Who was Thomas Hilliary Smith?

Thomas H Smith was a....

Cheating, lying, horny toaded goat, mean, old man who ran off and left his first wife, Agnes Arnold Smith, with a bunch of kids to support by herself.  He supposedly married a younger woman, but proof of the marriage has never been found.  Oh, and he was my second Great Grandpa from my Mother's side.

Thomas and Agnes came from Missouri into Arkansas. They had ten children together.
1) Christoper Columbus Smith (1842-1898) married 1) Martha Nix, 2) Martha Harger, and 3rd) Rachel McGraw. 16 children altogether.
2) Mary C Smith (1844-?) married James Marsh
3) Malinda Frances Smith (1845-?) married Abraham Eukley
4) Della Agnes Smith (1847-?)
5) Martha Jane Smith (1849-1921) married Zedoc Stutchman, 8 children.
6) Larkin Robert Smith (1851-1913) married 1) Margaret Ross, 2) Mary Chastian. 10 children altogether.
7) Charles B Smith (1852-?) married Sarah Fletcher
8) John Thomas Smith (1853-?) married Elizabeth Hobbs
9) Prudence Agnes Smith(1857-?)
10) David Elijah Smith (1859-1933) married 1) CJ Long, 2) Margaret McGill. 7 children with Margaret.

Larkin and John both were born in Missouri in 1852 and 1853 according to the 1860 census.  Charles B was born in 1855 in Arkansas according to the Census record.  I am not really sure which year is correct for Larkin, John and Charles (Charles was also called Black), but apparently, the family lived for three to four years in Missouri before moving to Arkansas.

David Elijah Smith who shows up as number ten on the list was my Great Grandfather and Margaret (Tenny) McGill was my Great Grandmother.  David and CJ Long did not have any children.

On the 1870 census, Agnes is listed as head of household. On the 1880 census, Agnes' marital status is listed as widowed.

On the records for Thomas, people had listed his death date as 1860 and his death place as Arkansas.  I guess it was because he was last listed in the census records in 1860 in Arkansas.  In more recent years, his descendants have looked for his grave but, of course they never found one since the information they had to go on was false.

There have been some rumors about what may have happened to Thomas but, we didn't know if any of it was true or not.  One of the rumors was that a couple of Agnes' brothers hunted him down and killed him for leaving Agnes and fooling around on her.  Another rumor was that either a couple of her brothers or a couple of their sons hunted him down and found him living with an Indian woman.  They tried to get him to come home and he refused.

In any case, it sounds like the family new that 'ole Thomas wasn't dead but waited for twenty years after he left before listing Agnes as a widow on the census records.

All of this time though, his descendants didn't know what had happened to him, until....

I matched up with a fourth cousin through my DNA on ancestry dot com.  This fourth cousin claimed that her second Great Grandpa was Thomas Hilliary Smith but, this Thomas had a different wife.  His wife's name was Minerva Catherine Buck Smith. 

Apparently, Minerva was a widow who lived either in the same county as Thomas and Agnes or the county next to them.  She had a couple of children from her previous marriage.

Here is a photo of Thomas H Smith with his second wife and several of their children.  One thing we do know for sure about Thomas is that he was very prolific!  He and Minerva had another nine kids.

Not only did my new fourth Smith cousin match my DNA but, she also matches with several other Smith cousins from Thomas H Smith's first Smith family.  Oh Yes!  We always need more Smiths don't we....Lol.  Thomas sure did his part in supplying the world with Smiths.  One thing we know is that DNA Does Not lie even though 'ole Thomas did.

Thomas told Agnes that he was born in 1820 and told Minerva that he was born in 1812.  We know he died in 1897 in Cooke County, Texas and we know about where he is buried.  I am tempted to dig him up and do some DNA testing on him but, I guess I will just have to be satisfied with DNA test results from his descendants.

I have heard stories from his second family of descendants that tell how mean he was, how he took what he wanted, but he could also be quite charming.  Thomas was a Hell Raiser for sure!

If the research done by others is true, he came from a well to do, well respected military family that emigrated from England to Virginia in the 1600s.

One thing I can say about my Smiths is that they were a lively bunch!  More to come on Thomas and other Smiths later.

Most Common Names in the United States

Dang, I'm a Lucky Girl!

According to Ancestry dot com, Smith is the most common name in the United States.  If one has a Smith in the family, they can expect to sort through 81 million records on ancestry. 

I do have a Smith in the family.  My Mother was Rosie Mae Smith.  As a matter of fact, I have many Smiths in the family.  One could say that I have hit the jackpot on Smiths.  My Smiths were a very prolific bunch to top it all off.  One of their favorite pass times was making more Smiths.  Every time, I turn around, I'm running into a new Smith cousin.  Lucky for me, we have DNA to help us sort through the Smith woodpile now.
https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/smith-a-short-history-of-americas-most-popular-surname/?o_xid=78115&o_lid=78115&o_sch=External+Paid+Media


Not too far behind the Smiths are the Johnsons.  According to the 2010 census records (reflected in the link below), the Smiths are at 2.4 million with the Johnsons at 1.9 million. 
 
