John Smith, of Rivenhall - is the Carington Smith pedigree fraudulent?

The Arthur Smith of Blackmore in 1663 was probably Arthur born about 1642, the son of Stephen Smith and Jane Bennett, grandson of Arthur Smith and Anne Millward. Stephen, the eldest son, inherited Blackmore in 1623.

Arthur and Thomas who came to Virginia, the younger brothers, might not have been "of Blackmore" after 1623, since they didn't inherit the estate.

See descendants of Arthur Smith and Anne Millward here:

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=DESC&db=bful...

I added a profile for Arthur, eldest son of Stephen of Blackmore, born circa 1642:

Arthur Smith

As a Carrington, this is fascinating stuff.

I live in Liverpool, England so if there is anything I can do let me know. I'm not a skilled researcher by any means though.

John

Okay, I’ve been following this discussion...

Is there any forensic evidence or concrete evidence for or against the Smith-Carrington theory?

Is there any evidence beyond what dead people have said, which is shaky evidence at best given that sources could be lying to further an agenda, or a source against the source could be doing it for the same reason, or the source could be a classist like J. Horace Round who could have a clear bias towards common names and therefore likely to have confirmation-bias or forge evidence?

If all you have is “he said”, “she said”, “they claim”, and “they accuse them” then you have no real evidence. A lot of people forget these people weren’t cartoon caricatures or paragons, they were just the same as you and me, and one may have slandered the other in order to improve their political influence, or made false ancestry for cash.

The problem with using any of this evidence is that it can be easily countered by the possibility that what ever they said was either biased, a payed off lie, or a political ploy. All of it can be countered, do you know what can’t be countered? Hard evidence like DNA testing and such.

I have A LOT of respect for all of you, but no one seemed to mention it, so I figured I’d say my part.

Alexander, Erica. I have DNA information if you wish to examine it. I haven't published all of it for privacy reasons, but some initial autosomal findings can be found at my blog https://smithgenealogy.wordpress.com. I have some yDNA information as well, but that is more sensitive. If I share it with you, you must promise me that it will not be shared with anyone else.

Also, please keep in mind that I am only one person doing this DNA research. What I am attempting to do is very difficult. That is, I'm trying to find the colonial era origins of my Smith group using paper trails and autosomal DNA. Please keep in mind that it would benefit the discussion that all critiques and criticisms of my work be clear, detailed, and precise. It's definitely not academic grade work but it has been the best I am able to do. Also keep in mind that there has been much research that isn't published that went into deriving the larger claims associated with the various populations I mentioned. There are some earlier postings that aren't about DNA that I am thinking about taking down as they don't seem to provide clear relevance to the question I'm exploring and can only add confusion. The blog is more of a scratch pad where I attempt to organize my thoughts and findings.

Also, I believe the records in this archive can help me sort out the Brunswick Co, VA Smiths.

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9085/images/007644...

It is proving cumbersome to navigate, however.

One other major point of note is that I am not only having to research my Smith group, but other Smith groups as well as there are a number that have assimilated my Smiths into their groups and are not aware of it. Again, I'm only one person who is having to critique the published works of multiple Smith groups. It's a daunting task to say the least.

I’m personally trying to look into my more ancient family history, the colonial era of my side of the family is a lot simpler, we came, we moved, settled in Georgia on a plantation. They lived as a “new English nobility” (meaning they only married into families of semi noble status), until my Great great grandfather married a Walker, left the family plantation, abandoned the family name, and lived on a small farm in Florida.

I’m more interested in whether or not the Carringtons are related to the Smiths of Rivenhall, because it seems there is some debate about this topic, and I’ve seen one book saying it’s not, and a bunch of articles debunking the book. But I haven’t seen anyone try to use DNA from past and current Smiths, and then compare that to the Carringtons of the past and current era.

I heard a group was going to try to do the same with Rollo, until they found out that Rollo’s remains had been possibly destroyed and replaced with a common Frenchmen from around the post revolutionary era.

I’m not the smartest man, so forgive me if none of that made a lick of sense.

I'm not sure why you think it's a myth? Because Round says so? Why would the Heralds record the Smith/Carrington pedigree in their books? Round wasn't even an official and we can prove that his claim about Hamo of Carentan being fictitious is false.

