This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Dodson, Dodgson, Dodgshon Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/RKT.2ACIB/1487 Message Board Post: Years of research backing down Dodson, with proven resources back to Dodgson of 1729 and 1715, I have a story of why one may loose their way past say 1780. Back enough we all don’t read and write. There we are in Ulverston, Lancashire in 1715. The Vicar is there but comes from elsewhere. Great gobs of accent in his population. He writes with the English script of the time, what he hears. He doesn’t ask how do you spell your name, not to embarrass his resident. His assistants do the same. It was not until I traced, with multiple sources, one Dodgson out of Ulverston to another place, Lancaster (actually backed up to), that I can pin the Dodson back to the Dodgson. See the microfilm of the proven Dodgson and their father’s other characteristics, seen only there, and the birth date confirmed later elsewhere, and this individual Robert Dodgson is one in the same Robert Dodson 25 years later. What happens when one of the Dodgson’s (written by the V! icar) learns to write their name. He copies it out of the Birth Registers or may even be taught by that same Vicar and the Dodgson’s are forever the Dodgson’s yet had they gone elsewhere it could have as easily become Dodson as mine did. Or leave Ulverston without learning to write but carrying the huge accent and it becomes when they do, all the other variations we could come to see. This took three years so no dissing please.

This is from the Records of the Virginia Company, held in London. I went through volumes 1 and 2, but not 3 and 4. If anyone is ever at a library that has these, look through the index and see if we have any Dodsons. This could be extremely important given the speculation surrounding the early Dodson men and Jamestown. Here's the 1 entry I found: Robert Dodson deposition - having been twice in Va I do affirm all the answers within written for all matters from James City downward saying, yet I do not know of ye proclamations for ?. Robert Dodson The ? above means that I can't read my own note. I doubt the word is important. What is important is that Robert Dodson in London was involved with the Virginia Company in Jamestown. This records was not specifically dated, but all of the records in this volume are from 1619-1623. Bobbi Estes