Before the 20th century, the consistent spelling of names was not extremely important. I have seen court documents where a person's surname was spelled three different ways in the same document by the court clerk. While doing research in England, I found both spellings used. Early Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina records almost always use the spelling "Barefoot". Miles could not write his name so it's not likely that he would have known how to spell it. I have his mark which was his legal signature on his US land application in what is now Geneva County. His signature was an "M".
