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Doug:
Your question is interesting. Billiters have been in western North Carolina, around Stokes Co, since the 1780's. Three Billiter families are in the first census from the (then) newly formed Stokes Co. (Stokes was formed from parent Surry Co in 1789.) Our 1790 households were those of Edward, Alexander, and Zebediah Billiter.
These families are tied to the early Maryland Billiter line by Zebediah, who was in the Caroline Co, MD
malitia during the Revolution. The early MD Billiters have been associated with Mannedorf, Switzerland (CH)
by some who (hmmm...) gave too much credibility to the pronouncements of Swiss genealogists, Julius Billeter,
Sr and Jr, who said, "...the Billeter name is strictly Swiss". The notion that the early MD Billiters were of Swiss origin has, in my view, been discredited in the last few years. There is some discussion of the Swiss vs English origins on this forum, and a summary of my views is at http://www.billiter.com/oldjoe/: enter the genealogy and see the notes under the first generation. Overall, my take is that the Billiter/Billeter names arose independently in CH and England in the 14C and 13C respectively.
To my knowledge (from census data), the first Swiss Billeter immigrants to the US ended up in northern Ohio in the mid-19C. I vaguely recall that Julius Billeter Jr, professional genealogist in UT, in the 1950's noted in a letter to lady in OK that the first Swiss Billeter immigrants were in PA in the 1720's or thereabouts, but I couldn't find any during a trip to a genealogy library in Lancaster, PA several years ago.
The Billips/Billups name change from Billiter? I've never seen this transform in all the research I've looked at, but Billups is always close to Billiter in the indexes of many histories and genealogical pubs. Billups/Billips would be of English origin, I'm thinking. Also, consider soundex: Billiter is B436, Billups/Billips is at soundex 412: why so great a change?
Harman? I have only one Harman among my 3071 Billiter descendants: Lina b 1899 m Paul Hyer; Paul is a descendant of Euphemia Billiter b 1842 Marshall Co, VA (now WV). Let me know if Lina is of interest. (I also have two Harmon's, Susan b 1848, and Linda b ? from our Seward cousins' line. [Courtesy Jim Kuttler].)
Thanks for the thought-provoking post.
Best, Jim Billiter
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