Lee Anne,

Thanks.  I have been unable to find ANY record of the referenced 
"guardianship" in any LOVa records in Essex or Middlesex Co., VA (I wish I 
could).  The "original/full version" of the chancery case...that is 
apparently available only at the courthouse...may answer some questions, but 
I will be "mildly surprised and pleased" if there is any mention of the 
Brown family therein (but maybe I am being too pessimistic).

What I know is:

1) Smith W. Brown was a "blood Smith," per DNA testing on his living male 
"Brown" descendant (my cousin)

2) Smith's "guardian mother," Mrs. Mary (Bennett) Brown, was a descendant of 
that same Smith family....but a different "branch" (i.e., Miss Mary Bennett 
was not out of Maurice Smith...their "most recent common male Smith 
ancestor" was another generation or two back from Maurice)

3) John Smith (a known member of the above Smith family; he was mentioned in 
the Middlesex Co., VA will of Maurice Smith in 1795, as were John's three 
sisters) and his wife Sarah Waller are about the only possibilities to have 
been Smith W. Brown's biological parents....though it is always tough to be 
"100% certain" in cases like this, especially when dealing with very common 
surnames like "Smith" and "Brown."

4) Mrs. Sarah (Waller) Smith did not appear on the 1820 Essex Co., VA 
census, so she was apparently dead by then.  John Smith did appear on the 
1820 Essex census, but the oldest female in his home was NOT old enough to 
have been his wife Sarah Waller.  The 1810 Essex census had shown John Smith 
with a wife who WAS the correct age to have been Sarah Waller.  It appears 
that John and Sarah (Waller) Smith had left Mathews Co., VA (where they 
lived in 1799 and 1800, per a couple of Middlesex Co., VA deeds, where John 
and Sarah Smith sold some of the "old Smith land" in Middlesex) and moved to 
Essex Co., VA by 1810.

5) John Smith was dead himself by 1822, when the chancery court case was 
issued.  Further proof of John and Sarah (Waller) Smith's deaths is that one 
of their daughters, named Miss Sarah Waller Smith, married Moore Fauntleroy 
Brockenbrough, Junior in Essex Co., VA in 1823, and no mention was made of 
her father or mother on the marriage bond.

6) I could not find a will for John Smith or his wife Mrs. Sarah (Waller) 
Smith in the Essex Co., VA will records available on microfilm at the LOVa, 
but most of their children have been determined with reasonable assurance, 
based on marriage records (and the James Smith mentioned in the chancery 
court case was almost certainly John and Sarah's oldest son).

If there is any record left at the LOVa that could shed more light on the 
"biological lineage" of Smith W. "Brown," it has certainly escaped me (but 
it is possible that I missed something).  The LOVa does not have the 
Middlesex chancery court case from 1822, so I will have to obtain that at 
the courthouse, sometime early in the new year.  As stated in my earlier 
post, I was able to read what was apparently just a summary of that chancery 
case at the Virginia Historical Society.  It was "buried" within one of the 
12 file folders (!) that are dedicated to just the Smith surname, as 
provided by the respected genealogist, George H. S. King (deceased).

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