Fun. lo...From one came many. Names and number. Have Fun. lol.King Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01914293806863189862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3533717770805440813.post-72446430955270655862013-09-02T07:22:51.719-07:002013-09-02T07:22:51.719-07:00As I stated above, the name was spelled both ways ...As I stated above, the name was spelled both ways in the Bridgewater Vital Records. It is a spelling difference, and was probably Ratchford all along. The wedding record between James RADSFORD and Margaret Balls on 26 December 1738 is spelled one way, and the son's birth records between 1739 and 1752 are spelled RATCHFORD. Same family, two spellings at a time when spelling was not uniform for any family records. Heather Wilkinson Rojohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17704949156266722016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3533717770805440813.post-19020834475665167262013-08-31T13:06:50.744-07:002013-08-31T13:06:50.744-07:00Thanks for the fine research of a long ancestral c...Thanks for the fine research of a long ancestral chain. <br /><br />From my long experience in amateur genealogy, I find interesting the claim of Radsford to Ratchford, for which I am still curious as to details. I was aware of some Ratchford colonial instances in Massachusetts and others in Pennsylvania and the Carolinas.<br /><br />Having had some absurd claims on evolution of names and some believably possible claims, I am a little worried of the acceptance of the name as Radsford and a seeming evolution into Ratchford. More natural would be a Ratchford family having their name interpreted occasionally as Radsford by scriveners.<br /><br />That seems more likely than a Radsford family switching to Ratchford.<br /><br />I encountered this early with the claim of a Hurst family moving south after a century in Virginia and well-established as Hurst there, and dropping it totally and switching to Hearst in the location two states south.<br /><br />It may make billionaires pleased to claim a Virginia origin, but this their southern Hearst cousin recognizes that going from s simple spelling to a strange spelling (Hearst) after a century of the simple spelling appears to be convenience/desires of 20th and 21st century descendants and far removed from scholarship.<br /><br />Here is clearly different, but the situation may just be analogous and it is possible these folks were always Ratchfords, rather than as summarized by the patriarch's selected surname above.<br /><br />[As hard as it is to accept in the 21st century, the spellings in marriage records were as flawed as anywhere else in the times where spelling was not clear from some i.d. in your wallet; so with no details and only past experience I vote for the name being always as Ratchford to the family, subject to change with convincing details to the contrary.]Kin Mapperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17685634742942805149noreply@blogger.com