It’s Saturday Night –
time for more Genealogy Fun!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to:
1) Who is a mysterious person in the family tree you’d like to learn more about? [Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting topics!]
When it comes to my tree, I have several mysteries. The ‘most’ mysterious would have to be my SMITH line – or should I say lines? And two of those SMITH mysteries are in my CRAWFORD line.
My third great grandfather, Nelson G. Crawford, married Martha SMITH in September 1833 in Warren County, Indiana. While I have yet to find any source tying Martha to her parents or siblings, I have found some evidence that suggests her mother may have been Hannah Smith. While Find a Grave does not contain a record for Hannah Smith, the book, Inscriptions from Western Warren County, Indiana Cemeteries, Volume II, by Rosella Jenkins, contains a major clue. A 56 year old Hannah Smith who died in 1847 is buried in the same cemetery as Martha Smith Crawford: the West Lebanon Cemetery.
While this book does not indicate the location of the burials, I was able to locate the stone during one of my visits to the cemetery. My memory says that the stone was located on the East side of an aisle across from the stones of Nelson and Martha Crawford. Unfortunately, when I made a return trip to the West Lebanon Cemetery, the stone for Hannah Smith was missing.
What I did find was a pile of tombstones around a tree and several deer wondering thru the cemetery. Thus, I think it likely that the deer pushed over tombstones which were then piled around the tree.
Not only did Nelson G. Crawford marry a SMITH, but his mother’s surname was also SMITH. Nelson’s father, James Crawford, married Sally Duggins in September 1799 in Garrard County, KY. Sally’s marriage to James Crawford was her second. She had previously been married to Alexander Duggins.
An Amherst County, Virginia marriage record for Alexander Duggins and Salley Smith indicates that Ann Shoemaker gave permission for the marriage.
Thus, I have hints as to the identity of the mothers of both Martha and Salley Smith – but not the fathers. These two lines have been a mystery in my tree for years!
I don’t envy you having not one, but two, female Smiths to research. Both Garrard and Amherst Counties have some good records. Have you tried court minutes for clues, especially for Ann Shoemaker?
I’ve done some searching of those records – but I tend to concentrate on my CRAWFORD research in those counties. In all honesty, I haven’t done much research on these two women recently.