to "s" or not to "s"

Recently some of us were wondering why some family members spell our last name different from the rest of the family being that the "s" is left off. So I went to our expert genealogist Aunt Gloria and this was her answer:

When Jerry and I were married the clerk used the name on Jerry's Birth Certificate, which is Jerold James DesRoche. Dot and Gene have the same last name"DesRoche" on their Marriage Licence, hence, we, at 20 years old decided to use the name on our Marriage Certificate.

We were not too bright and have regretted the act. The regret is that it is a family name, be it correct or incorrect, we should have continued using "the spelling" that the rest of the family was using. Uncle Robert was disturbed when he realized how we were spelling our name, we should have listened to him. I still have the letter he wrote us. He made Jerry mad with his sarcasm and of course hurt our feelings, perhaps if he had used logic we would have understood, and maybe not. No blame on anyone but ourselves.

We have asked our kids to go back to the old spelling and Jeanne is the only one that has true issues. When she divorce Andy Terrell she had to change all of her diplomas and certifications to DesRoche, and she doesn't want to go through that again.

In our Family Tree everyone is DesRoches now. I didn't like the separation.

Now, if you want to get really correct, forget it, there is no way. Since I have been doing the Family genealogy, I have uncovered at least five different spellings.

1. Julian Deroche born abt.1813
2. Jules Deroche born Jan 8, 1838
3. Hyppolyte Deroche (from marriage invitation) born Aug. 13, 1881. Changed his name to Hypolite
DesRoches sometime after 1937

NOTE: Carolyn DesRoches' birth certificate says DesRoche also. So as far as I know all of the children of Hypolite DesRoches, were christened "DesRoche", but they were wise enough to go along with the Family and started using "DesRoches."

Hope this is a helpful explanation.