David,

There is no doubt that some would distort history.  That is concievable. 
What is not concievable is that the number of required distortions plus
the years of those distortions, plus, the insistence of modern
landmarkists to insist that despite no evidence of distortion, we must
hold to a distortion.  When you add all this up you must conclude that at
best these other groups "MAY not be heretics".  Yet, to conclude that
these groups "MUST be Baptists" is fantasy when you have no evidence.  One
doctrine, which is all we know of some of these groups, does not a Baptist
make.  A person could believe in believers Baptism (as some did) but also
deny the Trinity... that person is not a Baptist.  Yet, what some half
hearted theologians have done is assumed that since they believe in
believers Baptism they also believe in all the other forms of orthodoxy. 
That is a stretch.

Derick