THEORETICAL GENESIS

As mentioned in the beginning of this short history, the earliest verifiable Smiths are William and Catherine, who raised their family in Mevagissey, Cornwall, in the 1720s. We have found Smiths in Mevagissey as early as 1611, however and are exploring the records to determine if they are in our line of descent (we believe they are).

The William in question could be one of two: the son of William and Charity John, born in Mevagissey April 2, 1693, or the son of Thomas and Mary, born in nearby Truro the same year. We have not yet found the marriage record of either. Looking at the pattern of names of the siblings, either of them could be our ancestor and, in fact, they may be cousins. We will be looking at microfilms of parish records to try and solve this riddle.

Our theory is that "correct" William is the grandson of Humphrey Smith (or his brother, possibly) who was born in Mevagissey January 15, 1637, the son of William Smith and Edye Blarrack, who were married April 13, 1635. Humphrey had a sister Ann, who was born January 24, 1636, and died February 10, 1636. Their father William was the oldest of 5 children of Richard Smith and Agnes Band, who were married in Mevagissey March 7, 1611. Richard, in turn, was teh son of Peter Smith and a Miss Micholle (pronounced "Mitchell"), born in St. Columb Minor in 1580 (his parents were married in 1578), a tin mining and smuggling village on Atlantic side of Cornwall.

The entire family obviously left Mevagissey after Humphrey's birth, since no Smith marriages, births or deaths are recorded in Mevagissey from 1637 until the 1670s when a Humphrey Smith married. There was no other Smith family in Mevagissey until that time. We find Humphrey Smiths in the nearby inland parish of Kea & Kenwyn, and also find Smiths with "typical" family given names both there and in St. Columb Minor in the intervening years.

Our records search will concentrate on those two parishes, pus Truro, in an attempt to find a continuation of the family of William and Edye, the marriage and children of Humphrey, and an attempt to tracde from there to find the "right" William who married Catherine and started the direct line of descent we have verified from there. If we are successful, we will have added more than 100 years to our history: since parish records do not go back further than about 1560, that will be the end of the line, but 440 years or so is not bad!