Okay, I am married to a Smith...I am from Oregon, USA. I have hit a dead end looking for his Smith ancestors in England. Here is the family story (although it has several versions). I am hoping these details might ring a bell with other Smith family members and provide me help in my quest to find the English ancestors. Here goes.....

Family story is that William B. Smith (b. 1862, possibly in London) was "abandoned" along with his mother and siblings by his father (possibly George, although I've only seen this name referenced once, possibly married to a June E. Bland) who went to Australia to find his fortune in gold. He never returned or sent for the family. Ok, so far, probably not a rare occurrence during the gold rush, but....here is the rest of the story.

Supposedly, William B. Smith was taken under the wing of a man named Bland (surname) whom he told that he was going to find his father and kill him for abandoning the family to the streets. Another version is that William B. was under an apprenticeship of some kind to Bland. According to the story, Bland told William B. that once he became "a man" (he was presumably in his teens when this happened) and if he still felt this way, Bland would buy his passage to Australia. Apparently time passed and William B's feelings did not change so true to his word, Bland took him to the dock and bought him passage....here's the twist. Instead of buying passage to Australia, he bought him passage to America.

Another version of the story is that the father just came to America and William B. was to meet up with him but by the time he had found him "George" had already passed away.

Not sure which story is accurate, if any, but thought I would give a shot at posting on this site to see if this was a family story for anybody else.

I am looking for any information on William B.'s father and/or mother so I can continue my search.

William B. immigrated to America in 1886. He made his residence, for the most part, in Chico, CA and had 7 children.

Thank You

Hi there 'Goldenjoe'! It is very good to hear from you and to read your fascinating story. It is a good thing to keep an open mind about family histories and to remember that there may be yet another version which turns out to be the true one! It also seems to be a good idea to follow up all the possible versions and to always bear in mind that names may have been switched when people emigrated, especially if they didn't want to be traced. Of course none of this makes it any easier to find these people but that is the nature of the game!

Have you been able to search any British records such as a census? Do you have any birth or marriage certificates? Have you looked through our links to see whether there may be any relevant websites there for you?

Do keep in touch and let us know if you have further details to share. let us hope that someone will recognise your 'history'!

Gillian

Hi Gillian and Goldenjoe

Goldenjoe, have you had any more luck with this yet? I was wondering what searches you had tried in Uk records for William B birth record or George and ?June's marriage?
BMD indexes or possibly the IGI?

I've re-pinned this topic to the Calendar for a couple of weeks. Hope someone else recognises your story and can help us out with this.

Bye for now

Thank you so much, Carole for re-pinning this topic. Quite frankly, I haven't done too much work on it. When I had searched before, I tried the BMD and census indexes and didn't really find much. I thought maybe I wasn't using the indexes properly and haven't had a chance yet to go back in and try more. We had some family together recently, but unfortunately I wasn't able to make it so didn't get to ask the older relatives. Maybe someone will see this and have a similar story....thanks again!

I wish I could help with your specific family line, but I would like to suggest that you consider a DNA test with Family Tree DNA. When Smith research gets bogged down, DNA can sometimes clear a way to new info. I suggest you read some of the info on the Northeastern U.S. Smith DNA Project to learn more.
http://smithconnections.com/index.cgi

K. Smith
Group 18 coordinator
NE US Smith DNA Project