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Archiver > GEN-NEWBIE > 2000-12 > 0975719887


From: "Roncon3" <>
Subject: Re: Ellis Island name change myth
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 17:18:07 -0800


Another myth bites the dust.

My mother had always told me that my Smith ancestors had changed their name
from Schmidt to Smith about 1914 because they didn't want to have a German
surname.

I mentioned that once before on this list and a kind person asked me how I
"knew" that to be true (I assumed it was).

I don't know how my mother got her information, but she was incorrect. The
Smiths had been going by Smith since the second half of the18th century.
Matthias Smith had always been Matthias Smith, even though his father was
Schmith (and not Schmidt) when he came over before the Revolutionary War.

So even stories everyone in the family believes aren't necessarily true!

Connie

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