Tombstone Tuesday – November 5, 2012

This weekend we went down to Shawn and Amber’s house in Danville, Illinois.  We had a really nice weekend. Sunday on our way home we spent all afternoon going through 4 cemeteries in Iroquois County, Illinois.  Today, I will show some graves of newly found Smith family members and their inlaws or outlaws…depending on how you want to look at it. The post for this week will  be of  Francis M. Smith and two of his wives.

Francis Marion Smith

 Francis M. was the son of Joseph and Mary Ann (Best) Smith. He was born in Pine, Warren County, Indiana.  His mother, Mary Ann’s tombstone was highlighted last week.  She died shortly after Francis was born. I have not found Joseph’s tombstone for sure yet. 

Francis Marion Smith – 1853-1935

Mary Ann (Hobson) Smith

He married Mary Ann Hobson in Iroquois , Illinois in 1873.  Mary Ann (Hobson) Smith was buried in the Sugar Creek Cemetery in the Smith Family plot.  Mary Ann's parents, Zimri and Mary Ann Hobson are also buried in the Sugar Creek Cemetery near by the Smith Plot

Mary Ann (Hobson) Smith - 1855-1889

Francis did remarry and it seems that he may have married several times but I am not certain of that at the time of this post so I will continue to investigate.  I am certain that his last wife was Minnie Amelia Payton and they married in 1895 in Onarga, Illinois and they eventually moved to Spokane, Washington.  Francis died in Colfax, Whitman County, WA on January 15, 1925.  His remains were brought back to Sugar Creek Cemetery for burial. 

Minnie Amelia (Payton) Smith was born in 1870 and on  May 6,1952 died in Los Angeles, California and her remains were also brought back to be buried in Sugar Creek Cemetery. 

Minnie Amelia (Payton) Smith

 There are three Smith Children buried in this plot.  I will investigate who they are and who their parents are and will highlight them in a later post. 

Happy Hunting,

Jan




I want to say "Thanks  so much"  to Sandra Smith for sharing these wonderful Family photos of Francis, Mary Ann and Minnie.

Tombstone Tuesday - October 30,2012

Mary Ann Smith was 37 years old when she died. She is buried in Smith Cemetery in Benton County, Indiana. I think this may have been Mary Ann Best Smith.  The wife of Joseph who we have connected to through DNA.  I will have to try to check out this stone again but it is believed that she was born in 1818 so that would make her 37 years old in 1855.  When I took this photo, I had no idea who this person was.  It was several years ago so I will need to try to clean the stone and get the year which is on the stone.  If this is Mary Ann, her husband Joseph, remarried Celia Dixon in 1856. All this information would certainly fit into the data that we have discovered.

Indiana 1850 Census -  for Pine in Warren County for Joseph Smith Family

 Happy Hunting!

Jan

Puzzles of Darcus Smith

I love it when I run across an unusual name.  The James, Williams, and Johns hide all their clues among thousands of other James, Williams and Johns in the databases.  But when you have a name like Darcas which is also sometime spelled Dorcus you tend to stick out more!  So this week I was researching Darcus Smith. 

I was looking at her because Joseph and Mary Ann (Best) Smith had a daughter named Darcus. (the Joseph who we now know is connected to our James Smith through DNA) Then I found a marriage license for a Dorcus Smith and Jacob Best in Warren County but it was long before Joseph’s Darcus was born.  So I could not help but wonder who this woman was. Ironically the last name “Best” stuck out like a neon sign since Mary Ann, Joseph’s 1^st wife was a Best. The daughter, Darcus, was Mary Ann’s and Joseph’s 2^nd daughter.  Could this be the Grandmother?  Could this be Joseph’s Mother?

I had posted a message on ancestry.com about the marriage of Jacob Best and Dorcus Smith.  And sure enough a response came back the next day.  She was the 2^nd wife of James Smith, was the response.   The James Smith’s who was the first person buried in Smith Cemetery ! “Really” , I thought.  How could I have forgotten that!  I was the person who entered the data for the Smiths in Smith Cemetery in Benton County a few years back but I do not remember entering a Dorcus Smith.

I spent several years looking at the Benton County Smith data but was unable to connect my James to it. I have several old blogs about them. I had totally ruled out any connection between my James and the Smith’s of Benton County!  I have several other Smith researchers that I keep in contact with. We have all freely shared what we know.  I have saved the correspondences in my email, so it was time to review what they had shared with me. There she was, plain as day, among the notes of other researchers.  Darcus or Dorcus Williams was the 2^nd wife of James Smith, the elder James Smith who came from Darke County, Ohio to Warren County, Indiana.  Parts of Warren County would later become Benton County, Indiana!  James and his second wife, Darcus, had four children; Joseph, Benjamin, Justice and Elizabeth…I’ll be darned…There is the Uncle Justice too!  He is the guardian referred to in Francis Marion’s guardianship papers. I was able to find Darcus Best and Jacob in the 1850 Federal Census and “Justin” Smith is 16 and living with them. Next door to them are the families of Thomas Smith and James Smith Jr.

Well, I’ll be darned!  Of course she isn’t buried in the Smith Cemetery as Darcus Smith because she is Darcus Best!  She and Jacob are both buried there.  The “Needles in the Haystack” were right there for me to find if I just get them sorted out right. 

There is still quite a lot for me to find out.  I still do not know for sure how or where my James Smith fits into this family but with the DNA results, there is no doubt that he does!

So as it always is when doing this kind of research, the answer  for one questions always leads to another new question.  Was Mary Ann Best somehow related to Jacob and his family?  Was my James a brother to Joseph or a cousin? The search continues …

Happy Hunting,

Jan