Long Line
 |
| “The Logic of Long Lines,” Atlantic, 28 Jan 2015 |
My mother was a Smith.
In January of 2020, it is reported that “If you have a Smith in your family, you have a staggering 81 million records to pore through on Ancestry. Smith has long been the most common surname in both the United States and Great Britain.”1
&&&&&&&&&
Is there a logic of long lines? Bourree Lam claims there is in the Atlantic (28 Jan 2015); excerpts from her work bear consideration.2
The amount of time Americans spend waiting in line each year is roughly 37 billion hours. For businesses, queues are double-edged swords: Long wait times can frustrate customers, but they can also enhance the reputation of a shop—especially if that shop is a restaurant.But long lines aren't always unproductive: Some waits increase the appeal of a product. Behavioral science professor Ayelet Fishbach's research found that waiting for something increases its value, and that these increases can cause people to be more patient.
In other words, it makes something "worth waiting for." Restaurants that don't take reservations have made "waiting culture" a signal of quality, and patrons end up valuing the food more than leisure time.
But what does waiting have to do with ancestral history? Everything. More so when you are dealing with the name ‘Smith,’ which was my brick wall from 1998-2012, 14 long years before the digital age burst into full bloom.3
Long Line of Smith Family Researchers
Kindly responding to a 2012 communication, Sammye and I determined through correspondence that we are 3rd cousins as our great-grandfathers were siblings, sons of William Parker Smith and Eliza Ann Catron (1815-1907) of Sumner County, Tennessee who migrated to Fannin County, Texas in 1855:
Sons of William Parker and Eliza Smith > Second Great-Granddaughters
George Whitfield Smith (1835-1919) > Sammye
William Albert Francis Smith (1848-1926) > Beth
Labors of Eloise. Offering daylong hospitality but an hour's drive away, Sammye generously shared the cumulative work begun around 1930 by her mother, Eloise (Smith) Routt (1896-1978). Sammye carried her mother’s work forward. We stepped ‘into the vault’ of a room lined with filing cabinets that stored a cumulative 80 years of research. Typed records decades old were beginning to fade from the paper. Sammye’s work was meticulous, carefully archived in classic genealogical format.
And from whence does the family history bug spring? For Eloise, Sammye’s mother, it began with childhood visits with her great-grandmother, Eliza Ann (Catron) Smith, 1815-1907. Eliza's oral recollections passed on to Eloise, a girl of 8 or so just after the turn of the century, included Eliza's Sumner County, Tennessee childhood and visits with family members in Nashville. Imagine! Stories from Eliza’s Tennessee childhood that predate her 1855 migration to Texas with her husband, William Parker Smith, and their family.
Those Tennessee stories of Eloise’s great-grandmother led her into a lifetime of ancestral history study and eventually a journey during the 1960s to Sumner County, Tennessee with her only child, Sammye. Searching for documentation of the Tennessee Smiths and Catrons and allied families, they haunted the Sumner County courthouse, county clerk's office, and other archival resources.
Labors of Eloise. Offering daylong hospitality but an hour's drive away, Sammye generously shared the cumulative work begun around 1930 by her mother, Eloise (Smith) Routt (1896-1978). Sammye carried her mother’s work forward. We stepped ‘into the vault’ of a room lined with filing cabinets that stored a cumulative 80 years of research. Typed records decades old were beginning to fade from the paper. Sammye’s work was meticulous, carefully archived in classic genealogical format.
And from whence does the family history bug spring? For Eloise, Sammye’s mother, it began with childhood visits with her great-grandmother, Eliza Ann (Catron) Smith, 1815-1907. Eliza's oral recollections passed on to Eloise, a girl of 8 or so just after the turn of the century, included Eliza's Sumner County, Tennessee childhood and visits with family members in Nashville. Imagine! Stories from Eliza’s Tennessee childhood that predate her 1855 migration to Texas with her husband, William Parker Smith, and their family.
Those Tennessee stories of Eloise’s great-grandmother led her into a lifetime of ancestral history study and eventually a journey during the 1960s to Sumner County, Tennessee with her only child, Sammye. Searching for documentation of the Tennessee Smiths and Catrons and allied families, they haunted the Sumner County courthouse, county clerk's office, and other archival resources.
Eloise and Sammye secured a copy of the Guardian Settlement dated January 29, 1843 from Sumner County, Tennessee records that documents the relationship of William Parker Smith as son of the widowed Nancy Powell Smith, widow of William Smith (1777-1836). William Parker Smith was appointed guardian of his three younger brothers, Lawrence, Albert, and Wesley Hinton Smith. This is the sole document that demonstrates kinship, meeting the Genealogical Proof Standard.
Why did Sammye and her mother, Eloise Smith Routt, know their oral history they later documented in Sumner County, Tennessee?
- Their family remained along the Red River corridor following the original ca 1855nWilliam Parker and Eliza Catron Smith family migration to Fannin County, Texas.
- They retained connection with rural heritage that offered stability and connection.
- They valued and celebrated both their extended family and spiritual heritage.
