Lawrence, in the 18th century and earlier, there was no concept of standard spelling. People wrote words and names according to how they sounded. Accordingly , McDill is one of many old spellings of MacDowall, which has gradually become fixed as McDill. Secondly, Dora is correct in that the mc/Mac prefix might or might not be used in any document. Black's "Surnames of Scotland" (pretty authoritative) mentions a couple of DILL references in the 14th century, both in the Inverness area. His earliest McDill example is dated 1526. The Parish Lists that you refer to were published in 1916 by the Scottish Record Society. My own index > http://www.kinhelp.co.uk/KinHelp/genealogical-indices/gene5 to "Chronicles of Lincluden", by William McDowall (Edinburgh, 1886) shows neither Dill nor McDill, but dows show McDowall. Regards. Gordon Johnson On 21/06/2011 08:01, Lawrence wrote: > From: Lawrence Dill<[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY] 1684 Wigtownshire and Minnigaff > Parish Lists > To: "[email protected]"<[email protected]> > Message-ID:<[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > I am trying to get paper evidence that the McDill sometimes went by the name of Dill. I believe that the name of Dill sometimes became a fixed name among a family that was originally McDill. Does anybody still have access to the 1684 Wigtownshire and Minnigaff Parish Lists? I think McDill and Dill were used indifferently on the 1684 parish lists? Perhaps someone knows of another record where the names of McDill and Dill were used indifferently.