Re: Why do Coat of Arms site say Swint is only Irish?
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In reply to:
Why do Coat of Arms site say Swint is only Irish?
Andrew Fowler 11/08/05
Hi Andrew, Most of those websites are a little bogus. My father in law's name "houck" came up as english even though they came here directly from germany. I have seen a copy of our family crest from my grandma that matched the sweeney crest. Name variations are all over the place. Irish folks changed them to hide the fact they were irish or catholic, germans probably changed spellings to not seem so "germanic". especially if they arrived around or soon after the revolution, or around the two world wars. through into the mix all the different regional dialects, (including american) and the fact that those relaying or spelling the last names probably did so phonetically; I can see how things got a little screwy.