Geneology, Genology, Genealogy, or Geneaology

Shows such as ‘Finding Your Roots’ and ‘PBS Genealogy Roadshow’ seem to heightening some interest in the topic of one’s lineage or biological ancestry. And there appears to be some misunderstanding of which word actually represents the correct spelling. Data from WordTracker reported that over a two-month period:

·         10,722 searches were done for ‘genealogy’

·         5,988 searches were done for ‘geneology’

·         711 searches were done for ‘geneaology’

·         302 searches for “genology"

With my brain bent in the right frontal lobe (where there are little if any written language functions) it’s easy for me to exhibit very creative spelling. Therefore, I checked several dictionaries and every one of them listed genealogy as the correct spelling. (I’m not sure I ever used that spelling!) Anyway, it definitely got me thinking about the topic.