Ray: The false story that Rebecca Bryan, daughter of Morgan and Martha, married John Boone has been around for ages. 1) M & M did not have a daughter named Rebecca; 2) no one knows the surname of John Boone's wife but her given name was Rebecca. If you want to see some research on this matter, check the Howell Boone papers in the History/Genealogy room of the Davie County library, Mocksville. Doris Frye at the library can steer you. I think you are putting too much blame on the Forbush/Forbis/Forbes clan when you suggest that they were careless or indecisive about the way they spelled their name. I've found that the variant spellings of surnames were usually the work of court clerks, assistant county clerks, etc. Most paid scribes simply spelled a name the way it sounded to them, hence the vast majority of alterntive spellings are to be found in copies of documents such as indentures and Wills and in clerical entries in Will books, Deed books, Minutes of County Court of P & Q S, etc. We rarely see the original Deed or Will but when we do, we can usually rely on the signature as being correctly spelled. But a subject would seldom have the opportunity to actually witness copies and record book entries being written, and so would not have the opportunity to correct the local recorder on the spot. If would be interesting to see an actual Forbush/Forbis/Forbes signature on some document or other. I have a copy of an original one-page legal instrument with the signature of an 18th century Bryan. In the text, the man's last name is spelled three different ways - all of them incorrect. The signature is a very clear BRYAN. Many people were illiterate, of course, and among them, some could manage a signature. Even so, I doubt that their surnames were spelled various ways because they didn't know or care which was correct. Asked in a letter from Draper c1840 about the spelling of his name, George Bryan, youngest son of Morgan Bryan Jr. and Mary Forbush, left no doubt. He wrote back: "....it's BRYAN; no T on it!" But some things never change. On the granite memorial at the entrance of the Fort Boonesboro reconstruction in Kentucky, some idiot bureaucrat tacked a T onto the surnames of all the Bryans who had lived there, including that of George Bryan. Shades of the county clerks of yore. Jack Bryan