Parents of Alexander Dock Smith

This post is to share with you some information that I have uncovered in relation to the parents of my grandfather Alexander "Dock" SMITH and his brother Timothy Caleb SMITH. The SMITH brothers were born in Smith County, Tennessee. Alexander was born about 1824 to be exact.
On the 1830 Census there is a Charles SMITH living in Smith County, TN and living in the house next door to him was one Hubbard WRIGHT. I believe Charles may have been the father of Alexander and his brother Timothy Caleb SMITH. We know that Alexander married Sarah Catherine WRIGHT daughter of Hubbard WRIGHT and Massa FORD.
A lot of ancestry users have linked Rev. Joseph SMITH and his wife Elizabeth THWEATE as being the parents of our Alexander, however I do not believe they are. 

1. Rev. Joseph SMITH was born 10 Oct 1791 in South Carolina. Alexander has stated on census records that his father was born in Tennessee. Charles SMITH is estimated to have been born between 1801 and 1810, the 1830 Census states one male between the ages of 20-29. Alexander was born in 1824 so he would be old enough to have been his father if we say he was born about 1805, then that would make him be about 19 when Alexander was born.
2.Rev. Joseph SMITH resided in Franklin County, Tennessee until he came to Wayne County, Missouri. Alexander is said to have come to Southeast Missouri from SMITH (MACON) County in Tennessee, which is precisely where we found Charles SMITH and Hubbard WRIGHT living as neighbors on the 1830 Census.
3. He is listed as a neighbor to Alexander SMITH, so he may have been some kin to the family.
4. I believe the Charles SMITH I listed above to be his father. Alexander named his first son Charles Frank SMITH, quite possibly after his grandfather.
5. In the listing for the children of Rev. Joseph SMITH there is no son named Timothy Caleb SMITH and we know that Alexander had a brother named Timothy Caleb SMITH as his daughter was residing in the household with Alexander and Catherine on the 1880 Census and shes listed as having been his niece.
6. Rev. Joseph SMITH did have a son named Alexander SMITH but his name was actually Robert Alexander SMITH and he was born about 1813 in Franklin County, TN He married twice, first to Lucinda BRAZIER and then to Mahalia SARGENT. He was residing in Tennessee on the 1850 & 1860 Census and our Alexander was residing in Wayne County, Missouri that year.
 Back to the 1830 Census for Charles SMITH. There are 21 persons residing in the household that year, of those 21, 19  are slaves.
There is one White Male under 5, which I believe to be Alexander Doc SMITH, my 2nd Great Grandfather.



Based on the above information, I strongly believe one Charles E. SMITH to have been the father of Alexander and Timothy Caleb SMITH. I am going to be doing a lot more research into this SMITH line and will post anything new that I happen to run across.

Untangling the Vines

This past week I have been fairly busy going through my husbands DNA matches and trying to make sense of what I found. In the process I have found a lot of tangled vines that are going to take some work in untangling. Thus the reason for this post topic.

I am sure most of us who have been doing this for any length of time will discover at some point or another that they have a lot of common surnames. Names such as JOHNSON, MILLER and SMITH as well as JONES are quite a few that come to mind.

But what do you do when you not only have a common surname but a common first name as well? Research this week has turned up a gentleman named Henry WIMER. As I set out to conduct my research I ran across four possible wives for this man. The more I dug the more confused I got. I finally was able to come to the conclusion that there are two men with the name Henry WIMER. Both look to have been born about a year apart and both were born in Pendleton County, West Virginia. These are my husbands relatives. It is going to be necessary that I sort out just how these folks connect. That is going to take a lot of time and effort on my part. If you are in a similar situation there is a wonderful online article published HERE that might help you formulate how to conduct your own search.

As to what I have done in this situation. I have created two documents. One for each gentleman and I plan on forming a timeline as suggested in the article for each one. With the two of them having similar years of births as well as the exact same location it may prove hard for me to discern between the two.