As far as yDNA research goes, yes, I have unpublished information that includes very long papertrails with verifiable provenance (not for my Smith line, yet), but I've not been given permission to share it publicly.

Hamo de Carinton may be real, but the knight who went hiding in Europe under the name Smith is apparently not, and if I remember right, his journal was said by an expert in medieval English to be a badly done fake (i.e., not a credible example of that period of English).

Though Round didn't tell us his expert's credentials, so if the journal can be located, it could be examined by an expert with good credentials.

YDNA is difficult because no one has established the Smith of Blackmore haplogroup (candidates include R-M269-7 and I-M223-1).

The best place to start looking for yDNA of Thomas, Arthur, and Nicholas Smith (who I have seen some list as a son of Capt. Stephen Smith of Blackmore) is here:

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Space:FTDNA_Group_R-M269-9

Please remember, this is a work in progress. I can get things, usually smaller details, wrong. I know there are some trees that are mixed up. SmithsWorldWide.org is terrible about quality control so do not trust everything they publish in their database.

Based upon my yDNA matches at FamilyTreeDNA, I predicted that my Smiths would be related to this Smith group. It looks like my hypothesis is likely correct. The thing is, it is requiring significant amounts of time and energy to sift through these old families and I could really use some help.

We just broke down another brick wall two days ago and identified a connection to Pvt. Thomas Smith of the Caswell County Regiment, commanded by a Col. William Moore.

I have triangulated autosomal DNA to a Henry Smith of Fountains Creek who enlisted under Captain Andrew Jeter. He was in-laws of sorts with Cuthbert Smith and knew Col. Elisha Smith who was the son of Rockcastle Co, KY sheriff William Smith who married Elizabeth Singleton.

I also have identified triangulated autosomal DNA relevant to Josiah Smith m. Elizabeth Collier and descendants of a Stephen Smith m. Nancy Rainwater.

On top of all of that, I also have triangulated autosomal DNA linked to a Smith family from the Epping and Ongar areas of Essex in England.

All of my autosomal research involving my own DNA and a few descendants of my Smiths is public. I have done my best to protect individual identities of living people. You can double check me if you like. In fact, I welcome it.

If you want to see how poorly run SmithsWorldWide.org is, you should investigate the story of group R-M269-8. I can prove they're wrong but they insist on their line of three Christopher Smiths being true, which it provably isn't.

You'll need this: https://books.google.com/books?id=tkqYwWXEamAC&pg=RA1-PA2&l...

I've also worked with at least 4 other group admins to help inhibit bad actors among their groups from publishing poorly vetted and provably incorrect information. I think there's at least 5 unrelated groups on there that all have paper records for the same Smith family.

Oh, and one of the earliest SmithsWorldWide.org site admin worked closely with Linda G. Cheek to "prove" the Smith/Snelson connection to the Smith/Fairbanks, Smith/Broadribb, and Smith/Townley families. The info they need is available in the land records as well as a few webpages that were authored around 2009. That book was published around 2009 as well.

WikiTree is a far superior site in both design and administrative function. WikiTree has volunteer mentors who help to resolve disputes between users where as SmithsWorldWide leaves it up to a group admin to choose whether or not to correct provably false info they have published. There is zero quality control on there.

Correction:

"I have triangulated autosomal DNA to a Henry Smith of Fountains Creek who enlisted under Captain Andrew Jeter. He was in-laws of sorts with Cuthbert Smith and knew Col. Elisha Smith who was the son of Rockcastle Co, KY sheriff William Smith who married Elizabeth Singleton."

Should read:

"I have triangulated autosomal DNA to a Henry Smith of Fountains Creek who enlisted under Captain Andrew Jeter. Andrew Jeter was in-laws of sorts with Cuthbert Smith and Henry Smith knew Col. Elisha Smith who was the son of Rockcastle Co, KY sheriff William Smith who married Elizabeth Singleton."