Do I have a Johnson in the family?  Well, yes.  Yes, I do!  My Daddy was a Johnson.  Lawrence Gerald Johnson.  There are many, many Johnsons in my family tree.  There are about as many of them on ancestry to sort through as there are Smiths.  I'm lucky again to have DNA to help me sort through all the Johnsons.

I recently met a cousin with the surname of Jones on ancestry that is related to both sides of my family.  Smiths (Mother), and Johnsons (Father).  This ought to be interesting to find out if any of the Smiths married a Johnson to produce a Jones.  😅

Jones is running in fifth place on the 2010 census with Garcia close behind them.

I find it to be very interesting the way the most popular surnames are slowly changing in our country. 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1NIqMRAF_SEOWoyMDJ2ZlZiQXM/view

Thanks Mama and Daddy for giving me such a challenging genealogy to research.  Out of all of the people in the world with different surnames, a Smith and Johnson found one another and fell madly in love.  When I really think about it though, I think I would rather have the challenging ( and probably more interesting than many others) genealogy, than to not be here at all. 

Rosie Mae Smith, Baby Helen Jane Johnson, and Lawrence Gerald Johnson

Thanks Mama Smith and Daddy Johnson again, for meeting, falling madly in love with one another and producing a little Johnson-Smith creature! Me! 😊

Uncle was a Pot Grower!

Well I don't know about you but I definitely have folks in my family that would fall into the criminal category.  I guess that would put them in the Hell Raiser category too.  They're definitely not Holy Rollers.

I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but many people with a criminal background are highly intelligent.  They just tend to use their intelligence for the wrong type of business endeavors that usually are not legal.

I had an Uncle who was very entrepreneurial.  He always had some kind of business going, whether it was owning his own service station, running his own painting/handyman business, owning and operating an RV park, or tending to his own little pot farm.  He always had something going on including a claim in his own gold mine up until he passed away in 2013!

When he was in his early to mid 70's, he taught himself to use the computer and picked up genealogy as a hobby.  He was really quite smart.   Uneducated, but smart.

In his mid to late 70's, he decided to get into the pot farming business.  He had his boys (they were in their 40's) go get prescriptions and he got a prescription.  Only one of his boys actually smoked any of the pot. 

In California, if one has a prescription, they are allowed to grow a certain amount of marijuana for their own use or grow for others if they have a prescription.

Uncle got his plants in the ground and they were thriving!  They were growing so high and looked so lush.  Uncle was expecting a fantastic crop and he was dreaming of rolling in the green stuff.  Just before harvest time, he got a visit from some fellows from the sheriff's department.  They went out and wondered around in his pot plants.  He told me that he thought the guys had cross pollinated his crop, and that the next time he was going to take pictures.  He accused them of ruining his crop.

I spoke to him a few days later and he said, "Well, I guess, I did get a little carried away".  Oh, Uncle!!

Rosie and Johnny

My Mother was a Smith, and my Father was a Johnson.  The beautiful, blond, green eyed, petite, Rosie Mae Smith and the, tall, dark, and handsome Lawrence Gerald Johnson, aka John.

Rosie was the last child of a family of six siblings.  I guess, because she was the last child, several relatives decided to name her.  She was named, Clara Rosie Edith Mae Dean Smith.  She had an Aunt Rosie who called her Rosa Dean.  There may have been a couple of other relatives to call her that too.  She never used the Clara or Edith.  She was born at home on February 5, 1935 in Muldrow, Sequoyah County, Oklahoma.  She didn't obtain a birth certificate until she was an adult.  On all of her legal records, she used the name, Rosie Mae Smith.

My Father was the last of six children also.  The oldest of the children passed away shortly after birth.  I don't know if she was even named.  Very few people called him by his given name.  Some family members in Oklahoma called him little Lawrence or Larry.  His father's name was also Lawrence.  He was called John or Johnny by almost everyone.  When he was little, he lived on his Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's farm in Caddo County, Oklahoma.  They had a Shetland pony.  He would get on the pony, fall off, and his Mother would say, "Johnny Jump up and try it again."  That is how he got the nickname.  He was born in Anadarco, Caddo County, Oklahoma, July 9, 1935.

My Mom was at times, a Holy Roller and tucked her Hell Raiser deep inside somewhere.  At other times, especially later in life, she let the Hell Raiser loose....big time!!  There were other times, she vacillated between the two....Poor Mama, she had her demons....at the same time, she always had her faith.

My Dad was always a Hell Raiser.  He didn't come from a religious background at all with the exception of the short time he attended parochial school for a few short months when he was young.  He put my Mom on a pedestal because she was so Holy and pure when they met, and always had such a strong faith.  He also had a belief in God, but didn't have the background.

When I first started doing genealogy, I thought I wouldn't make much progress on my family because my Mother was a Smith and my Father was a Johnson....that has not been the case.

Lawrence Gerald Johnson aka John or Johnny

Rosie Mae Smith Johnson