Welcome to the Smith Family History Website!

 

This site includes information from the research conducted to date on the two German immigrants that came to the United States and started our new American Smith family. I hope you find their story as fascinating as I do – not just discovering the names, dates, and places but also the piecing together of facts and uncovering the mystery of the lives they led, the risks they took, the communities they lived in, the careers they made, the challenges they faced, the families they built, and the history they witnessed and shaped. Much of this information has been lost to our family over the years as siblings and cousins have gone various ways and generations have passed, taking their knowledge and memories of the past with them. As of Jan, 2021 there are now 6 American generations descended from our Smith immigrant ancestors!

 

The story on these pages begin to capture some of the facts, images, and context of their lives. But the story is far from complete. There remains a wealth of information about our ancestors locked up in archives, libraries, government departments, and historical societies. And there is undoubtedly more information (letters, documents, and photographs) of our ancestors residing in old photo albums or shoeboxes in the attics of family members near and far. Let this site be a beginning and a source of inspiration and family dialog. Register as a family member to access and participate in the group discussion. I also request help in identifying family members, who are not yet shown in the family tree. If you are a relative of this Smith lineage and you do not see yourself or a relative you know belongs in the family tree, let me know. Send me a note in the Keep in Touch dialog box to the right. 

 

While the intent of this site is to chronicle the lives of our immigrant ancestors, it focuses more on the patriarch - William Q. Smith. This is partly due to wanting to understand our Smith namesake. However, it is primarily due to the reality that more information is publicly available on William than on Mary Katherine Schwab. In the days in which they lived, the nuclear family was dominated by a culture, where men traditionally worked for wages in professions outside the home and women traditionally worked at home running the internal affairs of the family. Public records and newspapers tended to cover the activities and milestones of men more often than women. This reality plus the tradition of married women taking on the last names of their husbands makes it a bigger challenge to track the lives of our female ancestors.

 

Please be forewarned that this site is likely to contain errors. It is inevitable that something is left out, a fact is misrepresented, a date is wrong or reversed or a name misspelled. If you discover an error or something missing, please record it, cite the source of the correct information, and let me know so I can update it.

 

It’s very important that our family story rely on proven facts backed by evidence and official records. Beyond that, information is simply conjecture or rumor. I’d like to quote some excerpts from an Irish Genealogy Toolkit, which has helped guide my research. It encourages critical thinking regarding hearsay vs. facts.

 

"Assume nothing! Just because a woman is a man's wife doesn't mean she is his children's mother; check their birth records. Just because you've only known your surname spelled one way doesn't mean people with variant spellings are not related to you; surname spellings have become consistent only in the last 100 years. Just because a gravestone says Great Grandma Hannah died in 1898 aged 68 doesn't mean she was born in 1830; check the records for up to 10 years before that date.

 

The Internet is heavily populated with family trees that have been copied, often many times, from sloppily researched or even deliberately misleading originals. It's tempting to grab a 'ready made' tree or branch of a tree and attach it to a seemingly matching piece of your own ancestral heritage, but if you don't double-check every bit of the research, you could end up taking your own family history in the wrong direction. What's the point of that?

 

Ditch the notion that all your ancestors were saintly and never told a lie. Vanity is not a modern phenomenon. Neither is the pleasure of 'getting one over on the authorities.’ Not everything noted in an official document will necessarily have been honestly recorded. There is also the possibility that there was some other influence at play when someone told an untruth. In many cases, they won't even have been providing misleading information intentionally. Age was less of an issue than it is now, and many people didn't know exactly when they were born so they simply estimated. Bear in mind also that freedom of speech and religious practice are relatively modern notions. Your ancestors may well have lied about their true religious persuasion to avoid arrest, eviction or social exclusion."

 

Ever wonder why you look the way you look or behave the way you do or prefer certain things over others?  We usually look to our parents and assume certain traits came from one or the other. But the fact is that we are the way we are because of generations and generations of people that came before us. The closer the previous generation, the easier it seems that we can point to characteristics that were likely passed down to us.

 

The decisions our ancestors made enabled the lives we lead today. The places we live, the people we marry, the careers we lead are all influenced in some way by the decisions our forbearers made. And the decisions we make with our lives will influence the lives of our descendants in ways we can't imagine. I was compelled to research our Smith family history not just because I share the surname or because I had questions about the origin of our family, which didn't have answers. These were important reasons, but my interest in our family history is rooted in a desire to know more about myself. What makes me, me? It also helps me make sense of history when I put my ancestors lives in that context. History becomes less distant and abstract and more personal and real. Our Smith family story is part of the American story. Our family history is part of world history and of the State of Indiana and the City of Indianapolis. I have a greater appreciation for that now that I know more about how our ancestors participated in that history. I also feel like I am connected to something beyond myself and my time. I am grounded in the knowledge that I am not alone in the struggles of family and work life. The troubles I see today in the world my ancestors also saw. The trials they faced in their lives inspire me to push on. It reminds me that my life is made possible today thanks to what they did in theirs.

 

I also want to acknowledge that despite the data, photos, documents, and articles that have been collected, which help us develop a perception of who these people were, our ancestors real lives were so much more than any anecdotes can describe.  It’s tempting to try and draw conclusions about the nature of people, who they were as mothers and fathers, as siblings, as professionals, and as members of society based on images and the stories we read. The reality is their lives, like ours, were much richer and more complex than can be captured in news clippings and sketches of information in a family history. The best this story can do is provide insights into the lives they led, the history they lived through, the events they saw and specific moments they experienced.

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I invite you to explore the insights on the following pages.

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Trevor Smith