When a name has three spellings
Three spellings of the same person, within twenty-six months, across two parish registers and an estate book. None of them is wrong.
The first time I saw the name, in a parish register in 1823, it was spelled one way. The second time, in an estate book seventeen months later, it was spelled differently in three of the four entries that year. The third time, in another parish register the following year, it was spelled a fourth way.
None of these is wrong. They are all entries written by literate people, in good faith, recording the same person. The question for editorial purposes is not which is correct. The question is whether the edition should silently choose one and standardise, or keep all four spellings visible with a note.
I keep all four. Standardising would not save the reader any work. It would only hide the work the reader needs to know was there.