Alias Smith & Jones

[Bob Spiers]

It is a rare Tree indeed that does not have a Smith contingency, especially if both lines have been taken back to, say, Great grandparents. And of course you will then find yourselves up against recurring first names like (but by no means limited to) John, David and William or perhaps Mary & Elizabeth.

The same thing if researching Welsh ancestry and coming across surnames like, Jones, Evans and Williams, to mention just a few. Some even go in for the same first name as their surname like Evan Evans and Lewis Lewis.

Here are a couple Smith examples, and one of Jones et al, from my own research.

My cousin's wife was first married to a Smith and had inherited his Family Tree research which she passed on to me a few years after he had died, and of course after marrying my cousin. I have posted elsewhere about my research so will not duplicate here, but just to say my follow-up research to see if her late husbands Smith line merged with her own ancestral Smith (Gypsy) line has proven to be a most fascinating quest which has had me hooked for ages, and is still ongoing.

Then researching my wife's paternal line - and yes still mentioned elsewhere in the Forum -about her father's birth out of wedlock to a Smith mother and the follow-up work to separate different Smith families with sons and daughters given the same first names, proved to be demanding and - at times -quite vexatious.

Finally exploring two quite different popular Welsh surnames. One for my cousin's daughter-in-law whose maiden name was Jones, and the other her son-in-law, with Welsh ties on his mother's side. Both had me embroiled in trying to sift through families of Jones and Williams and coming across the Lewis Lewis I mentioned previously. I found keeping notes essential but still mind blowingly complicated.

Of course I know one can encounter similar problems with other popular surnames but for me what I call my 'Alias Smith & Jones' (an old Western US TV series) research certainly keeps me out of mischief, and I would you believe I now discover I have yet another Smith family to explore in a friends Tree.

I am just dying to find the antidote research for a Methuselah Knickerbocker (best I could come up with at short notice) but will probably find there are gaps in the records.

 

[At home in NZ]

It is a rare Tree indeed that does not have a Smith contingency,

I don't have one of those rare trees but have found research less frustrating than it sounds.
However:
Patrick, Owen, Thomas, Austin, Bridget, Honora (Nora), Catherine (Kate) are all recurring first names in the mostly 10 child families in the Irish line of my ancestry. It can be challenging, especially when you find couples who both have the same last name.
Thank goodness for baptism and birth records that use the mother's maiden name because it makes it much easier, in most cases.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Thank goodness for baptism and birth records that use the mother's maiden name because it makes it much easier, in most cases.

With my own Irish research the name Bridget (Bidy or Biddy) caused me the most problems. I found several Bridget/Bid(d)y's in County Galway (West & East) from baptismal or birth records, but could never be sure I had the right one married to the right 'Flynn' father. The thing that helped me most was the 1841/51 Census extracts that finally enabled me to pinpoint the right family, and the right Bridget.

 

[peter]

It is a rare Tree indeed that does not have a Smith contingency, especially if both lines have been taken back to, say, Great grandparents

We have 8 great-grandparents, so potentially 8 different surnames - but only around 2% of the British population are called Smith. You'd have to go back to 4G grandparents for there to be a better than 50% chance of a Smith line.

However in my case I only have to go back to my great-great grandmother Rebecca Smith b1835. It was by researching her ancestors that I discovered I was descended from the Walloon carpenter Launcelot Vandepeer, who is recorded as repairing churches in Canterbury in the 1500s.

 

[canadianbeth]

I have one branch of Smith in my tree, connected to the Riches line. I also have two different branches of Jones - one to the Barratt and the other to the Bowyer lines. There do not appear to be any at all connected to the Joyce branch. And of course, I am missing one complete branch so there could be others.

 

[pjd]

My mother was a Smith!!
My grandfather Smith's sister, Edith, married an unrelated Edgar Smith - so many Johns, Marys, Josephs . . . .

 

[PhilGee]

The Smiths I can cope with - they are all "by marriage" in side branches. It is one of the two Jones families that's a nightmare!

Jones (1) is the family of my paternal grandmother and relatively easy to follow as they are mainly in Southwick, Wilts and then the Trowbridge area in recent times.

Jones (2) is the family of my maternal line great-grandmother born in Morriston/Llangyfelach and the daughter of John Jones = Elizabeth Davies. Add Evan, Benjamin and Mary to John and Elizabeth and it's a nightmare! Finally, to complete the "stew" add a pinch of English speaking census enumerators and the "Place of birth" becomes some random sequence of letters (plus, of course, the only recognisable name was in Carmarthenshire in the early 1800s and is now in Pembrokeshire!). Just for completeness, an 1830's marriage was in Pembrokeshire within a "Carmarthenshire" Parish. Elsewhere, "occupation" might be an aid, but the prevalence of miners and tin-plate workers (like John Jones who was a "tin lister" at age 12) knocks that out.

 

[Katie Bee]

'Alias Smith & Jones' (an old Western US TV series) research

No Smith or Jones in my tree up to now - but I do remember the TV program.

 

[Heather]

I have to go back to my 6x great grandmother before I find a Smith in my ancestors, but my grandfather John Edwards was from Wales and tracing his line is proving difficult; finding his military record almost impossible.

 

[jorghes]

My fun one is a Welsh connection - my 3x great grandfather is William Williams. His father was also William Williams and his mother's maiden name... you guessed it, Williams...

