Joseph,

I have found the same problem with ancestry.com and have gone to their page reserved for making corrections. I complained and I have yet to see the corrections made. There are several misspellings by transcribers. For example, my great grandfather Mingo Adams is listed in one census as born in Alaska. The actual census page shows "ArK" as the place of birth. This means Arkansas to me.

I do not change the spelling when I find names spelled differently on the actual census page (or in any record). I copy it as spelled in the record. For example,
I have found my grandfather Benjamin Stewart and family listed as Stewart, Stuart, Steward, and Stward. They were in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Illinois at different times. I have also found them as white.

They may have been following available work. However, after reading some letters that belonged to slave owners, I have reached a conclusion that the family may have been going to the places where another family member was last known to have been as a slave in hopes that they would connect with them. I have a theory that some of the slaves took names of places and people so that I would look at those places and at those people. There seems to be at least one slave ancestor whose name is the same as a place location.

Thank you for letting me share some thoughts.

Ed Adams