I'm really not sure about where hobbits came from - I've had the same question myself actually, but the idea that they came from men seems rather strange. A lot of their characteristics (both physical and their personalities) don't match up at all.
I do have an idea about why they weren't in records though. In TTT when Gandalf, Theoden, Eomer, Aragorn, etc come to Isengard and meet Merry and Pippin Merry comments that the Rohirrim were the only people he had met that knew of Hobbits. Eomer says that they didn't know any tales and that all they knew was that they were a small people who lived in holes. He said that it was said that they didn't do much and could disappear in a twinkling. This could be a reason that there were no records of them if no one thought that they did anything.
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