SNGF - John Smith?

Thanks to Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings,

 

It's Saturday Night - 

time for more Genealogy Fun! 

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1)  How many persons named John Smith do you have in your genealogy management program or online family tree?  How many persons named John Smith are ancestors?

2)  Pick out one of those persons named John Smith and do some online research for them in Ancestry, FamilySearch, or another set of record collections.  Your goal is to add something to your database.

3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a post on Facebook or Google+.

Here's mine:






1) I was somewhat startled to find I have but a single solitary John Smith (of any spelling variant) in my tree of over 6,100 individuals.  And that John Smith is not a direct ancestor, his daughter Mary Smith married into my Day line.

2) So, here's what I know about John Smith prior to doing any further research today:

A) John was born in 1637 in Wethersfield, which is in present day Hartford County, Connecticut.  He married Mary Partridge on Nov. 12, 1663 in Hadley, Hampshire County, Massachusetts (bearing in mind that county boundaries changed a bit in that region, it may not have been Hampshire County at the time!) and died on May 30 1676, with notes that he was killed by Indians.  Every source I find tells me this.  I remember at one point having some details on this, but I am not able to find them at the moment, as I am out on my laptop, not on my home computer.  Also, in checking this, I find I have a discrepancy in that his daughter Mary Smith's birth date is given as over a year after John's death.  Hmm, can't have that!  

B)  Searching on MyHeritage reveals a huge pile of MyHeritage Family Trees which contain this John Smith and Mary Partridge, and the dates line up with what I have.  Unfortunately, I would rather find some more solid documentation, so I'm wading through the stack in hopes of something more concrete. I also located four entries in the WikiTree and two entries in the Geni World Tree.  So much for solid documentation.

C) Find A Grave has an entry for John Smith:

Birth:	1637 Wethersfield Hartford County Connecticut, USA
Death:	May 30, 1676 Hatfield Hampshire County Massachusetts, USA

He was the son of Lieut. Samuel Smith and his wife Elizabeth. He was born about 1637 at Wethersfield. He married Mary Partridge, the daughter of William Partridge November 12, 1663. He fought in King Philips War and was in the Turner's Falls Fight. He was killed by Indians in Hatfield Meadow just days after the Falls Fight. His widow Mary Partridge married Peter Montague in 1679 a few years after his death.

Children of John Smith and his wife Mary Partridge:

1. John Smith who married Mary Root.

2. Samuel who died at the age of 14 by falling off a horse.

3. Rev. Joseph Smith who married Canada Wait.

4. Benjamin Smith who settled in Wethersfield, Connecticut and married Ruth Buck.

5. Marah Smith who married John Day.

C) SmithConnections DNA Project for Descendants of Northeastern U.S. Smith Families (http://www.smithconnections.com/index.cgi) supposedly has an entry for this John Smith (along with hundreds and hundreds of others) but I could not find it in the time available to me.  It was referenced in one of the WikiTree entries.

D)  He is mentioned briefly in Genealogies of Hadley Families on archives.org (p.97) as being the deceased husband of Mary who had later married Richard Montague.

E)  As you may have guessed, I found conflicting information on the Family Tree sources.  As I am out of available time, I will have to schedule John Smith and his family for some later research to correct discrepancies. 


3) Here it is!

This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2014 by Daniel G. Dillman