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People in the Mayflower era spelled phonetically, so there was no "correct" spelling for anything. When a name changes from one spelling to another, this is not because someone decided to spell their name differently. People did not care at all how their name was spelled. Sampson and Samson are the same. Doty, Doughtie, Doty, Dotten, Dotty, Doughty, Dowtie are the same. Miles and Myles are the same; Bradford and Bradforth are the same; Allerton and Alderton are the same; as are Brown and Browne, Rigdale and Rigsdall, Winslow and Wynslow, Hopkins and Hopkyns, and Soul, Soule, Sole and Soole, etc. It is only from signatures that we learn how people spelled their own names, and even many people signed their own names with different spellings. Edward Winslow, for example, signed his name "Edward Winslow" and "Edward Wynslow" on various occasions. Many people (including most all women) had to sign their names with an X because they couldn't write. Here's an anecdote from Caleb Johnson's Mayflower Web Pages that makes the point very clear. It's an abstracted transcription from a single property deed from 1715 showing a person whose name is spelled seven different ways in the same document: Know all men by these presents that I, Ezakiah Morroh of the County of Suffolk ... and I the said Ezakiah Merroh for me and my heirs ... and the said Ezakiah Meroh ... In witness whereof I the said Ezakiah Moroh and Sarah my wife ... the above bounden Ezekiah Morroh or his wife Sarah ... Hezekiah Mero and his wife Sarah Morroh her mark and a seal ... Hezekiah Morroh and Sarah Morroh both of them appeared before me ... And to drive home the point further, this man's gravestone reads "Here Lies Hezekiah Meroth ..." Among his descendants today, the surname usually is spelled Mero. |
