You're just talking about a different time period, things weren't done then the say way that they are nowadays. You have to remember that there was no standard for spelling names, nor for giving them, for that matter, and to go even further, most people were illiterate, so one couldn't be expected to keep records the way they do now, even if they wanted to. While today, most people wouldn't even think about recording their name in an official document in anything but the full & proper way that it was spelled, those were not the standards during the days of our ancestors. We, as researchers, just have to learn to look for the ancestors with their proper names, as well as with those various nicknames. Besides, nicknames are the least of our worries in doing genealogy research, and I'm just grateful to find them no matter what they are called.

Deloris