Monday, March 28, 2011

Catching Mistranscriptions While You Read

I'm reading Mark Kurlansky's The Food of a Younger Land at the moment. It is a combination of history and cookbook. The author basically looked at WPA-produced manuscripts that never reached the intended final form of a book to be entitled America Eats. [Actually another author utilized the same manuscripts the year before this one was written to write a book by that title.] Because the manuscripts were in very rough form and intended for an editor to revise later, some of the entries are more readable than others. I was delighted to discover that Eudora Welty had written some of the items for Mississippi. Her entries are very readable; however, Kurlansky must have as much difficulty reading handwriting as many genealogists. Welty was describing foods across the state of Mississippi. She included mentions of a couple of persons from my home county of Monroe. When I saw that Kurlansky had transcribed one of the names as "Lubb" instead of "Tubb," I knew that he was having difficulty deciphering Welty's handwriting.

The entry was for a "Mrs. C. L. Lubb." This would have been Mrs. Carlos Lovol Tubb whose maiden name was Verlie Cordelia Ritter. Her parents were Thomas Halon Ritter and Viola Louise Towery. I have six children recorded for the marriage of Carlos and Verlie. Her husband's parents were Alphonso "Fonzy" Tubb and Mary Virginia Flynt.

This particular family is not related to me by blood, but I have information on them because of the interconnectedness of the Tubb family with one of my families.