[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] surname variations

[Reiner Kerp]

Hello Kristen

> I have come across various spelling of (P)Feifert from various sources.
> How am I to know which ones are true variations and which are just
> missed spelling on the part of the clergy or clerk that entered the
> information? Where else can I go to determine this?

to find the reason for a misspelling is nearly impossible. The ways from one 
spelling to another are too long and too complicated. As you follow the 
discussions here, you recognize this being one of the biggest problems.
Many variants of names you may find at:

http://www.sggee.org/AlternateSurnamesDatabase.pdf

but these are only the proven one´s.
You may find many, many cases, where names were "translated", misread ore 
misunderstood (audible misunderstanding caused by local/personal dialect). 
Another reason may be the increasing ability for reading and writing. My 
favorit for this is the replacement of the "I" by "E" in names like LES(KE) 
and WELK(E). Both of them are very probably misspellings of the Polish "lis" 
(fox/FUCHS) and "wilk" (wolf/WOLF).
The only recommendation I can give, is to extract as many records as 
possible COMPLETELY!!!!!!! Parents-, whitnesses- and godparents names and 
the places where the live or their professions often give very good hints to 
recognize individuals being identical (in a single marrige-record I found a 
single last name in three!!! variants).
As you reach the time, where no last names are given (often already before 
1750 and still later in jewish-genealogy), doing so is the only way to 
continue. In Germany a genealogy without whitnesses- and godparents names is 
not accepted as being "state of the art".

Best regards,

Reiner