Hi I am hoping that rootschat experts may help me unravel a brick wall that is puzzling me even moreso now that Mum's dna test results add new people to the mix.
My mother's maternal grandmother was born supposedly as Mary Ann Smith in 1868 in Sydney yet as I have posted elsewhere previously she used the alias of Muriel Annie (Stanley) when she married. Her parents were supposedly Eliza Emma Cooper and William Charles (or Peter) Smith (born 1845 in Qld died 1912 at Granville); William gave his name on most of the birth certificates as William Charles and his son was named Charles William yet when he died his name was given as William Peter Smith. I have looked far and wide but have found no record of his birth or clues to his parents (none given by his certificates apart from the 1845 guestimate of birth date and place of birth as Brisbane).
Mum has close dna links to the Cooper family and there are close physical resemblances to the Cooper family. Strangely though the dna match is higher to Mum's Cooper (great grandmother's siblings descendants) than to her own grandmother's siblings descendants. This lead me to suspect that Mum's grandmother, being the eldest child, may have been only a half sibling to her siblings (different mother or father), however both the Smith and Cooper families are dna connected.
I believed that I had discovered the 4th cousin Smith link when a granddaughter of a Daisy Smith (born 1889, died 1950 at Warwick, parents Thomas Cobham Russell Smith born 1861 died 1928 Qld and Marian Wright born 1862 died 1932 Mama Creek, Qld, Thomas Cobham Russell Smith's parents being Thomas Smith born 1819 Middlesex, died 1891 Qld and Hannah/Anna Russell, Marian Wright's parents being Thomas and Ann Wright. This person dna matches to Mum's grandmother's siblings' descendants as well which validates the Smith link. The other names mentioned don't appear in Mum's family. HOWEVER another match emerged of a man who was a 4th cousin and he is descended from a Mary Ann Smith (died 1874 in Qld) wife of a Thomas Forder. She was a sister of William Benjamin Smith (born 1845 died 1928 at Wee Waa, NSW). Their parents were Thomas Smith born supposedly 1808 and Mary Ann Nelson born about 1816.
Now I have several theories, one possibility is that the two Thomas Smiths are the same person (bigamously married to Mary Ann Nelson and Anna Russell). Another is that a male Cooper (sibling of Eliza Emma Cooper had a child with Mary Ann Smith who was a sibling of William Benjamin Smith and that this child was adopted by Eliza Emma and William Charles Smith. Another was that either a sister of Eliza's or Eliza herself became pregnant to William Benjamin Smith who may have been a cousin of William Charles Smith. The latter is my preferred theory for the following reasons. When mum's great grandparents got married they were married at Wee Waa (yet she lived at Parramatta), why travel all this way out west? Also William Benjamin Smith lived at Narrabri then at Wee Waa and on one occasion he was recorded in a census as living in the same street (possibly visiting same house) in Parramatta as William Charles and Eliza Smith. He was a grazier when he died (he had married a woman named Mary Agnes Hurley but Mum's grandmother was born before this pair married).
I hope that anyone reading this can unravel the picture that I am trying to paint. I have seen family trees of William Benjamin Smith so I don't need any more details of his family, but I do desperately need help trying to link these two Smith families (and I do believe the links is with the Smiths) that are dna matched. Please help as I am pulling my hair out and have spent hours trying to find a common denominator. Thanks! Deb
