Brief Life History of James
When James Smith was born in 1837, in Tennessee, United States, his father, James Smith, was 27 and his mother, Marjory Morris, was 26.
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Family Time Line
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Parents and Siblings
Siblings (9)
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World Events (3)
1846
U.S. acquires vast tracts of Mexican territory in wake of Mexican War including California and New Mexico.
1846
Tennessee was known as the Volunteer State because during the Mexican War the government asked Tennessee for 3,000 volunteer soldiers and 30,000 joined.
1863
Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, declaring slaves in Confederate states to be free.
Name Meaning
English and Scottish: occupational name denoting a worker in metal, especially iron, such as a blacksmith or farrier, from Middle English smith ‘smith’ (Old English smith, probably a derivative of smītan ‘to strike, hammer’). Early examples are also found in the Latin form Faber . Metal-working was one of the earliest occupations for which specialist skills were required, and its importance ensured that this term and its equivalents in other languages were the most widespread of all occupational surnames in Europe. Medieval smiths were important not only in making horseshoes, plowshares, and other domestic articles, but above all for their skill in forging swords, other weapons, and armor. This is also the most frequent of all surnames in the US. It is very common among African Americans and Native Americans (see also 5 below). This surname (in any of the two possible English senses; see also below) is also found in Haiti. See also Smither .
English: from Middle English smithe ‘smithy, forge’ (Old English smiththe). The surname may be topographic, for someone who lived in or by a blacksmith's shop, occupational, for someone who worked in one, or habitational, from a place so named, such as Smitha in King's Nympton (Devon). Compare Smithey .
Irish and Scottish: sometimes adopted for Gaelic Mac Gobhann, Irish Mac Gabhann ‘son of the smith’. See McGowan .
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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