Jr. Smith's Ambitions for Sheriff

There's a website I've come across a few times in the last few years that looked pretty darn useful. But you had to pay. So I looked elsewhere. Well, I bit the bullet. For a whole $5.83 a month. I'm in my 30 day free trial right now, and as far as I'm concerned, with the information I've found already, it's more than paid for its worth.
   What site is this? Genealogy Bank. It's awesome.

  I spent some time searching the Smith family of Schoolcraft county in this database. I found 37 news pieces mentioning them in the Evening News, which was Manistique's newspaper. It was a small town, so this included things like " AJ Smith and John Winters from Hiawatha were in town Monday."  - Riveting, I know. :) But still cool, none the less, in my view.

  There were some articles that shed some light on not so known facts. For instance...

                                               
                Here's his official political announcement....

           
                  

                     
                       It seems AJ dabbled in quite a few things looking to find his niche. He farmed, ran a lumber company, logging camp, bootlegged, and ran a "pool hall" type joint, which fronted for his bootlegging. And now, as I found out, had ambitions for County Sheriff.

                        Maybe his defeat in the County Sheriff's election had something to do with his bootlegging.... 1+1=2, right? 
                         Oh AJ, you rascal, you.......

                     

Sepia Saturday - Hunting Mutts

Sepia Saturday: Theme - Dogs.

   This is my Smith family at their homestead in Hiawatha, Schoolcraft County in the upper peninsula of Michigan. The photo was given to me by one of AJ's other great grandchildren.  I love this picture!
   I'm guessing the dogs in the picture are sitting by their own owners.  Quite a mixture of mutts for hunting dogs! (If that's what they did indeed use them for.) The first on the left looks like a terrier mix belonging to Ray Allen Smith, a great great uncle. The next pup is at the feet of my great grandfather, A.J. Smith. The last one is sitting between the legs of my great-great grandfather, Adoniram Judson Smith (Aka, A.J.) who was Sheriff of Schoolcraft County about the time this picture was taken.
   All the pups look pretty relaxed for their photo shoot, except maybe Adoniram Judson's dog. It sort of looks like he's trapping him to make him stay in place. lol.      

 

The next is just a bonus picture of my Dad when he was a boy. I actually think this is the dog that has a pretty tragic boyhood story attached to it, and I believe it was his first dog. 

Don't you think he's raging coolness in his highwaters and skinny turtleneck? :P

      

Smith&Smith

                                                               My Great Great Granny

 

   Ida Harriet Smith - b. 5 Sep 1856 d. 5 Aug 1936

I reached a little confusion a while back when I had a lot of documents on my Mother's Maternal Great grandparents, but for the life of me, I could not come up with a maiden name for my mom's great grandma.
    We knew my grandma's father was A.J Smith. We also knew his father was Adoniram Judson Smith. In fact, I had so much on the Smith's I was back to the 1700's. But I could not figure out what Adoniram Judson's wife Ida's maiden name was. Be it Marriage return records, Death returns, cemetery records.... All I got was Smith. It wasn't until a death record when the thought occurred to me.... Is her maiden name also Smith? In Hiawatha, Michigan? This tiny tiny place? I admit it; Thoughts of first cousins marrying each other immediately popped into my brain. (For the record, I always tend to think the worst.....) but, Eww. I was hoping I was wrong.
   Whew! I was.
 I was able to get in touch with a half 3rd cousin who had an article that had been printed in the local newspaper up there about the Smith's. Ahem, excuse me, the "Extraordinary Smiths." (Hey, I'm not bragging, it's what the article said!)  :)  And it was confirmed then by the descendants... they were absolutely positively from separate Smith lines. Well Thank God!!!    ...and then I was embarrassed it didn't dawn on me earlier that her maiden name was probably Smith. Duh. But I digress....

     So here I am now, with my lovely great great grandmother, Ida Harriet Smith, b. 1856. I have found that her parents are Charles Smith, and Mary Reynolds. Charles' parents are Charles Smith and Laura G.(I assume it's a G, the handwriting was unclear) King. And there I stop. I can find nothing on Laura or Charles so far.

      I've reached out and got a response from ANOTHER distant cousin (The genealogy community is wonderful, have I mentioned that?) who happened to be a professional genealogist and is having a tricky time sorting out Ida's Smith line....uh oh. I'm no where near a professional.... how on earth am I going to get anywhere on this? But this cousin informed me they've had a lot of luck finding these Smith's in Google Books. (and have I mentioned yet how much I love Google Books and the gems of info I've found with it? I have to do a separate blog post on that....) I've tried looking for her Smith's with GB, but came back with nothing. I think I'll try some different combinations of info for the searches and see what I get. At least it's confirmed that it's out there.... I just have to dig it up. Wish me luck!!



The picture of Ida above was given to me for my records by a half 3rd cousin I've found in my Smith searchings. He's been a wonderful help when it came to exchanging information and pictures of the Smith family. Thanks Paul!

68 Days until the 1940 Census!

   I saw this little reminder when I signed into Ancestry. 68 Days until the 1940 Census is released.

       This is something I have been waiting for for quite a while. Basically ever since I realized not all old census records are available. It happened after digging and digging for my Swedish Immigrant great grandparents. They came after the 1920 Census, so they appeared in the 1930 Census. I was ecstatic to finally find some new info. I got frustrated when I began to look for them in a 1940 census. That's because there was no 1940 census. Yet.

        That's when I learned that to be available to the public, a census had to reach it's 72nd birthday. 72nd? Seriously? That 2 after the 7 really messed with me as time passed. 2010 rolled around and I got excited when I remembered the 1940 census. I started searching for it until I remembered that 2. I had two more years to wait. I was getting impatient. And what's up with that 2? Annoying for a person who enjoys stalking the dead.

       It turns out, the 72-year rule is not law, but a rule posed by Roy V. Peel, Census Bureau Director, in a letter to Wayne C. Grover, Archivist, on August 26, 1952. (See info here). I read the letter Mr. Peel sent, and it never gives any reason for the arbitrary number 72.
        BUT.... In 1952, life expectancy for any given person was 68.6 years. So with that in mind, if you tack on 4 years, based on life expectancy, everyone who had given their personal information would most likely be dead, and there'd be no danger or threat to privacy in releasing the information.

        Makes sense. I guess.

   So anyways, there's your bit of babble for today. 68 days!  68 days until I find out where my Jonsson grandparents were, what they were doing, and more personal information! ......like I said..... I stalk dead people.......It's fun.

 

Helge Sigurd Jonsson & Esther Eugenia Stenman

I also cannot fail to mention the hope I have in finding my great grandfather AJ Smith in this census. It will be his last, as he died 5 years later. He left his first wife and married my great grandmother, Joanne Olsen. But I can't find any marriage records for them, and I can't locate him in the 1930 Census. So I am really looking forward to finding him in the 1940 census. It's been easy to locate him when he's married to his first wife. But married to my great grandma? Not so much. He's proved to be pretty elusive after the depression. 

*Once the government hands off the papers, ancestry.com will be working around the clock to scan and enter the data. the way I read it, they would keep everyone updated on where they were in the process through the night/day until it's all in. So get ready! It's almost here!