Recently a friend and I walked through a cemetery in Wallagrass where many of her relatives are buried.
Labbe is a family name and probably one of the simplest French names to spell. By the time we were done there were 4 different spellings, 3 of which we’d never seen before, Labbe, Labbee, Labby and Labbie.
Don’t forget to think outside the box with spelling. These folks were probably all related. Don’t forget the census taker didn’t ask if he’d spelled the people’s names correctly. The person transcribing an index may not be familiar with the names he’s looking at. People didn’t know how to spell their own names. Talking with my friend’s aunt I picked up on a name change. You’ll see the name O’Clair in the Ashland area. The name was originally Auclair. It went from looking Irish to actually being French. It makes sense when you know how names are pronounced.