For almost two years I have been searching for the Carmacks of Henry
County TN. I have pestered Dale, and Agnes Jones and Ruth, especially
with questions, and they have been very forcoming and helpful, but with
no solid results. My name is Carmack and my father's, grandfather's and
ggrandfather's name was Carmack; however, my ggrandfather, Green
L.Carmack changed the spelling from Cormack. My assumption was that
Cormack was only a variation in spelling of Carmack that sometimes
occurred in those days in official records. Having obtained the Probate
Record of the estate of John Cormack of Henry Co., and having linked it
to my family, I began to wonder if perhaps I had made a wrong
assumption. I made some inquries on RootsWeb and made contact with
Kathleen Cormack of Texas. She has an extradinary amount of data on her
family and I found William and Sarah Cormack of Henry Co. TN. Her data
ran to 45 pages on just a decendant chart. The last entry was William
Carmack 1785 - 1860, and Sarah Green Cormack 1791 - 1860. There was no
more about them, obviously because their son Green L. had changed the
spelling.
William Cormack 1749 - 1810 of Wake County NC had 4 sons:
Lewis Cormack 1769 - 1842 migrated from Wake Co., to Montgomery Co.,
to the Stewart and Henry County area, and then to Illinois.
John Cormack 1771 - 1833 also migrated to the Henry County area and died
in Henry Co. in 1833. His sons Solomon and Eli Cormack were in Henry
Co. as was his sons William and John Jr. John Jr. also died in Henry in
1832. I mention this because all these names show up in the Probate
record and helped to tie my family to theirs.
William Cormack 1785 - 1860 (my ggggrandfather) was the fourth son and
administrator of the estate of John Cormack and John Jr..
Rivers Cormack 1870 - aft 1835, followed brother Lewis to Illinois.
So I now trace my roots the the Cormacks of NC. Kathleen Cormack was
able to clear up some other information. I had found that the Cormacks
of Craven Co. NC, had the same first names, i.e. John, Solomon, Joab,
etc. as the Carmacks. Kathleen said that she has literally hundreds of
land records that show the real name to be Carmack. Cormack was only a
transcription error. The only Cormack she has found in NC in 1790 was
William Cormack in Wake County.
The point of all this, I guess, is that a wrong assumption can lead to a
ton of wrong effort for a lot of people. At least we can now correct
some data about the Cormacks/Carmacks of Henry Co. TN.
Comments? Jim Carmack
MZ