The influence of television (and radio before that) has also homogenized regional accents, not only here but all over the US and in Britain. I don't know about other places, as I don't speak other languages, but it wouldn't surprise me. Aside from all of that, there were regional spelling differences - my Vincent folk, for the longest time while in Sussex, were being spelled Vinson, even though they were Vincent when they were in Virginia and Maryland. Now, even the Delaware lot are back to being Vincent. None of this is helped when transcribers from somewhere else (such as Ancestry) are not at all familiar with the local names, and put what they see (or think they see). This just doubles the difficulty for us when we are trying to find people. Then there are the genuinely inexplicable names (if anyone can explain I would love to know) like Lewpinkster. Elizabeth