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. To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html