About the Spelling….

I am sometimes asked “How was the Muncy name originally spelled?” There was NO original spelling. In the 1300-1700’s, names were written down as they sounded, and there was little consistency. This wasn’t a problem for a clerk in the 1500’s because they based the spelling on sound and a clerk 100 years later could identify with the sound.

But spelling IS an issue with us today. We want to “look up” people in books and on the Internet. This invariably leads to problems when we try to limit our searches to what we think are legitimate spellings. I’ve learned to ignore spelling and concentrate on sound, so it has lead to a lot of additional work trying to locate different spellings of names. So, for the record, here is a list of spellings that I have encountered. (None is the “right” spelling, but I’ve standardized on “Muncy” in this narrative to simplify.”) Muncy, Muncey, Muncye, Munsey, Munsy, Munsye, Munse, Munsee, Monsy, Monsye, Muncie, Mauncey, Moncey, Monncy,, Monnsey, Monsey,, Monsie, Mouncee, Mouncie, Mounsey, Mounsy — and probably a few others that I don’t remember.

I have conducted a search of the various spellings of the Muncy name in all counties of England, Scotland and Wales during the period of 1625 to 1645 which includes the years in which Francis Muncy was likely born, along with the birth of siblings and possible marriages. Spellings tend to be regionalized. The M-U-N or M-O-N (including Muncy, Munsey, Munse, and Monsy) variations are concentrated in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk with a very few scattered throughout several other counties. The M-O-U-N variations (Mounsey, Mounsy, Mounsea, etc.) are overwhelmingly concentrated in Westmorland and Yorkshire Counties.