Clicking on the surnames button in the left hand column will bring up a list of all of the surnames in this family tree, listed alphabetically. There are many instances where people belonging to a specific surname spell their last name differently. In most of those cases I determined the most common spelling and then used that spelling for everyone belonging to that surname. I believe this makes those people easier to find, and easier to associate correctly with their close relatives. For instance some Bickels use the Anglicized spelling, Bickle, instead of the original German, Bickel. Also through succeeding generations the spelling often went back and forth. In this list the Bickel spelling was used for everyone. There are multiple spellings for MacMillan. The original Scottish spelling was MacMillan, and today most descendants also spell it that way, but in the many generations in between many spellings appear. For the sake of clarity and ease of associating them with the right family the MacMillan spelling was used for all. In the case of the Braun/Brown families, the original spelling was Braun. This was Anglicized to Brown by virtually everyone during the first generation in America. Some collateral lines may still go by Braun, but these have not been fully researched yet, so with one exception, all are listed under Brown.
Other examples with multiple spellings are Chappell and Cassell. Also most of the Norwegian names have so many variations and were changed so often, that I have taken to leaving the spellings as I found them in the various sources, but with some liberties taken for the sake of clarity. In the case of Elvick/Elvik, there are two distinct lines that maintain different spellings, and so they are listed separately. The Wise family did not Anglicize the Weiss name to Wise until the third generation in America, and some of the family still uses the Weiss spelling today, so the Weiss/Wise spelling has been used at my discretion to reflect this. The recently added descendants of Joh. Carl Weiss were supplied courtesy of Christine Schultz on her family tree published at Ancestry.com. The recent addition of descendants of Stephen Chappell through his son, John, is courtesy of Ross Chappell.