O'Nexlx Rooters, There are some points I would like to make regarding the genealogy of the O'Neal (and variants) name. 1. When I was in college, I did a research paper on the origin of my name "O'Neal". Since I had no preconceived notions about the name, and no genealogical experience, I merely reported what I found which was this: a) The name originally stemmed from a Norse god, "Njal", pronounced, nee-aal'. The "a" has a small "o" above it, and in fact is not an "a", but one of the three additional letters in the modern Dano-Norwegian alphabet, and pronounced differently (ask one of your Scandinavian friends). There is a famous early literary work called "Njal's Saga". b) The name evolved over the centuries as Njall. In Dano-Norwegian, a "j" is pronounced as "ee". Then it became Niall (an "i" is also pronouced as "ee" in Dano-Norwegian). At one point there was a "Niall of the Nine Hostages" who is named as the progenitor of the O'Neal/O'Neall/O'Neill name. Then, some time later his descendants, the Irish "clan" of O'Neal's used the IRISH appelation "Ui" to designate "descendant of" or "son of" as in Ui' Niall or "descendants of Niall". c) So the progression is Njal-Niall-Ui' Niall-O'Niall. Later, in "modern" times, the name was anglicized, as they all were, English being the language of commerce and the British Empire, to O'Niall, pronounced "o-neel". 2. Later, after some 16 years of work in genealogy of my family I learned more, from other genealogists, about names in general and the "O'Niall" name in particular. I am also an amateur etymologist. a) In the early days, most O'Nialls did'nt have a clue as to how it was spelled. Most people, even "kings" were illiterate as the Church held most of the written documents and even the literate up until recent centuries, (1600s) did NOT pay much attention to spelling IN GENERAL. Even later, in the 1800s and early 1900s, the documents we refer to such as wills, census, land records, WERE NOT WRITTEN BY OUR ANCESTORS, but by someone for them, such as a clerk, lawyer, priest, census-taker, etc. That is why genealogists say that spelling, especially early on, MEANS VERY LITTLE. If you can think of the many ways you can spell the pronunciation "o-neel", that is what happened. O'Neill, O'Neall, O'Neale, O'Neil, O'Neal, O'Neel, O'Nail, etc. b) Please, let's put this in perspective here. The made-up name, "O'Nexlx" is MERELY AN UNOFFICIAL SHORTHAND WAY to inlcude everyone's variation of the spelling in this surname list without writing, every time we refer to the general surname, O'Neill/O'Neall/O'Neale/O'Neil/O'Neal, which is very cumbersome. c) A "clan" is defined as a "group of families or households, the HEADS of which claim descent from a common ancestor". As we know, these "clans" formed alliances with other groups for continual struggles for power and defense in their tribal warring. It has been written many times that, from a genealogical viewpoint, these "clans" had many members who WERE NOT RELATED and so you can not use clan membership as any kind of evidence for genealogical purposes, no matter HOW the name is spellled. My take on this is that what were in the very earkly days in Scotland and Ireland, (family) clans in the true sense of the word, became later, a mixture of nearby, local community and family groups we would rerally classify as "tribes" in the true sense of that word. There ARE NO MORE REAL CLANS left, because we are all now scattered over hundreds of years of wide geographic emigration to the far corners. Even so they do not provide evidence of ancestry. d) The ONLY way to discover an ancestral relationship to a deceased person in past time is by tracing BACKWARDS IN TIME, gathering a preponderance of PRIMARY, SECONDARY and CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence of events such as birth, marriage, and death, to link us to our direct descendants by the accepted RULES of SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. This is genealogy. 3. What do the variations of our name mean, if anything? My experience has led me to the conclusion that name spellings DO mean something. What I have discovered is that, in more recent times, perhaps in the 1700s-1800s, and particularly in America, certain branches of families "changed" their name, but I DO believe that in most cases these "changes" were inadvertent or unconscious. For example, it is common for a branch of a family to have a different spelling of the name than another and stick with it until modern day. There came a time when we began to pay more attention to the spelling of our names, that is when we became more educated and paid more attention to spelling of all words. For example, if a migration occurred of one person from say, Maryland where my O'Neals hail from, to Virginia, where Robert Spencer O'Neale's (DADSAID or Texas BOb O'Neale) branch moved to, the head of the migrating family may use a different spelling, merely because when he got there he spelled the name as best he knew, and perhaps, being a young adult, he signed his name for the first time as "O'Neale". Now it was common at the time in cursive writing of the day, to use some flourish in writing for emphasis, such as a "curleycue" or in German, a "schnorkel" on the end of words, particularly names. This "curleycue" or "loop" looked like an "e". (Remember the English word "shoppe". With apologies to my cousin Bob O'Neale, this could have been the origin of the "e" on his surname. Genealogically this is a VERY important clue for Bob to identify members of his branch. But I am sure he won't overlook other spellings of the name, especially before 1800. 4. The religion of the branch also has a bearing on the spelling, mostly because it is highly likely that different branches of the same family will have the same religion. It is a puzzle to me that our O'Neals who came into Maryland in the 1600s were apparently Protestant from that time, but most of the O'Neals in Ireland were Catholic. Our O'Neals were common-folk, non-land-owning, non-noble, non- castle-dwelling, non-Catholic, colonists, working as farmers, weavers, potato diggers, distillers or livestock raisers, or who followed some other equally difficult way of making a living. They went out on the frontiers seeking land. They became disenchanted with the feudal state in Ireland, their servitude and the continual fighting amongst the Scots-Irish Presbyterians, the native Irish Catholics and especially the intolerant British nobles and at the same time, became enchanted with the idea of finding freedom and land in America, and so they left in great number for the American Colonies during the period of the late 1600s up to the late 1700s (esp. 1775). Later on in the 1800s and early 1900s came the Roman Catholic Irish, who were also common folk, but who came because of the famines and who stayed in the cities as policemen, firemen, factory workers and other city workers and did not generally go out on the frontier, although some did migrate west after the Civil War. It is not likely that these later Catholic O'Nexlx families are in any way related to the earlier Protetant O'Nexlx who came as colonists before the Revolution. If anyone out there has a documented relationship of this kind, I would very much like to hear about it. I am interested in what other genealogists may have to say on this fascinating subject. Bob O'Neal in Tacoma