This may help. Last week I spent time at the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City researching Carroll's from County Down in the early 1800's. There were two variations of spellings that I found, Carroll and Carrol. It appears that the Carrol's were Presbyterian and the Carroll's were Catholic. Perhaps the dropping of the "L" was a way to demonstrate they were not Catholic. [email protected] wrote: > This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. > > Author: Ohibette > Surnames: > Classification: queries > > Message Board URL: > > http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.carroll/7153.1/mb.ashx > > Message Board Post: > > My theory is years ago people did not know how to write. So, when they learned how to write their names they wrote it as it sounded according to the region they lived in. > Also, keep in mind when Daniel Webster wrote his dictionary it was no longer English as the people from England pronounced words it became American English. > My Carrol family was from VA in the 1700's. In 1850's the next generations were then living in Indiana. Part of this group moved to Illinois, they changed their spelling from Carrol to Carrell. Now we call all they Carrell's in our family the Illinois Carrell's. I t may have been intentional to change the spelling. > Hope there is some information you can gleen from this message that helps answer your Carroll vs Carrell spelling. > > Important Note: > The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board. > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >