SMITH family vacation

Last week I visited with the SMITH side of my family. My grandfather, Darrel Smith, got me started in genealogy a couple of years ago when he handed me a printed version of his family tree maker file. It was over 100 pages long and went back to the year 600. Darrel has been working on genealogy for almost 40 years now. He caught the genealogy bug from his "Aunt Katie" (Catherine Smith Helms). She had been collecting information for many years and handed a lot of it down to my grandfather, who has handed it down to me. I only came home with one box of papers, but the information contained inside is invaluable.

Many of the papers were family group sheets of my grandfather's siblings' families and cousins, aunts and uncles.

Two of the most important sets of papers were the Civil War pension applications of Richard Smith and Calvin West. The application of Richard Smith told us that his parents were David and Sarah Smith of Tennessee. That's as far as we have gotten on the Smith line.

I hope to be able to review, scan and post these pension applications before the end of the year. They will remain in the box, however, until after the move to Durham.