For some time I have been thinking of sending in a story to the newsletter. I have some stories in mind and I will send in one each month so I hope you enjoy them. My first story is on brick walls and I have a tough one. Like several of you, mine is a man’s name “Aaron.” Now Aaron Smith is my g. g. grandfather on my father’s side, I can take Aaron back to 1819 living in Douglas Parrish just north of Fredericton, New Brunswick Canada. For the last five years or so I have been stuck there, I can’t go back any further.
With the help of my friend, we have looked under every rock and behind every tree to no avail. When we found Aarons marriage license, I thought my problem was solved. NOT so; it did not give his parents name, just by consent of parents. It is hard to tell if Aaron was born in Canada or America. Under first families of New Brunswick it does not list anyone with an Aaron living with them. He married Mary Davis in 1820 when she came over from Wales in 1819 with her family. We find Aaron and Mary living near her family so this tells me that Aaron’s family may be from America.
As I said we have looked everywhere land grants, church records and any other records we could think of. I sent for some records from the Provincial Archives in Fredericton to no avail. The last place I know to look at is his military record as he was in two regiments in 1810. I sent to a genealogy group in Fredericton to check on this but have not heard back from them.
So now is the time to put this aside and move on to other people. I think if I forget about this for a while something may come up later. I have been stuck on a name before and when I stop looking the answer showed up later when I was not looking. This is my plan to go work on some other things and see if the answer will show up later. I know in time Aaron will give up the names.
– Orlan Smith
Vice President’s Message, February 2013 by Heather Feuerhelm is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at ac-gs.org.