George Smith 1618 to 1662 New Haven Connecticut

George Smith was one of the founding fathers for New Haven. He was part of the group that gathered around the Reverend John Davenport and sailed to America on the Hector. They arrived off the coast of Massachusetts in the fall and in the spring of 1638 they sailed up Long Island Sound to land at New Haven. The Davenport group, that included George Smith, had been joined by a number of people who had been living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. George lived a quiet unassuming life in America and died at a relatively young age in 1662. We have included his death record as well as the marriage record of his widow in 1668, which is the primary source for her name, Sarah. The point of this essay is to hopefully provide some clarity to his ancestry. There were two Smith families in New Haven, one the family of George and his wife Sarah, the other Sarah Smith and her husband Nehemiah. The passage of time has served to confuse the family lines between the two. The confusing dynamic is the fact that the wife in both families were named Sarah and the birth dates of the families flow together in a nice symmetry. What we would like to present here is the documentary history for George Smith’s family. The review is the result of a page-by-page examination of the original New Haven town records. In this time frame there were only a dozen or so children born in any one year. There were only a few marriages each year. It is an easy exercise to gain an appreciation of who was a member of which family. Dates flow in an orderly fashion. There is real consistency in the way family groups are referenced. One item that is regularly noted is the place of origin of people moving from one Congregational Society to another. Sarah and Nehemiah are noted as being from Stratford. George’s family is firmly rooted in New Haven. What we have in George Smith’s case is the birth record for four of his children Samuel, Ebenezer, Joseph and Nathan. Each record includes the phrase “son of George Smith”. We have the baptismal records for his children. Also included are the marriage records for his children as found in the index written by the New Haven city clerks based on the original records. If you spend any amount of time reviewing the records for any given town clear patterns emerge. Each member of a family leaves behind a paper trail, birth, baptism, and marriage. death, children, court and land records. Based on this review of volume one of the New Haven town records we offer this opinion of the family of George and Sarah Smith. Included are birth dates for John and Elizabeth obtained from family histories. John was born April 18, 1647 and he married Grace Winston. Elizabeth born September 16, 1649 married John Hall. Samuel was born December 4, 1651 and he married Obedience Lamberton. Ebenezer was born November 15, 1653 and he married Mary. The marriage is not found in the New Haven records. Joseph, August 14, 1655 married Lydia Bristol. Nathan was born October 27, 1656 married Ester Goodyear. ------ Note: Many family trees constructed for the family of George Smith include Sarah, Mercy and in particular Hannah Smith the daughters of Sarah and Nehemiah Smith. Their only connection to the family of George Smith is in the index to the city records where all of the “Smith” marriages are included as a single list. Otherwise, there is not a single document in the New Haven records that supports such a claim. We have included the index of all of the Smiths born in the early years of New Haven. There is no record for a marriage between George Smith and Sarah Ann Bourne but there is a marriage record for the marriage of Anne Bourne and Nehemiah Smith.