His name was Notley Anderson - not Nodley

[Jim Woodall]

(12-16-2014 04:28 PM)L Verge Wrote:  An excellent point as to how names and facts get confused or printed in error, and the error keeps on going! Notley was a very popular name during the 19th century, and I know of plantations that were named such. For some reason, I think it has history dating back to England. Another reason to know social and cultural history... Sorry, I'll keep on preaching that, however.

The David Barry that you mention happened to be a good friend of John H. Surratt, Sr. I believe he has ties to both Oxon Hill Hundred and Surrattsville. Both men worked on the construction of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. There is also a slight mention somewhere that Barry's son, Arthur, was Annie Surratt's beau before he went to war. I can't remember if he survived the war.

Laurie - I appreciate the extra information on Notley. Yes, Notley was used as a given name by many including Notley Young in the area. Also, Notley was a surname which gave us Notley Hall (from the 8th proprietary governor of Maryland, Thomas Notley) which I believe is still around although much changed from the original.

Of interest, in the 1860 census, it appears that John Nothey may be listed as John H Notley and family, 4 doors down from David Barry and family in the Surrattsville part of Prince George's County. Again, as mentioned in another thread, Thomas H Harbin was the census taker.

I was once again trolling through the Libers and came across John H Surratt Jr.'s deed to his mother in January 1865. In it, it indicated that the land on which the blacksmith shop in Surrattsville was built upon was acquired from David Barry by his father, John H Surratt, Sr.

John also acquired more of Fox Hall from William and Henrietta A Kirby. Is this the link through which Mary would later indicate a relation with William Wallace Kirby?

Interestingly, in the earlier libers where John H Surratt is mentioned, it appears that they spelled his name with an 'e' instead of the 'u'. However, he only uses his mark so one cannot see how he would have spelled it in a signature.

It is rather much fun, although a headache at times, to see names evolve and/or be misrepresented through time including in modern transcriptions from the older documents.

On an aside, I was a software engineer who spent most of my career with integration of voice recognition into the company's products. As with transcriptions from old documents, the interpretation of regional dialects were rather confounding. We would have to capture the problem pronunciations, isolate them, and forward to the company that generated the voice models for their updates. As with variations of Murphy's law, the individual in a company using our products that would have the most problems being understood would be the individual who would have to sign off on the product.

In having to deal more closely with those issues, it generated a certain appreciation for unique groups and language migration/utilization. It is interesting to note that Appalachia, because of its isolation, probably is the closest to Old English in pronunciation of sounds. However, I prefer a certain tidewater variation that is just heaven on my ears.