My 6-gr grandfather's name was Thomas Pollitt. P-o-l-l-i-t-t His will (1708) was signed by "his mark" ... so he was illiterate. In short, he could not proofread anything. And ... more often than not, the person doing the writing was semi-literate according to today's standards. So Thomas' name on his ORIGINAL will was spelled P-H-O-L-E-T What I am getting at is this. (For those of you who live on Delmarva, or who have visited kin/friends there for years you can attest to this.) The folks of Delmarva have an accent found nowhere else. It causes oral dictation to sometimes be altered. Case example: One of my relatives was named Williamana. The speech patterns caused the stone cutter to put "William Anor" on her tombstone. By the way, this Delmarva accent is rapidly fading with the influx of people from other areas visiting or moving to Delmarva. This is just a few musings on surname spelling. Be flexible and keep an open mind when it comes to spelling. Remember you are dealing with many factors involved when you research documents 150-300 years old or so. THAT IS WHY GENEALOGY IS SO MUCH FUN ! RCP