This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: Renee_Merrill Surnames: Smith, Brown, Collins, Barnes Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/topics.ethnic.afam.ms/622.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Hello Therese, I'm not sure if you will still get this reply after so many years; I hope that you may have found your answers by now, but in the case you haven't, I do have some info for you. My mother was a Barnes and on her side, she had Smiths, Baggetts and Browns-- all from Monticello, MS--so, there is a good chance we are related! We also have Collinses in our family, so I have been researching other families trying to make connections to my own. Your grandmother Elnora L. was actually a Smith before she married Matthew Smith (unfortunately, I don't have any info on him). Her parents were Napoleon H. (aka "Pole") Smith and Rebecca J. Sutton. If you look at the 1900 census for Beat 1, Lawrence, MS, you will find Pole, Rebecca, and their 10 children, including Elnora (whom the censustaker incorrectly called "Elnarah"). She was born in Apr 1888 according to the census. In the 1910 census for Beat 2, Lawrence, MS, you will find Elnora Smith living with her brother-in-law Jesse Collins and her sister Orlena Smith Collins and their children. There were also two very young children in the household, Jesse and Mary Baggett, who are likely Elnora's, but I'm not sure. In the 1920 census for Beat 1, Lawrence, MS, Elnora is a widow living with her 3 daughters, EddieLee, Erelene, and Leila (these spellings are from ancestry.com, so may be incorrect). EddieLee is 10 years old, so it is likely that Elnora got married to Matthew and had her shortly after the 1910 census was taken. The last child, Leila, was 3 at the time of the 1920 census, so you could narrow down the date of Matthew's death to sometime between 9 months before Leila was born, and the date of the 1920 census, Jan. 20, 1920. I hope that this is helpful to you. I am still looking for a solid connection between my Barnes/Smith family and Napoleon Smith's, but I'm confident that there is one because several of his children's names were repeated in my mom's family (Napoleon had a Naposie, Orlena, and Emmitt, and my great-grandmother Ella Smith Barnes had siblings named Napossie, Arlena, and Emit -- could be a coincidence, but I don't think so). Most of these families lived near each other for decades, so I know we're in there somewhere! :-) If you get this, please feel free to contact me at my personal email address, reneemerrill@gmail.com. Peace and blessings! Renee Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.