Randolph County (Indiana) Relatives: Ina (Smith) Burdick

In the March National Genealogical Society Quarterly I traced a Smith family from central Iowa in 1870 back to eastern Indiana in 1850. It turned out that the parents of Ina (Smith) Burdick (1862-1932) were John Smith of Wayne County and Elizabeth (Smith) Smith of Randolph County, who were near neighbors.

(Ina married in Kansas City, Missouri, my wife's maternal grandfather's second cousin, Frank Burdick. He was one of the focus persons in the first portfolio I submitted to BCG for certification. So for those who are working on their own portfolios, remember that you may be able to reuse this material later on!)

Ina's relatives on both sides were crucial to identifying her parents and making a convincing case for their relationship, but it's in the nature of proof arguments that they only get mentioned, not described. The new (June) Indiana Genealogist fills in the picture by telling some of the stories of Ina's mother's extended Randolph County family, starting with Temple (1806-1885) and Priscilla (Crossley) Smith (1808-1890), who came up from Adair County, Kentucky, in the early days. Next issue will describe John's somewhat smaller family.

Together their descendants married into more than forty families:
Adams, Addington, Bias, Brake, Burdick, Chapman, Cox, Elliott, Engle (twice), Escher, Fetters, Getter, Hathaway, Hiatt, Hicks, Hildreth, Hill, Jennings, Johnson, Kinert, King, Kolp, Martin, Mason, McCurdy, Miller, Mundhenk, Newman, Pearson, Phillips, