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I have traced something like 147 "legitimate" variations of our family name that shows up in records. They range from Kinsey to KeKouze (yes) to Longhill (yes) to the usual Counce or Coonce or Kountz or Koontz.
As far as I have traced it, the Coonce variation of St. Charles Missouri and the Counts variation of southeastern Ohio both came from the Counce variation found in the Rockingham County, Shenandoah Valley of Virginia around the Revolution. One side derivative of this was the Kountz spelling of KY, which may crop up from time to time in Counts ancestry as late as 1844. These families in turn trace back to Frederick, MD and southern PA in the mid-1700's.. The spellings there tended to be the more customary Koontz or Kuntz of that area preferred by the more German settlers in that area.
Prior to that, the best information I have traces us (these lines, that is) to the Palatinate, to northern Alsace, and to Lothringen, both of which were French when our common ancestors Peter and Jacob (and possibly a third brother) came across back around 1734.
Before that French connection, for which the evidence is still circumstantial but strong, there is reason to believe the family were originally Swiss settlers in the Alsace on invitation of the government there trying to repopulate an area that had been nearly wiped out by war and the plague.
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