I have a case where a "Smith infant/toddler" was taken-in by John and 
Mary (Bennett) Brown around 1817-1820 in Middlesex Co., VA.  DNA 
testing on a living male descendant shows that this infant/toddler was 
a "biological Smith" who was a member of the same overall Smith 
family as the John Smith who married Sarah Waller (daughter of Judge 
Benjamin Waller of Williamsburg) around 1788.  This child was named 
and reared as Smith W. BROWN, however, by his new "Brown 
guardians."

It appears that John Smith and Sarah Waller MAY very well have been 
the parents of this child, and it appears that Mrs. Sarah (Waller) 
Smith was dead by at least the 1820 census (she MAY have died as a 
result of having the referenced child...she would have been about the 
age of 50 in 1817).  If Smith W. Brown was, in fact, a child of John and 
Sarah (Waller) Smith, it appears that the widower John Smith gave this 
son to his "new Brown guardians" while John Smith was still alive 
(though John Smith was probably in ill health at the time, and perhaps 
unable to care for an infant son, since John Smith was also dead by at 
least 1822).

Note: Mrs. Mary (Bennett) Brown was also a descendant of the 
referenced overall Smith family (but out of a different "branch" of that 
family), so she and her husband John Brown were "viable candidates" to 
have taken-in a Smith child.

In 1822, there was a chancery court case where the "representatives of 
the heirs of John Smith" were to divide the "estate of Maurice Smith" 
(Maurice Smith was the father of John Smith, and when Maurice Smith 
died back in 1795, he left his entire estate to his only son John 
Smith...though John Smith had three sisters).  This 1822 chancery case 
distributed the remaining estate of Maurice Smith (which MAY have 
been slaves only, but I am not sure about that) to 
three "representatives of the heirs of John Smith."  The division was not 
equal....i.e., it was not simply 33 1/3 to each of these 
three "representatives"...so the percentage that each "representative" 
was to receive MAY have been dependent on all of the younger (and 
unnamed) family members in each of these "three branches of the 
Smith family." 

Note: I have seen what appears to be only a SUMMARY of the 
referenced chancery case (this "summary" was found in the papers of 
George H. S. King at the Virginia Historical Society).  I need to read the 
entire/full court case, but I will have to go to the Middlesex courthouse 
to do it, since the Middlesex chancery cases available at the LOVa stop 
in 1820...and I need the cases from 1822.

The three people listed as "representatives of the heirs of John Smith" 
were: 1) the husband of one of John Smith's living sisters, 2) the 
husband of one of John Smith's own daughters, and 3) the only adult 
son of John Smith in 1822 (James Smith).  This excluded any mention of 
the Brown family, who had taken-in Smith W. "Brown."  Is this 
particularly surprising, or do guardians of a child...and/or the child 
himself/herself...forfeit any "direct/automatic" benefit from the 
distribution of an estate from the child's "original/biological family?"

What I am trying to determine, of course, is whether or not the 
exclusion of Smith W. Brown and/or his "Brown guardians" in the above 
chancery case necessarily means that Smith W. Brown was NOT a son 
of John Smith and Sarah Waller after all.  It appears that the "heirs of 
John Smith" were to divided the estate of John Smith's FATHER Maurice 
Smith....versus dividing the estate of John Smith himself....and I can't 
help but wonder if that MIGHT be a "significant detail" in all of this.
  
Comments on the above?  Thanks.

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