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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;smallaxe, post: 2460388, member: 13430&quot;]In the 1700&#039;s spelling was rather fluid. There was not a strong sense of agreed upon spelling. It was largely up to the writer. In my family which had an English name (so no Americanization involved), I have a memoir written by a fellow born in Virginia in&nbsp; the 1760&#039;s (so he was literate). He spelled his surname one way. His son, born in the 1790&#039;s, and also literate, added to the narrative, but spelled the same surname differently. Having read a lot of early colonial American writing, I think most people, if literate, were not terribly concerned with spelling. Add to this that there were so many illiterate people that there was often no handed down standard spelling of their name. So it doesn&#039;t really even make sense to say &quot;couldn&#039;t spell McClellan&quot; because they could spell it however they wished. And however they spelled it was right.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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