Attached is a screen shot from a passenger manifest. I'm interested in the middle entry. To me, it looks like the destination is New York, Phoniss Milli. Obviously that makes no sense. Anyone else want to give it a shot? Thanks in advance.
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Re: Deciphering a Place Name
Hi,
There is a Phoenix Mills, NY. The person writing the name may have been unfamiliar with the location and spelled it phonetically based upon the way it was pronounced to him.
Alan -
Re: Deciphering a Place Name
Or, the “ss” is actually an “x” and the writer was closer to the correct spelling than it first appeared.
AlanComment
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Re: Deciphering a Place Name
For anybody with a Facebook profile, I can highly recommending using place-based Facebook groups to help interpret bad handwriting, faded images, or any other type of hard-to-figure out writing or name. They always have members who live in the area (or at least the state) who will recognize a mis-spelled place name, a cemetery name, etc. They will also chime in to offer ideas on what a surname is on an unreadable census page.
Many U.S. counties have their own Groups, plus there are ones for states, regions, etc. It's amazing the kind of help you can get just by asking and uploading the image that you can't figure out. I give presentations on "Facebook for Genealogy (Even If You Hate Facebook)" and this type of crowd-sourcing is one of the major benefits I tout.
For a huge list, regularly updated, with more than 13,000 FB pages and groups listed (with table of contents), go here:
and click the link in the third paragraph.Comment
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Re: Deciphering a Place Name
Alan, I think we have a winner! Thanks so much!
And Susan, thank you for the suggestion! I'll definitely put that into my bag of tricks!Comment
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