John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 391

Another Smith family that was contemporary with the Smith families discussed here recently is the John Michael and Anna Margaret (Sauder) Smith family.  Michael was a brother of Matthias.  The two families seem to have interacted very little.  J. Michael Smith had one son, another John Michael Smith.  Michael, Jr., married Anna Magdalena Thomas, the daughter of John Thomas and Anna Maria Blankenbaker.  Michael, Jr., was perhaps married twice but the second would have been a late-in-life marriage.

There are seven children (given in estimated birth order):

1. Adam , b. ca 1735, was married twice.  His first wife is unknown and his second wife is Elizabeth.
2. Mary , b. ca 1738, married about 1756, Adam Barlow.
3. Susannah , married about 1762 John Berry, Jr.
4. Zachariah , married Anne Elizabeth Fishback, first, and, second, Sarah Anne Watts.  Zachariah raised a crop of corn in Kentucky in 1776
5. John , married Elizabeth, who may have been a Böhm.
6. Anna Magdalena , married John George Crisler.
7. Catherine , married John Marbes.

There are uncertainties in the sons' spouses.  Zachariah and John disappear from the Robinson River community records about 1777, when they started west.  They were settlers in Mercer Co., Kentucky, but prior to Kentucky, they may have lived briefly in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The daughter Catherine is often omitted and her descendants should be careful about their ancestry.  Catherine brought Sara, her daughter, for baptism and she admitted that her husband was not the father.

John Michael, Sr., was a church warden and accompanied Rev. Stover to Europe on the fund raising drive.  Michael, Jr., was the owner of a thousand acres of land, which he disposed of by gift to his sons and daughters.  The sons-in-law were named.  These deeds are a major source of our knowledge about the family.