Fry family in the Appalachian region

Any number of possible explanations.  Was this a mistake by the person the created whatever record you're looking at? Was it someone simply deciding they preferred another spelling?  In all honesty, there's probably no way of knowing.  Sometimes people just spell things in a different way then you expect. It turns up in genealogical research all the time, and as the people involved are all long dead, there's rarely any way of knowing exactly what was going through their minds.  I suppose if someone went to a court to get a legal name change, there might be something, but for something as minor as a common spelling variation I doubt anyone went through the effort to make a legal change.

Any number of possible explanations.  Was this a mistake by the person the created whatever record you're looking at? Was it someone simply deciding they preferred another spelling?  In all honesty, there's probably no way of knowing.  Sometimes people just spell things in a different way then you expect. It turns up in genealogical research all the time, and as the people involved are all long dead, there's rarely any way of knowing exactly what was going through their minds.  I suppose if someone went to a court to get a legal name change, there might be something, but for something as minor as a common spelling variation I doubt anyone went through the effort to make a legal change.

Yes, thank you, that's all good but I guess I was looking for the answer... but thanks anyway.