I'll just drop this here...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59062133

After doing some intensive digging through the autosomal match information of known descendants of my Smiths, I believe I have a very interesting bit of info I can share with you. I have identified a segment of DNA around 10.3 cM long on Cr15 that is shared between 1) a known descendant of my immediate Smith family TMRCA 1783 2) a yDNA matched Smith man whose TMRCA with me is beyond 10 generations and 3) a descendant of Joseph Loomis, son of Agnes Lingwood, daughter of John Lingwood and Jane Marler. Joseph Loomis was from Blackmore, Essex, England.

Jane Marler was a g-g-grand daughter of Lady Alice Montagu Neville who married Henry FitzHugh, Alice's mother was Alice Montagu, d/o Thomas de Montagu m. Lady Alianor de Holand.

We see in examining the John Carrington alias Smith information that his grandmother was Katherine or Catherine Montagu who married a William Carrington. William had a son Thomas who then had a son John who later adopted the surname Smith.

These two Montagu lines are descended from the same family.

I believe this provides credence to the claim that John Smith, Esq. of Rivenhall, Essex, Eng. was indeed descended from the Carringtons.

I see what you're saying about what is suggested to be a protein generating region of Cr15. However, I'll add these bits of info.

One matching segment (unidentified common ancestor) is a whopping 20cM. That segment triangulates with a 10cM segment with the descendant of Jane Marler.

Both of those segments triangulate with a 6cM segment that is present in a yDNA match of mine.

Yes, there are a lot of matches for this region. I could suggest an TMRCA of 800 years might account for this. I would be curious to hear Illumia's opinion on this topic. They make the DNA sequencing chips. We can lessen the weight this information has for now.

Now, if you couple this information with the fact that the identified autosomally matched individuals both descend from people who lived in the same place at the same time (Blackmore, Essex, England), and those families share a common ancestry, this can almost look like more that chance.

For one to claim that John Smith, Esq. didn't exist, you need to figure out to who then Christopher Barker issued arms and why the heralds continued to repeat the Smith/Carrington lineage.

Round appears to be the most vocal of all, and he's definitively proven wrong.

You still appear to want to agree with Round despite the fact that Hamo of Carentan actually existed. That he did not was one of Rounds major arguments.

Rounds arguments that the Smith/Carrington story is false are based upon:

To quote Round, "Not a scrap of evidence is produced to show that this Hamo de Carington ever existed in the flesh, and I do not hesitate to say that he is a fictitious personage."

To counter, I shall quote Butterworth: "Upon the death of Hamo the lordship of Carington passed to his son and heir Sir William de Carington, who was succeeded by his son Sir Jordan, [described as] “ fil Willielmi fil Hamonis de Carington.” This Sir Jordan was one of the Knights of Ranulph de Gernon, fourth Earl of Chester, and was present at the battle of Lincoln, the 2nd Frebuary, II4I, when King Stephen was taken prisoner."

So here we see a very clear descent of Sir Jordan from Sir William of Carentan from Hamonis of Carentan.

His suggestion that Sir Mychell of Carentan didn't exist is also errant:

To quote "Friends of Baguley Hall on Facebook" and their research posting titled "DE MASSCEY/MASSEY ANCESTORS OF SIR WILLIAM DE BAGGELEGH": " At about the midway point of the northern boundary on the Mersey River would be the river crossing to the City of Manchester original location in Lancaster, which lies to the north of Chester.
This probably marks the area with the greatest holdings of the Barons de Mascy in Cheshire. With these lands Hamon de Mascy had lesser Lords who held portions thereof for him or under his 'right'. Examples would be Adae de Carrington and Alano de Tatton. Both constituted Estates granted to Hamon."

Adae of Carentan sold the Parish of Sale to fund "Sir Michael of Carrington".

You can also refer to "The Visitation of Cheshire in the Year 1580".

Another interesting clue I can share is the family of Col. John Carrington Smith who married Charlotte Juliana Butler, daughter of a Viscount Mountgarrett and sister of the Earl of Kilkenny.

George Booth who married Jane Carrington also married Elizabeth Butler of Warrington, Cheshire.

Juliana and Elizabeth are of the same larger Butler family, descendants of Hervey Walter de Claire, progenitor of the Dukes of Ormonde.

But I get it. You want more proof. Ok. I'll see what else I can find.