genealogies of the families

The name Dinsmoor is rarely found in Scotland, although Dunsmore is frequently seen, Dinsmuir and Dinsmore are occasionally observed. In Ireland, the patronymic is borne by many persons in the vicinity of Ballymoney, County Antrim, and they are presumably descendants of John Dinsmoor, the emigrant to Ulster from Scotland. Dinsmoor appears as the original method of spelling, and was generally followed till about 1800. Since then it became the fashion for some to spell their name Dinsmore, and it is frequently seen as Dunsmoor, Dunmore, Dunsmore, Densmore , Densmoor but generally the orthography is Dinsmoor and Dinsmore the latter methods frequently appearing in the same family, and often each has been adopted by the same individual at different periods of life. The family name is not an ancient one, nor on the whole very numerous; and upon the other side of the water the name has never been borne, to my knowledge, by the gentry or nobility. The Dinsmoors were commoners. Rev John W. Dinsmore, D.D. Of Bloomington, Ill., gives this as the probable origin of the patronymic:--

"I have no doubt but that the original ancestor wrote, if he could write, ~ Dunsmoor ( dunse, a little hill, and moor, heath ). He probably lived on or, by, a little hill at the edge of the heath, or moor."

Source: William Alexander Dinsmore