>>>>>>>>>>>>Shirl wrote me to say: Just for what it's worth -- this morning I was thinking about the fact that no one knows where James Pyle, Sr. (died in Orange Co NC c1823) came from. Maybe we should be looking for the spelling POILES. Older family members made it clear that the name was always POILES and would always be POILES. This came from my Uncle John who was born 1886. His older sister, Luella b. 1880, echoed his claim. As I stated before, I have found documents with the name spelled POILES as far back as 1785. I found a Mary Poiles on a VA 1850 census (Bolevar Co) and I found a Robert Poiles who served during the Revolutionary War. What do you think? Shirl Hi Shirl, I've seen POILES on occasion, but always viewed as a "mistake". I remember seeing a Joshua POILES serving in a Revolutionary War militia unit from Frederick Co VA with Sgt. Joshua PYLES (later to become a lieutenant: The Romney List, or something like that, without looking). I figured they might have been father and son and someone had a system for keeping them separate. I'll be more open-minded about this from now on, and may need to give some census indices another look for this variant. Thank you. Jim Smee Pittsburgh PA