Thanks Richard, for this look at your growing discovery of your family. Very enjoyable, and a lesson for all of us, as well as a clear picture of why we are compelled to investigate the lives and times of dead people! I had regarded the variant spellings as the inevitable consequence of the abundance, both of the physical family, but especially of the heritage of the people who bore this surname. That is, it is just too rich to be contained by a single spelling! The changes, or corruptions, themselves, are part of the heritage. The oldest form of the name, of which I have been made aware, is O'Neill. I would like to have had an explanation why "descendant of Neil" was not simply "O'Neil" this is what I would expect, but for some reason "O'Neill" appears to have carried the family forward many generations. Left to my own devices to try to account for this, I suspect ostentation, as when Lincoln, commented on his bride's maiden name of Todd, saying, "It's very impressive, when you consider that one "d" was enough for God." We believe Hugh, the immigrant, was bearing the name O'Neill when he went into the English Navy, and we have the tradition that he changed the spelling to O'Neale, or O'Neal to help him to hide from authorities who would have regarded him as a deserter. Senator John Belton O'Neal tells about one branch of the family dropping the "O'" because they held the mistaken belief that it marked them as aristocracy, which they disdained. So then, all these changes are as much of the family story as, so and so had red hair. They are, in their way, far more revealing than bits and pieces of physical descriptions, for they provide a glimpse into the thinking, or education and attitudes of our family! The appearance of "x"s in our surname was novel for me, but with the experience of many mathematical problems where "x" is the unknown, I was able to divine the meaning intended. Until Jill,s note, I had no idea that it was widely used by genealogists. Learn something every day! Thanks everyone for your sharing your insights! Carl Richard O'Neill wrote: > In my younger (and more naive days) I took great pride in my surname > O'NEILL. I allied my feelings with the Irish Catholic who left Ireland > during the potato famine to seek a better life in America. In > researching my ancestry, I learned that my ancestors in fact were in > this country prior to the revolutionary war. What pride I felt in > learning that I am descended from a patriot! > > More research has brought me back to earth. My relatives are O'NEILL, > O'NEIL, and O'NEAL. The spelling may in fact have been determined by a > clerk since not all of my relatives were literate! As a Catholic, I am > the exception to the rule since most were Methodist. In fact, at least > one may have fought with William of Orange in the Battle of the Boyne. > Some were loyalists during the Revolutionary War rather than patriots. > > I sign my correspondence O'NEILL since that is who I am, and I use the > same spelling when I refer to the "clan", but I use the appropriate > spelling of an individual when I know it. There is no "correct" or > standardized spelling and I see no need for one since there seems to be > no real confusion. Even so, this is a fun topic for discussion. > > (upon re-reading this, I realize that it sounds like I'm pontificating > even though I do not mean to do so. Maybe I really am Irish after all!) > > Richard O'NEILL > San Antonio, TX > [email protected]