The first Henry WIMER that I have located which I believe is my husbands relative was born about 1793 in Pendleton, West Virginia probably Dry Run area. I show a wife for him by the name of Elizabeth THOMPSON. They were married 25 September, 1817. It looks as though his parents are Henry WIMER and Catherine LONG. There is another Henry WIMER who was born about 1794 in Pendleton, Highland, Virginia. His fathers name is said to have been one Phillip WIMER and I have seen his mothers name stated as either Sarah SIMMONS or Sarah Catherine HARPER. I believe this second Henry WIMER is also a relative of my husband as he has HARPER and SIMMONS relatives in this line as well. I have also see the WIMER surname spelled as WYMER.  I note there are marriages between a Henry WIMER and a Susannah JUDY as well as a marriage record between a Henry WIMER and a Margaret MILLER. I am in the process of untangling all of these vines. As soon as I have them sorted I will post the corrected and sourced information to this blog.

If anyone out there has ties to this family and has documentation as to which one is who, I would appreciate hearing from you!

The Elusive Lucinda SMITH Part Two

This post is a continuation of my prior post concerning my paternal 2nd Great Grandmother, the Elusive Lucinda SMITH. You may find part one of this research project listed HERE.

When we last left off I was speaking about how there was a gentleman living in the household with Charles and his parents in 1879. The gentleman's name was Thomas ODELL. Since my last post, I have done some in-depth research on this Thomas ODELL. Let me start by saying that results of my recent DNA testing show that I am related to some folks who also have the name ODELL in their family surname lists. So I think that it quite possibly means that this Thomas ODELL was related to me in some way.

Thomas ODELL was born 15 March, 1848 in Walker County, Georgia. He was the son of Benjamin Joseph ODELL and Sarah Evaline LUTES.

Thomas ODELL first appears in Wayne County, MO in 1860, at the age of 10. He was living with his mother and siblings:

Eveline Odell	44
Albert Odell	19
Mary J Odell	17
Joseph Odell	15
Thomas Odell	10
George Odell	8
Franklin Odell	6
Elizabeth M Odell	5

Source Citation: Year: 1860; Census Place: St Francois, Wayne, Missouri; Roll: M653_660; Page: 604; Image: 43; Family History Library Film: 803660.

It appears his father died in 1854, likely in Georgia.  I have yet to locate a marriage record for Thomas but according to the 1900 Census he married one Sarah Anna WILSON in 1873. 

I have located the family on the 1880 Census. Thomas and his wife Sarah appear on the census along with two children: George W. ODELL age 5 and Willie A. ODELL age 3.

Source Citation: Year: 1880; Census Place: Saint Francis, Wayne, Missouri; Roll: 740; Family History Film: 1254740; Page: 239D; Enumeration District: 191; Image: 0685.

By the 1900 census the children have left home. Only Thomas and Sarah appear in the census in 1900.
At this point I believe that these ODELL connections bears a bit of further research on my part to see if there is some connection to Charles SMITH or his wife LUCINDA.

At this point I have not come up with anything significant that links the ODELL family to the SMITH family per say. However, I do know that Thomas ODELL`s mother was a LUTES and I do know that the LUTES family ties into the EADS family but without getting into my research notes I cannot remember exactly how at this point in time. I have made a mental note to research and see exactly what that connection is.

So, to sum it up, I am no closer at this point in time to figuring out just "Who" Grandmother Lucinda SMITH was. 

Thomas ODELL`s mother was Sarah Eveline LUTES. Sarah was the daughter of George Thomas LUTES and Mary M. BROWN. 

I will continue researching this and if I have anything new to add I will update with another post.

WRIGHT Family Ancestors

In today`s post I am going to talk a little about my WRIGHT family ancestors. I actually have three different lines of the WRIGHT families connected to me. As you can imagine it has been quite chaos with me trying to figure out who connects to whom in my DNA matches.

