The following post looks more like a rough draft than a finished piece; however, I am leaving it as-is in the hope that it emphasizes the importance of being cautious with transcriptions! If there is an image available, look at it! I wasted time researching three irrelevant people for this post because, in my haste, I trusted a transcription.
I’d wager that it’s inevitable. Sooner or later in our genealogical research, we will come across the dreaded surname “Smith.” I have stumbled upon one of the offenders, myself—Samuel Smith…of Connecticut, just to narrow it down. With 20 years of genealogy experience under my belt, this should be no problem, right? 👀
Over the years, I have certainly learned a lot about family history research through good, old-fashioned trial and error, so I am reasonably equipped to handle many research dilemmas that pop up. However, my exploratory mission involving one Mr. Samuel Smith…of Connecticut…could go either way depending on one thing: luck.
And I do feel like I can say that genealogical research often boils down to luck. If a record does not exist or is unavailable, you are out of luck. The best you can do is hope that there are other records available to fill in the gaps…and that, too, depends upon luck.
Before I began building my case, I decided to document my Samuel Smith adventure here. I then began my research by doing a cursory Ancestry search on “Samuel Smith,” who was born in “Connecticut” circa “1700.”
Okay, okay, go ahead and call shenanigans. You got me. Most Ancestry searches net thousands of hits; this is no different in that regard. However, the sinking feeling that this image evokes is exactly what I was feeling going into this. And I did scroll through several pages of search results and found that there are at least 17 pages worth of hits for Samuel Smith in Connecticut. At 50 results per page, that put me at 850 different records I’d have to possibly comb through.
The only way out is through, so I forged ahead.
I’ll begin with the first mention of The Dreaded Surname. On pages 79-80 in Abbe-Abbey Genealogy: In Memory of John Abbe and His Descendants, the author states that William Abbey married Lydia Hall, daughter of Thomas Hall and Betsey Smith. The couple was married in Mansfield, CT on June 5, 1777. To confirm this statement, I looked in Book 2 of Early Connecticut Marriages and found their marriage listed on page 130–albeit a day earlier than stated in Abbey.
On page 737, in the second volume of Genealogical and family history of the county of Jefferson, New York, I found that there was a Thomas Hall, who was the son of James Hall & Mehitable Wood, and the family lived in Mansfield, CT. Thomas’ parentage was confirmed by Connecticut, U.S., Church Record Abstracts, 1630-1920, where Thomas’ baptism date was listed—June 14, 1730 in Mansfield, CT—along with the names of his parents. Finally, according to the Connecticut, U.S., Marriage Index, 1620-1926, there was a Thomas Hall who married a Betty Smith in Mansfield, CT on February 14, 1757. Underneath this listing there was also confirmation that Thomas and Betty were, indeed, the parents of Lydia.
Wait. Hang on. That last record also mentions someone else: Samuel Smith. There he is—the father of Betty Smith:
So what next?
Well, I guess since Thomas and Betty were married in Mansfield, CT, I think it’s reasonable to assume that Samuel Smith was from Mansfield, CT as well. I don’t like to make assumptions, but at this point, it’s all I have. So, as my next order of business, I attempted to identify any and all Samuel Smiths in Mansfield, CT.
And I only found one. He was married to a “Betty.” I also located birth records for nine of their children—including Betty, wife of Thomas! All nine kids were born in Mansfield, CT. Betty was born March 9, 1736, which would put her at the age of 21 on her wedding day. Perfect! I’m feeling pretty confident that we have the right family!
Next, I wanted to identify Samuel’s wife, Betty. I located a marriage record in Early Connecticut Marriages for a Samuel Smith and Betty Church. They were married on January 7, 1831. That was very promising as their first child, Rachael, had been born just over a year later on February 3, 1732.
Unfortunately, there was a slight problem. This Samuel Smith and Betty Church were not married in Mansfield; they had been married in Lebanon, New London County, CT, which was about 13 miles away. To make matters worse, the record stated that the pair was from Colchester, New London, CT, which was even further away from Mansfield.
Perhaps it’s not much of a problem. After all, who is to say they could not have moved from Colchester to Mansfield in a year’s time? But where should I search next: Colchester or Mansfield? Well, the first element of the Genealogical Proof Standard is to make sure a “reasonably exhaustive” search has been conducted. That meant I needed to search Colchester and Mansfield for Smiths and Churches.
In order to see what I was working with, I created four tables: Smiths of Colchester, Churches of Colchester, Smiths of Mansfield, and Churches of Mansfield. I used FamilySearch for this task because it allows you to search within a date range, and I set the range as 1690-1760. The searches also yielded results from about 30 years before and after that date range, which was exactly what I wanted. I just didn’t want results from the 1800s and 1900s.
