SPELLING VARIANTS ON THE LEVALLEY NAME

Updated May 27, 2012
 

    Census-takers and county clerks often couldn't spell.  When they did the writing, you will frequently find the LeValley name garbled.  Moreover, modern indexers occasionally mistake the old-fashioned L for an S.  Typists sometimes try to indicate the capital V by throwing an extra space in--especially when compiling lists in all capitals (such as telephone books).  Some of the early computerized print indexes alphabetized the spaced Le Valley before Lea. As a result, a thorough search should include all of these possibilities:

La Valley
Le Valley
LaValley
LeValley
Savalley
Sevalley

On rare occasions (such as the LDS index of the 1880 census), the name might even be indexed under Valley.

    Most of the censuses between 1880 and 1930 were indexed according to the Soundex system.  The code for LeValley is L-140.  (Depending on which state you live in, you might recognize that same code in your driver's license.)  It will send you through the likely spelling variations--plus a whole lot of unrelated La Bell, Lovell, and Loibl families.

    Computer searches get complicated when there is a space in the name.  "Le Valley" may get you thousands of examples where the word "valley" occurs (quite often in addresses).  "Le+Valley" can narrow the search some, but not enough.  And because computer searches are spelling-specific, in addition to the spellings listed above, you may need to try various endings such as LeValey, LeVally, LeVallee, etc.  If you are searching a list limited to surnames, and wild cards are allowed, you may be able to substitute an asterisk near the end.

    The rest of this page deals with the way people spelled their own names.
 

LeValley to Levalley
    New England schoolteachers apparently thought the capital V was a foreign affectation, and beat it out of their pupils.  Many descendants of Peter at Warwick RI eventually spelled their name without the second capital.  Those branches who left New England never succumbed.
    Recently, some rigid computer programs automatically capitalize only the first letter of any name.

LaValley to LeValley
    In the late nineteenth century, Canadian workers migrated to the textile mills around Warwick RI, where the LeValley spelling was firmly established.  A few of them went along with the change.  See Charles F. and Alexander on the list of various families.

LeValley to LaValley
    In four known cases, descendants of Peter quit trying to correct all of the officious people who told them their name ought to be spelled LaValley:
1.  Descendants of David (Peleg's line) at Hancock NY around 1900 listend to a teacher of French who convinced them they didn't know how to spell their own name.  Some switched to LaValley and others to LaValle.  Once there were many, but nearly all have now died out.
2.  Descendants of Martin (Cook's line) at Wilkes-Barre PA also switched around 1900.  Only about 15 are living.
3.  Descendants of George W. (line of Peter Jr.) in Texas and Oklahoma since the 1850s.  There have been about 30 of them, but they were generally the only LaValleys in Oklahoma.  The problem in this case was frontier illiteracy.  George spelled his name with an X.
4.  Descendants of William A. (Benjamin's line) in Arkansas since the 1950s.  There are fewer than half-a-dozen so far.

LeValley to LaValle
    See #1 above.

Valley to LeValley
    This happened at Ionia MI.  See Joseph in the list of various families.

LeVally to LeValley
    Some members of the Xenia bunch (especially those who passed through Ionia MI) switched to this spelling.  There are probably more than a hundred; they seem scattered through the various branches of the family.

LeVallee to LaVallee and LeValley
    The Channel Islands spelling was LeVallee.  Some descendants of Daniel at Valcartier, Quebec stayed there and eventually adopted the popular Canadian spelling.  Those who migrated to the U.S. adopted the American spelling.

Paquet dit LaVallee to LaValley and LeValley
    Isaac Paquet dit LaVallee of Lucon, France settled at Isle-de-Orleans, Quebec in 1665.  (Dit names are a French-Canadian descriptive appendage added to the surname--in this case, Paquet--to distinguish a person from others with the same names.  Sometimes--as in this case--the dit name eventually became the surname.)  In 1853, some descendants moved to the area of Champlaine NY, where they used the LaValley spelling.  Others of this line moved to Albert Lea WI and Burr Oak IA, where they appear in the Laura Ingalls Wilder stories.   Occasional LeValley spellings seem to be errors by census takers or other
officials.
    (If this is your family, you are looking in the wrong place.  You need to join the LaValley list at RootsWeb.  You can also find much information on this family by going to
http://home.metrocast.net/~alavallee.   To trace backward from the American families, start with the LaValley spellings.)

Return to the various LeValley families.

Return to the LeValley home page.