Back in September of 2021, I made contact with a Kasey Diane Brooks Brady on Facebook. This was around the same time I was blocked from the SmithsWorldWide Facebook group.

I had posted some of my research to the SmithsWorldWide Facebook group about what had been published by group R-M269-32 pertaining to Josiah Smith of Brunswick Co, VA on their site, and I had included Kasey as her group membership in the project needed to be changed. As she was working only with autosomal DNA, no yDNA match had linked her Smith family to R-M269-32. She had previously been working from some of Quentin and Gaylord Smith’s research, and it was only from their errant published information was she linked to R-M269-32.

My posting to the group demonstrated that two Josiah Smiths that had been linked by Quentin and Gaylord could not have been father and son, and I had supporting evidence (e-mail below is of first discussion about this subject with Gaylord Smith.

Nancy Helena Smith

For the first time, I am publishing my previous work involving known documented descendants of Josiah and Elizabeth and their autosomal connection to descendants of Stephen Smith of Blount Co, AL.

Putting all of this information together, we can see a 2D chromosome browser comparison of all of the kits:

Kasey’s dad’s (Larry Alfred Roland Brooks) kit triangulates on Cr20 with JS9325709 and A755426, known descendants of Josiah and Elizabeth (first identified as part of RS1118028 autosomal analysis).

JS9325709 and A755426 are also valuable in this next step of the analysis.

To preface, by comparing multiple autosomal kits of descendants of Stephen Smith and Nancy Rainwater, I found a segment that was shared by many of them.

A matching segment search yields the following:

It is good that we see A535604 (descendant of William J Smith), A857974, and A791499 (descendant of Henry Alexander Smith) and T905134, A443626 (descendant of John Burton Smith) in this list. This shows that this DNA is closely linked to Isaac Andrew Smith or Rachel Catherine Pennington. For notes, A443626 is both a documented descendant of Josiah and Elizabeth as well as Stephen Smith and Nancy (Harris?) Rainwater of Blount Co, AL. This Stephen Smith line is yDNA established.

Click to see the larger tree:

Available GEDcoms for the above list are:

Their paper trail shows that they are both descendants of Josiah Smith and Elizabeth Collier.

From JS9325709 tree:

From A755426 tree:

We can see that their MRCAs are William Norwood and Susannah Smith, a daughter of Josiah and Elizabeth.

To further see how significant this finding is, here is the 2D autosomal DNA browser view of a yDNA match of mine who descends from Stephen and Nancy Smith compared to Carlton Smith (another yDNA carrier descended from Stephen):

It is very clear to see here that JS9325709 and A755426 share two halves of a segment that is was present in the common ancestors of RS1118028 , A535604, and A857018.

Conclusion

I believe the above information does two things. First, it uses autosomal DNA information to confirm the hypothesis (which was built from will information) that Miles Smith was a descendant of Josiah Smith. Second, it autosomally links descendants of Josiah to descendants of Stephen Smith of Blount Co, AL. This Stephen Smith line is a 67 level match to my Smith line.

We can therefore now build a hypothesis that Josiah Smith was likely a carrier of my Smith group’s yDNA.

A preliminary autosomal investigation into this hypothesis has yielded this:

JB4497364 and A475724 match JB4497364 on the same chromosome, Cr1. It should be clarified that this is significant because John and Ray descend from very distantly related but yDNA matched Smith lines.

Further, the segment from 164.6M to 183.8M has been used to identify other autosomal DNA matches of JB4497364 and A475724 who are descendants of Isaac Smith of Camden, Benton Co, TN (descendant of Shadrack Smith of Wake Co, NC). We therefore consider this a region of interest when looking for possible common Smith ancestries between autosomal matches.

We can further hypothesize that it is a strong likelihood that this autosomal DNA on Cr1 was inherited via common Smith ancestry shared by the involved autosomal matches. Further, because autosomal DNA does not jump around in location on a chromosome, nor does it change chromosomes, we can hypothesize that the segment from 90.4M to 108.7M may be relevant to a common Smith ancestry shared by L.B., JB4497364 and A475724 as the neighboring segment to the right can be demonstrated to be relevant to that ancestry. A larger, more complete segment in their hypothetical common ancestor would bridge the two segments into one.

Ideally, we would like to try to confirm these hypotheses with a yDNA test for a proven and unambiguous descendant of Josiah Smith’s.

I will also note that it is likely not a coincidence that we find one of Josiah’s brothers, Cuthbert Smith, in the story of Henry Smith of Knox and Harlan Co, KY who knew Col. Elisha Smith of Mt. Vernon, Rockcastle Co, KY. Elisha lived very near Ray Smith’s ancestor, Isaac Smith who married Nancy Hendricks. (Isaac was a son of an Andrew Smith who was a son of Robert Smith of St. Matthew’s Parish in old Orange Co, NC).

Cuthbert had a son Stephen Smith (different from Blount Co, AL Stephen) who married an Olive Harrison. Olive Harrison was a daughter of Olive Smith and Nathaniel Harrison. Olive Smith was a daughter of Eads Smith. Eads had another daughter Mary Smith who married Andrew Jeter. Henry Smith enlisted under Andrew Jeter in the Revolutionary War. This was in Fountains Creek, VA.

We do not have a clear paper trail linking Stephen Smith of Blount Co, AL to Josiah’s family. Only DNA has been used for this effort.

I hope this is useful to someone. It has taken many years to get this far and sort out all of the poorly vetted research that has been published thus far.