While there were both Smiths and Churches in Colchester, I did not find a Betty or Samuel. In fact, there wasn’t a Betty to be found in all of New London County. I did, however, find a Samuel Smith in Lebanon—the same place where Samuel Smith and Betty Church were married. He was born on December 10, 1701 to Philip and Mary Smith, so the age was right, too. Okay, he was a contender.*
*[Update! Speaking of Betty and Colchester, I want to point out something I noticed when I was reexamining Betty’s birth record. Her birthplace was transcribed as “Mansfield,” but looking at the actual record, her birthplace looks to be Colchester (well, more like “Cholchester”). I needed to investigate further, so I examined her siblings’ birth records for their place of birth. The verdict: the three oldest siblings (Betty included) were born in Colchester. One of the middle kids was born in Mansfield. For the rest of the siblings, their birthplaces either weren’t listed or there was no image available.
This is huge! It confirms that Samuel & his wife, Betty, had lived in Colchester! So, that is most likely their marriage record I had located. That means I had positively identified Betty; she was Betty Church!]
[Lesson Learned: When an image is available, always look at it. Don’t rely on the transcription alone! I had been too wrapped up in documenting all of the Smith Children for this blog, so I didn’t immediately investigate the image.]
Over in Mansfield, there were [only] four Smith men; however, search results did not yield any Smiths who 1) had a son named Samuel 2) that would be the right age. This is where I have to admit something: I found something helpful on another person’s family tree! The tree had listed Samuel’s parents as Samuel Smith and Priscilla Hovey. After doing some research, I came across The Hovey book: describing the English ancestry and American descendants of Daniel Hovey of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and I hit the jackpot.
According to the book, there was a Priscilla Hovey, daughter of James Hovey, who had married a Samuel Smith! And they had a son named Samuel! And the family had moved from Massachusetts to Mansfield! So now we had two contenders.
Now the problem was, which Samuel do I choose?
Both Samuels are the right age; however, Colchester Samuel has no known connection to Mansfield, and Mansfield is where the rest of our subjects resided. On the other hand, there is no record of Mansfield Samuel marrying a Betty. However, we know he married a Betty because they are both listed as the parents to nine children—all born in Mansfield. And one of those children was named Betty.
I think “a bird in hand is worth two in the bush” applies here. Why am I looking outside of Mansfield when I have a Samuel who fits all the criteria residing right there? Okay, Samuel of Mansfield it is! At least that’s my working theory. I cannot be 100% sure unless I am able to find more corroborating evidence [Update: I have found some corroborating evidence: the birth record images of his children].
On my family tree, I went ahead and listed Samuel Smith and Priscilla Hovey as Samuel’s parents. I have also added Philip and Mary Smith as alternate parents just in case. I made sure I documented my findings and my reasoning regarding Samuel’s parentage for Future Me when I inevitably revisit this family.
In the end, my Smith experience was not horrible. At first, seeing a long list of Smiths and Churches (another common surname) in my Connecticut search results was a bit overwhelming, so being able to narrow my search to two specific geographical locations helped immensely. However, creating those charts of the two families was the key to my success in parsing these two families.
As I created the charts, the names started falling into distinct groups, and many individuals were the children of two specific parents. Being able to visualize how these various names related to one another made it so much easier to see the bigger picture. And always keeping the bigger picture in mind is extremely important in good genealogical research!
And I cannot forget to mention that the big break in this investigation came from another person’s family tree! Despite my constant warnings about not trusting the information found on family trees, they can sometimes be a good way to generate leads. You just need to make sure you verify the information with corroborating evidence! And that is exactly what I did in this scenario—albeit through a secondary source.
I hope this post has inspired you to go ahead and jump into that research you have been putting off. While daunting at first, begin by focusing on one specific location, and go from there. It may be helpful to create a spreadsheet containing the data you are gathering. I feel like this is especially helpful to us visual learners. Also, throughout your search, keep your eye on the bigger picture. And, finally, I wish you the best of luck!
Lessons Learned
- When researching a common surname, keep the bigger picture in mind.
- When conducting a broad search, consider using FamilySearch, where you can search for records within a specific date range. That way, you won’t get results for events in the 19th and 20th centuries when you’re researching in the 1700s.
- You may need to research the whole surname, not just one person.
- However, narrow down your search to a specific geographical location(s).
- Consider creating a spreadsheet (or a table) and documenting all of the people within that geographical location who share the surname you are researching.
First, transcribe names, events, dates, relationships, notes, and sources. Then:- rearrange your spreadsheet, first by placing family groups together.
- Once you have your nuclear families grouped, consider creating family group sheets for each family. That way you can easily add in children’s spouses.
- In the end, you may not find as many Smiths or Joneses as you were expecting. Even if there are a lot, you will most likely be able to break them down into smaller, more manageable family units.
- Utilizing another person’s tree can be helpful; however, you need to carefully vet the information you find before you run with it! Remember my lesson on sources!
- If there is an image available of a record, ALWAYS check it yourself. Do not rely solely on the transcriptions! Transcriptions can be inaccurate.
Next up on my to-do list: Samuel Smith…of Massachusetts.
Bonus Images
If you’re a visual learner like me, you may appreciate this timeline I created. I was getting confused because there are three Samuels and a couple of different Bettys. So, seeing things laid out like this provided clarity:
