Aye, those clarks ca nae spell.

Standardization of spelling of names did not even start until the 1890s here in the U.S. As a few threads have demonstrated in the past it only takes a small body of water and a few years for the common language to mutate. Much of Northern Ireland was occupied by Scots for the benefit of the Gouvernment during various time periods.

My association with Clan Macneil is through the variations of M'Neeley, McNeilly, MacNeilly, MacNeily and MacNeil. All of these are the spellings of the surname of the same individual, as taken from the different record books. In doing a lot of research in Ireland, the name spelling variations continued through the 1950s. The Scots started getting on the spelling bus around 1900. Anything before was very random at best.

A large part of getting the spelling right is the increase in literacy of the general population. Most of the records were kept by the few who could read and write. The subject who's name was being recorded often had no clue what was being written, and was likely not to know the written form of his own name. Now with I.D. cards, motor operator's license, etc. the spelling has come to be somewhat standardised.

In many hours of research at the Scottish Genealogical Society's library in Edinburgh, I have found that the best way to understand what is written is to mentally say it out loud. The sounds are what the author would be trying to depict, not the shape of the letters. I find that while I may speak very strangely to the ear of someone of U.K. nativity, we both can interpret each other. the written word suffers equally. See colour vs color, favour vs favor, boot vs trunk, etc. Take that in written form over a long period of time, and the variations become intense.

Slainte.