Can Doyle become Dile?

[public]

Hi,

I've got a Daniel Doyle ancestor, wife Mary, kids Daniel, James Margeret.

Now I can't find them in the 1851 census in Liverpool, but I've found a Dile family with the same first names and matching ages.

Can this happen? Did the census taker just mishear the name?
They were Irish immigrants by the way.

[patrish]

Yes, this sort of thing occurs  all the time unfortunately, making our job that much harder.  And it can also be a transcripition mistake, always check the original image,  Hope this helps     

[public]

Thanks for that.

I've checked the riginal, and it's certainly Dile.

But I've got visions of this big Irish navvy saying "Doyle" and it sounding like "Dile".

They were illiterate too.

cheers

[patrish]

Thats another problem so many people were, they could not read what had been written and as you rightly say loads of accents  regional as well.

I spent ages trying to find the birthplace of one of our 2 x gt grandfathers, written on the census as Hinckley, Devon, turned out to be Hittisleigh 

[Shropshire Lass]

But I've got visions of this big Irish navvy saying "Doyle" and it sounding like "Dile".

This is what I was going to suggest.  Remembering my Irish grandparents' accent, it would be an easy mistake to make.

Monica