When my husband's 2d cousin Alice E. Wood (1918-1990) married William Smyth (1914-1994) in 1936, the marriage license showed her name as Alice Eleanor Wood. See it circled in red at top of this image?
Circled in red at bottom of that image, her name was again shown as Alice Eleanor Wood. This was written by Toledo, Lucas county, Ohio officials after the wedding had taken place on September 1, 1936.
BUT that's not how Alice herself spelled her name. Her signature read: Alice Elinor Wood. I circled Elinor in blue on the image above.
Her name appears as Alice Elinor on other official documents, including her Social Security application. And her headstone shows her name as Elinor A.
One Census document shows "Elinore" and one shows "Alice E" but two others show "Eleanor." Since Census enumerators rarely asked how to spell a name when listing someone on the population schedule, I don't put much weight on any which way they spell anything 😛
Unfortunately, "Eleanor" was officially on this marriage license so that's the way the name is officially indexed. But my tree (and some others) show her as "Elinor."
