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Our family name was "corrected" by some over-zealous Church of Scotland minister in the 19th Century - it was originally "Sclater" and was changed to the much more common "Slater". Just to confuse things, some of my ancestors really were originally Slaters as well!

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That is something we have in common then. the original spelling of my family's name is "Lannerdahl" but it was "corrected" to "Landerdahl" (these "corrections" were also very common to immigrants' names.)

Btw, what do you mean by over-zealous (sorry, I'm not familiar with Scotish history).

"over-zealous"

The minister would have been some university educated outsider who presumably thought he knew better than the locals how to spell their names. After all if you see ten families called "Slater" and one called "Sclater" you might think that the last lost simply made a spelling mistake - and what the church said was law (effectively).

Wow first time I've ever met anyone that wasn't within the immediate family with that last name (Slater that is) I wonder if we were also affected by that...

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