Standard Spelling of Names?

I have bored many complete strangers with this diatribe before, but I have to keep REPEATING it to myself (like saying my prayers) so that I keep the faith.

That is: Before social security, there was NO standard spelling of names. Therefore, if I don't continually search for variations on the name (even I believe that two names might have different sources (like Haughney & Haughey AND Dooling & Dooley & Dolan)), I WON'T find my family (unless I am VERY lucky).

Along with there being NO standard spelling, even if my family were readers & writers (educated that is) AND had their OWN standard spelling of their names, most frequently when you see a written name (church records, census, immigration records, etc) my family member DID NOT write his/her name. It was TOLD to someone else, who wrote down what HE heard.

Unless my ancestor was as wordy as I am, when asked his name & he told them "Dooling" AND spelled it "D_O_O_L_I_N_G", the writer might have just HEARD "Dowling" and wrote it down "D_O_W_L_I_N_G" or WHATEVER he 'heard'.

And this does not take into account that most of the time I am not looking at the original records, so I am relying on what it appears to be to the transcriber (and of course, we know how POOR the readability of the original records are).

After 1860 (or something like that), they started keeping civil records in Ireland & you can birth/death records. I have seen where the interpretor of those records listed the father's last name as DOWLING & the son's last name as DOOLING. Probably because the handwriting was poor & that is the way it LOOKED. I have heard of situations where sons changed their surnames, but I doubt that they did that at the time of their birth.

Sorry I go on so long, but you know how 'converts' are. For so long, I spent 90% of my time looking for D_O_O_L_I_N_G & for the most part, ignored any Dowling, Dooley, etc record. I just need to keep reminding myself to broaden my horizons.

Like the old joke about the prod in 'Nordon Iron' who converted to a papist after marrying Bridget. To get himself used to changing religions, they told him to repeat "I am not a protestant, I am catholic" over & over to himself. So when they found him at the barbecue cooking a steak on Friday, he was repeating the phrase: "you are not a steak, you are a fish".

I need to keep saying the above to convince myself!

Jay

PS - Why I didn't convert earlier, I will never know. Like James Bond, who always introduced himself as "Bond... James Bond", I have always responded to questions about my name as "Dooling" "D_O_O_L_I_N_G". I knew that if I didn't spell it out, it wouldn't be written down correctly. So why did I spend so much time only looking for D_O_O_L_I_N_G in records, I will never know.