Sorry, that was a lot of good information but it didn't belong to my lines. In the years since your query, I've found a lot of information and have worked it into my Family Tree (the Bell Family Tree).
You're so right about the variant spellings -- in my line, the first I have info on was a Jamison. Mine began in Tennessee (the first one migrated there from somewhere in Virginia). The line then trailed through very northern Mississippi and hence into Arkansas. Sadly, all of the offspring of my father's generation were girls and so the name ends there.