Andrew Meadows:
There end up being 3 surnames tangled in this mess, so I’m going to try a bit of color with each surname to try to tie things together.
John M. Smith’s 2nd son (that I know of) was Elias Smith – born about 1810. Elias married Elizabeth Meadows in 1834 in Russell County, Kentucky and Andrew Meadows was Elizabeth’s father.
Andrew was born 17 Jun 1791. I can find him in the 1820 census for Wayne County, Kentucky and Andrew’s father, James, is also in Wayne County in 1810. Andrew can be found in each census for Russell County from 1830 – 1870. According to his tombstone, Andrew died in 1873 and is buried in the Jamestown Cemetery in Russell County.
In Feb, 1833, John M. was made the administrator of the estate of John B. Smith. I have never been able to found a record for “John B Smith” so I have not been able to make a connection to, but I suspect that he may have been one of John M‘s sons. Andrew Meadows is the security of the Administrator Bond. Interestingly, Hiram Rowe is listed on the Executor’s bond the same day, but Hiram’s name is crossed out and Andrew’s name written in on the Administrator’s bond.
On the “potential line” that I’m trying to connect to, there is a Mercer Co, Kentucky Guardian Bond dated Feb, 1833 for a deceased John Smith. I can only see an abstract for the bond (http://kymercer.heliohost.org/bonds.shtml), but it says that there was an orphan, Fanny – a bondsman, John Garr – and a guardian, John League. I have to wonder if the deceased could be John B. Smith? The timeline works – John M. Smith b. abt. 1776, m. abt 1800 could have had a son, John B. Smith who could have been of marrying age before 1833 and had a child. Is it too much of a coincidence that 2 men named John Smith both died in Feb, 1833 and that records for each appear in the exact 2 counties that I’m trying to connnect? The name “John Smith” is so common, maybe I’m trying too hard to make this work? The Garr surname does appear in a Meadows connection, described below. I’ve done just enough research on John League to know that he moved his family to Indiana, so I don’t expect to see his name again, but I will keep it in the back of my mind.
Andrew Meadows was listed as security along with John Cook for George A. and Elias Smith to be the administrators of their father’s (John M. Smith) estate in 1835.
I began filling in children of Andrew Meadows and doing a quick search on each child and found his youngest son, Andrew C. Meadows, married Mary Margaret Gaar in 1852. The 1900 census for the family included mother-in-law, Fitny. I continued to research and found that Fetnah Jane Smith had married Louis Proctor Garr in 1831. They were the parents of Mary Margaret Garr.
Will this link back to the 1833 Smith/Garr guardian bond?
I decided to create a chart to show how these families relate to each other and as I do research I will continue to look for these surnames in each time frame that I examine. I don’t have the break through yet, but here is the chart. I tried to arrange the names to show who might have the potential to appear at the same time in the right records to help me narrow down what to look for. Vertical lines show a parent/child relationships. I did not skip generations.
The only names I am taking on faith from someone’s un-sourced online tree would be William Smith and Mary Baber. While Fetnah’s mother in this chart would have been 41 years old when giving birth, William would have been almost 60. I see potential for a missing generation there, but I know that this scenerio is not impossible.
So where do I go from here? I’m not sure. I have a nice pension application file for James Meadows, so I will be checking those names and locations to see if I can find a Smith match. And the Garr/Gaar surnames is more unique than Smith or Meadows, so I’ll certainly be watching for that!
I would love to find out more about the John Smith who died in 1833. I think I’ll be taking a look at the tax and land records of that time to see if that reveals anything. I’m also going to examine more Wayne County records to see if I can extend the Meadows and Smith association. I’m off to the library right now!