Smith DNA Project Community Forums

One of the members in this group, that is of Alexander Smith d 1696 of Middlesex Co VA not only did an autosomal test but also has another male  member who has done a YdNA test. the YDNA tester's last name is Brown, not Smith, and the first member also has Browns in his ancestry. In looking to see how this NPE may have occurred, these are his notes on his own line
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1 Alexander Smith (died 1696 in Middlesex Co., VA) and his unknown wife.

 

2 Lt. John Smith (also died 1696) and the widow Mrs. Jane (Cock) Jones (a daughter of Nicholas Cock and the widow of Rice Jones, Junior).

 

3 John Smith (died about 1740) and his neighbor Ann Smith (a daughter of Thomas Smith and Ann Petty....though some show “Briscoe” or other spellings).

 

Note:  The above John Smith who married Ann Smith had surviving brothers named Maurice Smith (married Elizabeth Byrd/Bird; moved to King and Queen Co., VA) and Samuel Smith (married Ann/Anne Amis/Amiss; this family moved over to Essex Co., VA....and later most were in Granville, Co., NC).

 

4 James Smith “Senior” (died about 1771, when his Will was probated) and Frances Kidd.

 

Note: There is no proof that James Smith “Senior” was a son of John and Ann (Smith) Smith, but if James was truly a member of the Alexander Smith family, this seems to be the ONLY possibility.  When John Smith’s estate was distributed around 1740, the only son mentioned was Maurice Smith (born 1727).  The Christ Church Parish Register also did not mention a son named James (though that document “missed” many births, marriages and deaths).

 

Note: There is a Middlesex Co., VA chancery court case in 1767 (as I recall) where the above James Smith “Senior” was the lone defendant, and where his only surviving bother (if my research is correct) Maurice Smith (born 1727; married the widow Mrs. Catherine (Carter) Jones) was one of the several plaintiffs.  I believe that the plaintiffs were trying to get money back that they had loaned to James Smith earlier for a business venture (or something like that).

 

5 James Smith “Junior” (died early-1800s) and the widow Mrs. Mary (George) Richeson (born 1752; she was a daughter of Meacham George and the widow of John Richeson....who Mary George had married back in 1772).

 

Note: James Smith “Junior” had one brother who was named John Smith, and that John Smith seemed to disappear (they also had five sisters).

 

Note: Mary George had a sister named Elizabeth George (born 1757), and Elizabeth married Thomas Chowning/Chewning.  When Thomas wrote his Will in 1800/1801, he left something to Mary’s son George Meacham Smith (see George again in the next “bullet”).

 

6 John Richeson Smith (born 1787; died after 1870 in Middlesex Co., VA) and his unknown first wife.

 

Note: Per the Christ Church Parish Register, JRS’s siblings were Catherine George Smith (born 1784) and George Meacham Smith (born 1789).

 

Note: John Richeson Smith married second to Fanny M. Stiff in 1819 (when he was about the age of 32) and third to Sarah S. Barrick around 1830.  John fathered additional children with each wife.

 

7 Smith W. “Brown” (born 1814-1818; died in the early-1900s in Gloucester Co., VA) and Susan Hill Garrett (my gg-grandparents).

 

Note: Smith W. “Brown” was apparently taken-in as an infant, named and reared by John Brown and Mary Bennett (who had married in Middlesex Co., VA in 1805).  Mary Bennett’s brother Smith Bennett (married Sarah “Sally” Webbmore and Elizabeth Blake) took-in and reared a boy who was named William J. S. Smith.  I SUSPECT that William J. S. Smith was an older biological brother of Smith W. “Brown.”  William seemed to disappear after being mentioned with the widow Mrs. Elizabeth B. Bennett in a guardian record in 1830 (Smith Bennett had died in the 1820s).

 

Note: Per my research, John Brown’s parents were an older John Brown over in Essex Co., VA (died by 1824) and Mary Kidd.  That Mary Kidd (a daughter of Henry Kidd) was a close relative of the Frances Kidd who had married James Smith “Senior” (so this “Kidd connection” may be one of the reasons that John and Mary (Bennett) Brown were “viable candidates” to take-in a descendant of James Smith “Senior” and Frances Kidd).  John Brown was probably a member of the DNA “Group 10” Brown family that descends from the Francis Brown “I” who died in Essex Co., VA in 1691/1692.  That is what I was trying to prove or refute with Marvin Brown’s Y DNA test.... only to learn that we are Smiths versus Browns.

 

Note; Mary Bennett and her brother Smith Bennett were children of Mrs. Winifred (Purkins) Bennett (her Bennett husband is unknown).  Per my research, Winifred was a daughter of Henry Purkins and Henry’s second wife Mary Dunn (a daughter of William Dunn “II” and Winifred Waters).  That Mary Dunn had a brother named William Dunn “III,” and he married first to Lucy Smith, who was a daughter of a Nicholas Smith who was NOT related to my Alexander Smith (proven by Y DNA testing).  Smith Bennett MAY have received his given name in honor of that Nicholas/Lucy Smith family (that included Colonel Francis Smith who married both Lucy Meriwether and Ann/Anne Adams).  Smith W. “Brown” could have been reared with the understanding that he was named for his “uncle” Smith Bennett, versus because he was a “blood Smith” himself.  Smith W. “Brown” may not have known that he was “adopted.”  It would be ironic if Smith W. “Brown” was named “Smith” for (or at least thought that he was named for) a Smith family that was not his own Smith family....whether or not he was aware of any of this (I should write a book)!