- They continued to tell the story . . .
Together, Eloise and Sammye tramped the church graveyard they had long heard about from their elders. Photographs they took
of the historic Beech Cumberland Presbyterian Church graveyard outside Hendersonville reveal images of our shared ancestors' crypts.
 |
| Beech Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Hendersonville, TN |
Beech Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which is now recognized as the oldest church in Middle Tennessee, was organized as a Presbyterian Church in 1798.
The following direct ancestors formed, led, and contributed to the remarkable church that continues to meet today:
Johann Frantz (Francis) Ketring (Catron) (1746-1819) contributed the land where Beech Cumberland Presbyterian Church was built. The Reverend Hugh Kirkpatrick (1774-1863) and his wife, Isabella Stewart (1777-1859), and Barbara Houch/Hauk (1753-1824), ie. Mrs. Frances Ketring (Catron), were charter members.
Tennessee was still a very young state, having only been founded two years before in 1796. Prior to that date, the area was still part of the North Carolina territory. This was the Western Frontier at the time, a wild place, full of Indians and animals. The people were America’s early settlers. ⁴ In 1838, William Parker Smith was named an Elder. 5
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church denominational archives proved foundational to understanding the Cumberland Presbyterian ancestral heritage of the Smith/Catron alliance that migrated to Texas. Those national church archives provided extensive background information on the allied lines that intermarried with the Catrons prior to the 1800s, all of whom appear in my direct Smith line.6
My Direct Smith Line’s Family Historians. It is true that in every generation someone has been called to continue the telling of the story. Both my Aunt Virginia and her daughter (and my cousin), Jacqueline, collected oral history of our Smith family information, but they could record only what those two generations before them recalled of family heritage. Prior to the digital age, genealogy required discretionary time and funds for traveling to libraries, county courthouse clerks’ offices, and other archival sources such as county historical societies. Acquiring precise documented research proved a financial challenge for many.
Virginia evidenced an abiding interest in her ancestral history while yet young. Jacqueline related her mother’s pre-1923 conversation with her Virginia-born paternal grandmother, Polly Sims Smith (1852-1923), the spouse of William Albert Francis Smith (1848-1926), in which Polly offered recollections of the Smith family into which she had married. Those oral history snippets recorded by Virginia were later documented by Sammye’research. Jacqueline’s contribution included documentation and distribution of the William Albert Francis Smith line. Their efforts were important contributions in the long line of ancestral history research, telling the family story at large.
Did the wait increase the value of the discovery as claimed above by Fischbach in Lam’s article? Absolutely. The 14-year process irresistibly drew me into the world inhabited by events that pushed and pulled my people from one location to another--or kept them in place. Ultimately, the questions that were raised sent me back to the classroom to study the complexity of the Southern journey laid against national and international events that are still confounding us today.
Did the increase in value of the discovery cause me to be more patient? Absolutely. The waiting period required development of research strategies to work around the Smith brick wall. Casting a wide net during my direct line's Fannin County residence during the early years of Texas statehood, from ca 1853 to ca 1873, I gained contextual understanding of the Smith family journey. Local historians of Fannin County became my allies and friends, their collaborating with me in the waiting culture in which we work.
Pushing our family's larger story—the ancestral families allied to the Smiths—back into the 1800s, the 1700s—and if so fortunate to locate wills and land deeds now almost 400 years old—even into the 1600s allows us to reclaim and document what my Smith grandfather routinely reported to his children . . . "Honey, you come from good stock."
For the Family!
Beth Peel Leggieri, Heir Unapparent
Copyright © HeirUnapparent, 2020. All rights reserved.
Revised April 28, 2026
- Rebecca Dalzell, '"What's the Most Common Last Name in the United States?" Ancestry, https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/smith-a-short-history-of-americas-most-popular-surname/ : Accessed 18 Jan 2020.
- Bouree Lam, "The Logic of Long Lines, The Atlantic, 28 Jan 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/the-logic-of-long-lines/384870/ : Accesed 17 Jan 2020,
- “Where records should exist and a person should be recorded, but for whatever reason is not found and records are not easily located. This rules out the end-of-line situations where you can no longer find records back in the 1500s or so.” James Tanner, "Analyzing Brick Walls, Genealogical Myth or Reality," Genealogystar.blogspot.com, 25 Aug 2011. https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2011/08/analyzing-brick-walls-genealogical-myth.html : Accessed 19 Jan 2020.
- Beech Cumberland Presbyterian Church, “Our History.” https://beechchurch.com/our-history/ : Accessed 18 Jan 2020.
- "Historical Foundation," Cumberland Presbyterian Church of America, http://www.cumberland.org : Accessed 14 Jan 2020.
- “History of Old Beech Cumberland Presbyterian Church 1798-1869,” submitted by Peggy Ackerman,2003 to Sumner County, Tennessee Church Records and Histories. Source: TSL&A call #: F443. S9 M5. https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~providence/genealogy/church_oldbeech.htm : Accessed 13 Jan 2020.
Comments
Post a Comment