Mary, In my college days, I was once given a research project in my English course to take one simple word and record the pronunciation. I was amazed that on a college campus among well educated students, professors, and business people, that I recorded so many phonetic samples of one simple word. I showed each person a picure of an ice cream sundae. Did you that it St Louis this is a sun/ da? Inhabitants from one local town near campus always called it a sun de. Others would say sun da/ and others sun/ da For the most part, when I charted their home towns, the pronunciations almost always showed a regional preference for the word's pronunicatin. Language is a living thing. It changes with local flavors and traditions. When our country was young, much energy was placed in taming the land and less into education. Perhaps you spelled your name the way the local scribe heard it or preferred to write or perhaps how the storekeeper, minister, or personof authority preferred it. Maybe the cenus taker was hard of hearing, dyslexic, or just had bad handwriting? Or maybe those teen parents back then were just as non traditional as today's youth. Maybe they just wanted to spell their name their way and not their fathers? Who knows? You just have to be creative in your research and be greatful for soundex when you can find it? Good luck, cousins, PS. Mine still spell it Dodson but I always smile when I meet Dobsons and Dotsons! Jo At 08:29 AM 7/27/98 -0400, you wrote: >Here's a question for fellow researchers... > >In the early 1800s, there seems to have been a very deliberate name >spelling shift from Dodson to Dotson among many members of this clan. It >does not seem to be a mistake of illiteracy--but it does coincide with the >movement of many of the family members (who I have studied) westward in >Virginia towards Appalachia. > >Does anyone have any clues on why they changed their names? > >Mary Dotson > > > > >==== DODSON Mailing List ==== >Please do NOT send attachments to the list. > > >