 

[Bob Spiers]

No Smith or Jones in my tree up to now

I have to go back to my 6x great grandmother before I find a Smith in my ancestors

I take it I when I said it would be a rare Tree indeed not to have a 'Smith' contingency, you knew I mean not just direct or bloodline, but those indeterminable cousin branch lines with children marrying a Smith and their children ditto, so on and so forth. (What Phil refers to as 'side marriages'). I accept Peter's statistics about needing to get up to 4G levels to have a 50% or better chance of a Smith line, but in my experience -given I mean anywhere in the developing Tree -they occur long before. In short I cannot truly recall any time this did not happen.

But that does not mean I do not believe Katie or that Heather does not have a Smith prior to reaching 6GP levels, just as long as they both understand I mean a Smith that would show in a Surname index regardless of ancestral relvance to the main root lines.

I have such an Index in my Tribal Pages and here, taken from just 4 of the Trees I regularly maintain (others are dormant awaiting ressurrection) is the number of Smith's that appear in each Tree.

A: = 139 B:= 36 C: = 72 D: =13 (and the latter is a modest Tree in the extreme and certainly not yet taken beyond GGP level)

I exclude Jones because although at times they are still fairly numerous (in my own Tree - 'A ' in the example - there are 76 Jones for instance) that will depend on what levels of Welsh ancestry one needs to explore. But even regardless of knowing of Welsh connections, it never seems long before a handful materialise.

 

[Bob Spiers]

My fun one is a Welsh connection - my 3x great grandfather is William Williams. His father was also William Williams and his mother's maiden name... you guessed it, Williams...

Great fun (not) I'm sure jorghes and a Williams marrying Williams is on a par with trying to do a jigsaw face down...and perhaps should add with pieces missing!

 

[Bob Spiers]

Jones (2) is the family of my maternal line great-grandmother born in Morriston/Llangyfelach and the daughter of John Jones = Elizabeth Davies. Add Evan, Benjamin and Mary to John and Elizabeth and it's a nightmare! Finally, to complete the "stew" add a pinch of English speaking census enumerators and the "Place of birth" becomes some random sequence of letters (plus, of course, the only recognisable name was in Carmarthenshire in the early 1800s and is now in Pembrokeshire!). Just for completeness, an 1830's marriage was in Pembrokeshire within a "Carmarthenshire" Parish. Elsewhere, "occupation" might be an aid, but the prevalence of miners and tin-plate workers (like John Jones who was a "tin lister" at age 12) knocks that out.

Wonderful Phil but in true Monty Python (Life of Brian) style..."yes, well apart from that, what's your problem"?

 

[jorghes]

Great fun (not) I'm sure jorghes and a Williams marrying Williams is on a par with trying to do a jigsaw face down...and perhaps should add with pieces missing!

Firm tongue in cheek - but it can make it difficult to figure out exactly which William Williams is your own particular individual...

 

[Heather]

But that does not mean I do not believe Katie or that Heather does not have a Smith prior to reaching 6GP levels, just as long as they both understand I mean a Smith that would show in a Surname index regardless of ancestral relevance to the main root lines.

I did mean direct ancestors in my post Bob, I do have a Smith marrying my grandfather's sister but they are the only Smiths I have found to date.

 

[At home in NZ]

Until I read through this discussion I hadn't given too much thought to how many Smiths I have, using the list of all people in Ancestry is the easy way for me to find out.
I have a total of 78 Smith and a total of 28 Jones.

Some interesting (or not) facts:

Thomas Smith related by marriage was born in the delightfully sounding village of Steeple Bumpstead.

Bridget Jones born in 1628 is my 1st cousin 11x removed.

If my research is correct a John Smith is a fourth great grandfather.

I have a Jones who married a Smith, the Smith is 2nd cousin 2x removed.

 

[Bob Spiers]

I did mean direct ancestors in my post Bob, I do have a Smith marrying my grandfather's sister but they are the only Smiths I have found to date.

Well that rates as a rare Tree Heather, although only based on my own experience (no statistics involved thank goodness). I say this because because the Smith's just magically appear everytime I venture into new territories (ie new Trees), without even trying to find them.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Until I read through this discussion I hadn't given too much thought to how many Smiths I have, using the list of all people in Ancestry is the easy way for me to find out.

Do you know I wasn't aware you could find out how many times a particular surname appears via an Ancestry Tree. Probably because I never needed to as Tribal Pages provides the information once I select the initial surname letter (eg S for Smith). That will then show every surname beginning with that letter and how many times each occurs in the Tree. I even list the top 100 under 'Stories' which I manually update at intervals. It is admittedly for my own information, or any other family member who has access and wants to find where they stand in the rankings. (For fun only of course).

 

[At home in NZ]

Do you know I wasn't aware you could find out how many times a particular surname appears via an Ancestry Tree.

I use the list of all people quite a lot, especially if I'm looking for one of the many people with the same name and can only identify the person by place of birth.
You get the option to see the list of people when you do a Tree Search in a Profile.
I've never seen Tribal Pages, not knowingly anyway. I'm quite happy with my Ancestry synced with FTM. I like the reports available in FTM. Sadly Ancestry lacks a reporting feature, I have asked, more than once, but never got a response beyond the initial automated acknowledgement.

 

[PhilGee]

I think I'm going to ignore Bob for a while - I had a feeling there was a Smith lurking somewhere, but I do not have a "Smith of..." tree for a Smith direct ancestor (the Jones families mention previously are "Jones of Southwick" and "Jones of Llandissilio"). However, I have just looked at my "Ahnentafel" list and found both "37 Smith" and "91 Smith" - a double whammy and 1 more tree to build, starting with 10 siblings plus parents: Smith of Barsby (but no sign of a baptism for Cicely Smith [b. abt 1760] anywhere near Bradford on Avon where she married in 1786 and 1793)!!