Information learned in Tennessee Part 2 – the Smiths
Trip to Tennessee
I decided I would have to go to Tennessee if I wanted to find out anything more, so I went there last week where I spent a lot of time at the Campbell County Historical Society. With the help of Trulene Nash, a volunteer at the society, we found more information than I ever could have hoped for.
*Note on ancestry.com searches – I should note that the majority of information I got in Tennessee was on ancestry.com, which I could have accessed from home. Apparently I needed the search skills of someone more experienced and Trulene is a former employee of the FBI. Once again I was bit in the butt by my tendency to be too literal. Her searches were more ballpark than precise and that’s what netted all the information. Don’t be too specific (or literal) when searching ancestry.com. There are tons of typos and flat out inaccuracies so you need to broaden your perspective.
Considering I more or less went to Tennessee expecting to come home knowing no more than I did when I left, it ended up being a very worthwhile trip. But to be honest, just seeing where dad lived would have made the trip worth the time and money so I was really thrilled with what I learned.
1940 Census
So let’s start with that 1940 census where they lived at 319 Lick Fork Rd. in Elk Valley. I was shocked to learn there was an adult male in the household since my dad had never once in his life mentioned one, but had said there were two half brothers. Here’s the census information:
[table id=3 /][wpdm_file id=13]
Marriage Certificate
Trulene found the marriage certificate for John and Jane on ancestry.com where I had totally failed. I was looking for Jane and John. She was looking for variations on the name and found JF and Janie.
I had learned that Clay’s father was John F. Smith when I saw the social security numbers for dad and Clay were one number apart. I got curious who had the number in between so I found a way to look it up and discovered it was John F. Smith. I never thought to look for JF.
Since John was born in 1889 and Janie in 1902 that meant she was 23 and he was 34 years old so there was a 13 year difference in age. My dad was 3 years old when his mother married John.
[wpdm_file id=16]
1930 Census
Once again I have to credit Trulene with this find. I was busy searching Tennessee where she broadened her search and found them in Virginia.
I was once again shocked to see they not only lived in Virginia (which dad had never mentioned) but they stated on the census that 5 year old John Jr. (Clay) and 3 year old David had been born in Virginia. The change in the names of the children was also surprising, but I was learning the quality of information gathering by census takers was less than optimal at times. I also think people changed what they told the census takers. John (the head-of-household) was 52 in the 1940 Census and 36 in this one. I knew from his social security number that his birth year was 1989, so I wondered why about the inaccuracy of his age in 1930. Could the age difference been an issue or had the census taker made a mistake.
[table id=4 /][wpdm_file id=15]
All this left me with a dilemma. Dad was born September 23, 1920. John Smith and Janie Honeycutt married December 28, 1923 so John Smith was not his father and I had no idea how to find who the biological father was. With the help of Trulene I kept looking.