The facts:
Adoniram “Nide” Warner Smith
Birth date: Feb 18, 1880, Haley Station, Ontario (not registered, just word of mouth date)
Background (what I heard): Grampa lived with Aunt Edna and Uncle Cliff. It was determined that Grampa should be receiving the Old Age Pension. When they applied, the government had no record of Grampa’s birth, so there wasn’t a way to prove he should be getting Old Age Pension. At some point, the government allowed a “best guess” year to be submitted, which was 1880.
Mother: Leah Eady
Birth: 1848
Background: No actual proof that Leah is Grampa’s biological mother. Only stories from several descendants on the Smith side and Eady side. Also I’m related to every Eady in ancestry.ca. 1881 Census find Leah “Eddy” working as a housekeeper for a Humphrey’s family in Pembroke. Two additional births were registered with Leah Eady as the mother: a son “John Richardson” in 1869, whose death is also registered just under 3 months later as “John Richardson Jr.” then another son in 1873, unnamed. I originally dismissed these as “unrelated” and “couldn’t be MY Leah Eady”. (This was a mistake.)
Leah moved in with Philander, a 2-time widower and his children, bringing my Grandfather, sometime between 1881 and 1886. But they were not married until after the births of their twins, Julia and Orin in 1886. They had one more child, Georgena, in 1888.
Adopted Father: Philander Smith
Background: 1891 Census finds Grampa (age 10) with Philander, Leah and several younger sisters and brothers. One brother’s (Willard’s) daughter wrote me that Grampa and Leah arrived to live with the Smith’s when “Nide” was a young boy and that Philander was not Grampa’s real father. 1881 Census shows no sign of Adoniram Warner Smith (b. 1880) EXCEPT an Adoniram Warner Smith b. 1835 who was a widower with several small children in 1880. This Adoniram Warner Smith (b. 1835) is Philander’s first cousin. I never could connect with any descendants of this AWSmith (1835) to see pictures to ascertain if there was a physical resemblance or if there was any “gossip” of an illegitimate birth.
Aunt Edna admitted that she always knew that Philander was NOT Grampa’s biological father. The night before her marriage to Uncle Cliff, my grandmother had a “meeting” with Cliff to let him know that his fiance’s father’s parentage was a mystery. However, Aunt Edna told me that she always thought of herself as a Smith.
I found it odd that there wasn’t one DNA relationship on ancestry.ca to any Smith descendants except those who are descended from Grampa.
Erroneous Assumption: Adoniram Warner Smith (b. 1835) was likely the biological father of my Grandfather.
Fast forward to 2019:
My sister’s DNA with 23andMe shows a biological 3rd or 4th cousin connection to a Linda Munroe whose Grandfather was Patrick O’Reilly and Great-grandparents were Mary Jane & Hugh O’Reilly. The O’Reilly’s lived in Osceola, Ontario. Patrick was born in Cobden, Ontario. These communities are within 20 miles of Haley Station.
More facts (updated):
Mary Jane Aughney and Hugh O’Reilly’s son, Patrick has an uncanny resemblance to my grandfather.
DNA shows that the common ancestor between my sister and Linda Munroe is 3 to 4 generations, or 3.5 generations once removed. This fits well with either Mary Jane Aughney or Hugh O’Reilly being Carol’s Great-grandparent, while they are Linda’s Great-great-grandparents which they are.
Below are pictures of possible brothers (cousins), Adoniram Smith and Patrick O’Reilly
New questions (updated):
Was my grandfather’s true birth date 1873? Was he the “unnamed” birth in 1873? Likely not because my grandfather’s 10-year-old presence in the 1891 census, makes it highly unlikely he was actually 17, unless its a very bad clerical error which would have been corrected in future censuses.
Where is Leah’s “unnamed” son born 1873? In the 1881 Census, there are only two 8-year-olds in Horton Twp. There’s a Robert Eady, son of Bill and Christina Eady and another Robert Eady living with Robert Eady (age 64) and Ann [Burwell] (age 63). The first 8-year-old-Robert-Eady shows up again in the 1891 Census, age 18. The second 8-year-old-Robert-Eady living with the elder Robert disappears in 1891. These Eady’s are all close relatives of Leah.
Was Hugh O’Reilly Grampa’s biological father? No, further DNA matches to Aughney’s who are only related to the O’Reilly through marriage attest to this.
Two candidates could be the biological father of Grampa: Mary Jane’s brothers, either Luke Aughney (b. 1854) or James Aughney (b. 1856). There’s also William Aughney (b. 1858), however since Leah was born in 1848, this is quite an age gap. Luke and James married sisters, Mary and Bridget Reynolds, and both moved to the USA.
