Dear List Subscribers: Bayoujac asked if Pendleton is a variation of Pennington. We then got three re-sent messages saying that "no it wasn't." That is not quite correct. Pennington is a distinct surname as is Pendleton, but there are many times when the names have been substituted for one another, and there are many other substitution as well. In my own case I have found that Pennington and Pemberton -- two distinct surnames -- have been used for the same family in Baltimore County, MD, who seem to have come from the Cecil Co. Penningtons. The same thing may have happened on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with a Talbot County Quaker family. I haven't done the research on them to completely determine it. There were times when our ancestors decided they didn't want to use their surname anymore and simply changed it themselves. This may have happened because of family disputes, changes to inherit from another family, trouble with authorities, or disownment within their religion. Other more frequent changes occurred because early people didn't always write and records were kept by others. Spellings became confused and one branch of the family found themselves spelling their names differently. Your Cousin, Carolyn