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The name Childress, Childres, Cheldress, Cheldres, Childrey, Childrip, Childris, Childer, Childers and assorted other spellings occur throughout the genealogical research of this family. The point others have made is that it helps to look to what the person called himself, not the misspelling. When you, Candy, make the statement that your ancestors "did use both names" you inadvertently overstate. What you mean to say, I think, is that OTHERS called them Childers and Childress interchangeable for some period of time. But I would ask you, what did your ancestors call themselves? What did they call themselves when they wrote their own names? My name is Childress and I still get called a number of variant pronunciations and I don’t correct people. But if I sign my name, it is always the same. Though I get called a number of variations I don’t "use both names". I am not at all persuaded that anyone’s Childress ancestors "used both names", Childress and Childers. I am persuaded others would ascribe assorted variations.
The frustration in Childress genealogy is that researchers will far too often grab ancestors from both lineages of Childers and Childress and pull some from one family tree and some from the other family tree as it suits their needs. Only one is right, and the two lineages are distinctly separate. The point is not to be distracted by misspellings of clerks, census takers and even the illiterate ancestors. It is only a clue. You must bring more clues to bear, every clue you can muster to your assistance and determine which of the two names is right and which is wrong. I have seen a few suspicious transitions where a person seems to legitimately flip-flop, and changes their name from Childress to Childers or vice versa. But that seems to me to be very, very few and very far between. They are an exception, and are most likely to happen, I suspect, when one family line is outnumbered by the other family line. I have yet to see a flip flop followed by flip back that I believe is legitimate (eg. a Childress uses that name for a few generations then decides they’ll use the Childers name for a few generations then goes back and uses the original Childress name for a few generations). If you encounter that pattern, I would definitely argue that what you are seeing are misspellings, English conventions on spelling (theater vs. theatre) or southern, Scottish, Irish accents. I would argue that if you were able to talk to that family you would find that they were not vacillating as it appears. My sense is that 98+% of the time one is dealing with variant spellings of others, not the ancestors. Proof again would be in their signatures and in circumstantial evidence.
The trick for the Childress researchers of the Colonial south is to figure out if one is looking at a Childress lineage or a misspelled Childers lineage. Ultimately, you must track the DNA not the misspellings and that is more of an art than a science. What did the brothers and sisters and parents and sons and daughters seem to be called most frequently. Are the given names of their children consistent with their parents and grandparents. Does the history of the family or region tell you what was happening with politics (plantations, bounty land), migration (population expansion and immigration), religion (congregational unity and religious segregation) and family clans (marriages between neighbors and known relatives, families moving in unison, their common neighbors). As regards Jesse, I haven’t yet determined myself which camp he is in. But I haven’t done any research on him and only know him by name Jesse Childress or is it Childers.
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