Important Information About Our Name
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In reply to:
TN SMOTHERMANS formerly NC SMITHERMANS
1/24/99
I would dispute your statement that they changed their name.The primary records we go by today in Genealogy are old Census books, which were not filled out by the people but by a census taker. It was common for the census taker to not ask for a spelling but simply spell the name from hearing it. So we have a great variety of spellings from one common root. See the list of vaiations below:
Smytheman (original root)
Smitheman
Smitherman
Smotherman
Smothermon
Smothermin
Smothermen
Smothermun
Because of the variety of ways our name can be misspelled, I would be very hesitant to accuse that the name was purposefully changed.
--Billy