Samuel and Elizabeth

Yes — and the new research produces a much more interesting connection than I expected. I can now connect your Hiram Jay Smith line several generations farther back, and the geography lines up remarkably well with the Wethersfield/Hadley Smith family you had in mind.

The important point is that I can establish the Ohio portion quite strongly, but I would not yet put the 1634 Samuel Smith directly into your tree as proven. There is a remaining ancestral link that needs to be documented.

Your Smith line, working backward

From the tree in your screenshot:

David Smith (1956– )

        │

Lyle Roy Smith (1926–2005)

        │

Roy Blackman Smith (1890–1977)

        │

Hiram Jay Smith (1844–1919)

        │

Hiram Smith (1816–1904)

        │

Erastus Smith (1784–1820)

   + Fannie Spencer (1785–1882)

        │

Martin Smith

   + Sarah Kellogg

        │

        ?

        │

        ?

        │

Samuel Smith (1602–1680/81)

   + Elizabeth Smith (c.1602–1685)

        │

   ┌────┴─────────────────────────┐

   │                              │

Wethersfield, CT             Hadley, MA

1635 onward                  c.1659 onward

The upper part of this tree is particularly well supported.

The 1894 Commemorative Biographical Records of Huron and Lorain Counties says explicitly that Hiram Smith was born November 21, 1816, in Greenfield Township, and that his parents were Erastus Smith and Fannie Spencer. It gives their marriage as December 19, 1805, and lists their seven children, including Hiram.

It also says Hiram married Polly Rockwell in 1840 and identifies their son Hiram J. Smith of Steuben, Ohio, who had eight children.

Even better, the Huron County cemetery transcription gives:

• Erastus Smith — born January 7, 1784; died July 16, 1820

• Fannie Spencer — born December 7, 1785; died December 15, 1882

at Steuben Cemetery in Greenfield Township.

And a published lineage record independently gives the sequence:

Martin Smith + Sarah Kellogg → Erastus Smith + Fanny Spencer → Lester Smith, etc., confirming that this Martin/Sarah couple is the generation immediately preceding your Erastus.

And here’s the really interesting part

The Samuel and Elizabeth you mentioned are real, and their story matches your description extremely closely.

Lieutenant Samuel Smith, born about 1602 in Suffolk, England, married Elizabeth Smith at Whatfield, Suffolk, on October 6, 1624. In April 1634 they sailed from Ipswich on the Elizabeth with four children:

• Samuel, age 9

• Elizabeth, age 7

• Mary, age 4

• Philip, age 1

Samuel and Elizabeth were both listed as age 32.

The family initially went to Watertown, Massachusetts, and Samuel was admitted a freeman in September 1634. By about 1635 he had moved to Wethersfield, Connecticut, where he became a prominent citizen. Around 1659/1660 he moved with the settlement to Hadley, Massachusetts.

So your recollection about Boston/Watertown → Wethersfield → Hadley is very much on target.

Why I’m not connecting the two ends yet

There are actually several early Smith families in Wethersfield/Hadley, and this is exactly where genealogy can go wrong.

For example, there was also Rev. Henry Smith of Wethersfield, whose descendants include another substantial Smith family in Hadley and South Hadley. Some online trees have incorrectly merged branches because of the repeated names Samuel, Philip, John, Chileab, etc.

In fact, modern scholarship has corrected another old error: Samuel Smith’s wife Elizabeth was Elizabeth Smith/Smyth, not Elizabeth Chileab as some older genealogies claimed. The marriage record in Whatfield identifies her as Elizabeth Smyth.

So I don’t want to simply draw a line:

Martin Smith → … → Samuel Smith 1602

just because an online family tree happens to do so.

But we now have a very promising research target

The branch we need to solve is:

Martin Smith + Sarah Kellogg

↓

Erastus Smith (1784–1820)

↓

Hiram Smith (1816–1904)

↓

Hiram Jay Smith (1844–1919)

↓

Roy Blackman Smith

↓

Lyle Roy Smith

↓

David

The Huron County material specifically describes this family as descended from an early New England Smith family, and another historical source identifies the Martin Smith/Sarah Kellogg marriage immediately preceding Erastus.

So I would currently label the tree this way:

🟢 Documented: David → Lyle → Roy → Hiram Jay → Hiram → Erastus

🟢 Documented: Erastus → Martin Smith + Sarah Kellogg

🟡 Research needed: Martin Smith/Sarah Kellogg → their Smith ancestors

🟢 Independently documented: Samuel Smith + Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Wethersfield, Hadley

🔴 Not yet proven: that Samuel/Elizabeth are the ancestors of your Martin Smith.

And that missing section is exactly the piece I’d concentrate on next, because if we establish it from wills, land records, church records and published genealogies rather than copying an online tree, we could potentially take your direct Smith line back to 17th-century New England and then to England.

There is also a potentially fascinating secondary result: your Huron County Smiths were living in Greenfield/Steuben, and the historical sources repeatedly connect the family with the early New England migration. That gives us a geographic trail we can follow rather than searching the millions of Smiths indiscriminately.

So yes: I think we have a legitimate research path toward the 1634 Samuel and Elizabeth — but I would currently show the connection as a dashed line, not a solid genealogical fact.