Oliver Cowdery had considerable difficulty distinguishing whether from the archaic whither, often mixing up the spelling of the two words in the manuscripts. Here in 1 Nephi 22:4, Oliver copied whither as whether into 𝓟. But the 1830 typesetter set the correct whither because it was quite obvious that whither (meaning ‘where’) is the correct choice. The preceding clause states that “the more part of all the tribes have been led away and they are scattered to and fro upon the isles of the sea”, so these people (or their descendants) were still alive, but no one knew where they were.
In most instances, the choice of whither(soever) versus whether(soever) is clear. There are 34 clear cases of whither(soever) in the original text and 43 of whether(soever). But for 15 cases there is variation, and in each of these cases we are required to examine the context in order to determine whether whether(soever) or whither(soever) is intended. Each of these cases of variation will be discussed as they occur. I list here the 14 other cases, giving only the variation. The ones marked with an asterisk have caused particular difficulty, while for the others it has been fairly easy to determine the correct variant:
Much of the inconsequential variation is due to the scribes. There is one other case with variation, but this one involves the change of whithersoever to wheresoever, not to whethersoever. For discussion of that example, see Alma 23:14.
Summary: Maintain whither ‘where’ in 1 Nephi 22:4 since in this case the context readily determines that the correct word is whither, not whether.