My smallest WRIGHT connection comes from my Mother`s older sister. She married into the WRIGHT family. They are descendants of Jasper Newton WRIGHT and Laura Frances STONE of Arkansas and Bollinger County, Missouri area. I have several cousins from this line of WRIGHT`s.

My second line of WRIGHT`s comes from my Father`s side of the family. My Paternal 3rd Great Grandmother was Sara Catherine WRIGHT daughter of Hubbard WRIGHT & Massey FORD. She married my 3rd Great Grandfather Alexander Doc SMITH.

My Final WRIGHT connection and by far the largest one, comes from my Mother`s side of the family. My Maternal 3rd Great Grandfather was Claton WRIGHT son of Richard WRIGHT Jr. and Caroline Cary Kara KITTRELL. Claton married my 3rd Great Grandmother Anna SNIDER, she was his second wife. His first wife being that of Sarah WILEY. Claton`s father, and of course my 4th Great Grandfather Richard WRIGHT Jr. had 24 children between his two wives. With his first wife Nancy MORGAN, he had twelve, six boys and six girls. Then with his second wife Kara KITTRELL, My 4th Great Grandmother, he also had twelve, again six boys and six girls. Twins run in this line of WRIGHT`s also.

So you can imagine if all 24 of those children only had two kids each how many cousins I may have. But, that was not the case, many of them went on to have 10 or more children each! So you can imagine the chaos I have trying to figure out who fits in where, just from this part of my family only! Not to mention the rest of my family members from other lines also, had large families. Keep in mind there are likely many of us out there who will never have their DNA tested and thus we will never know about them unless we locate them on paper.

There has been quite a lot of research done on this particular line of the WRIGHT family. It is good, quality, research. Rather than try and duplicate that, I will likely be linking it all here, for other researchers.

If you think that you and I may connect on any of these WRIGHT lines or any other families I have listed here, by all means leave me a message! I would love to get to know you! Until next time...

Charles Frank Smith

Charles Frank Smith was my Great, Great Grandfather. Charles was born 22 February, 1852 near Bounds, in Wayne County, Missouri. He was the son of Alexander W. "Dock" Smith and Catherine E. Smith nee Wright of Macon County, Tennessee. Catherine was the daughter of Hubbard and Massa Wright nee Ford.

Charles had two wives, the first of which is my Great, Great Grandmother. Her name was Lucinda sometimes shown on the census as Lacinda. Her maiden name is not known. Two children were born of their union, my Great Grandmother Darthula Dalue Smith and her brother James.A Smith.

Grandfather Charles married for a second time on 28 April 1896 in Wayne County, Missouri to a woman named Donia Kasimeas. His death certificate states that he was both widowed and divorced.

It is estimated that he and Grandmother Lucinda married about 1875, I have yet to locate a marriage record for them though.

Grandfather Charles died 25 June 1914. His cause of death was listed as Tuberculosis.

I would love to be able to find out the maiden name for Grandmother Lucinda. If anyone has any clues as to who it might be please feel free to leave me a message.

Darthula Dalue Eads nee Smith

Dorthula Dalue Eads nee Smith was born 25 August, 1873. She was the daughter of one Charles Franklin and Lucinda Smith. Lucinda`s maiden name is unknown to me at this time. Dorthula is said to have been born near Lodi, Missouri.

On 29 February, 1896 in Wayne County, Missouri, Dorthula married one William Franklin Eads Jr, son of William Franklin Eads Sr and Amanda America Clementine Eads nee McDaniel.

Dorthula and William had six children: Frank, Buck,Mollie Camaline, Columbus Franklin, James Arnold and Ruth.  Their daughter Mollie married a Pearl Marion Tipton son of Richard "O" Dick Tipton and Mary Lavina Eliza Leach. Their daughter Ruth married a Nicholson.

Granny as she was lovingly called is said to have had beautiful red hair. I am guessing that must be where some of my reddish high lights came from!

Darthula passed away 13 November 1963 in or near Greenville, Wayne County, Missouri. She was laid to rest at the New Prospect Cemetery in Silva, Wayne County, Missouri.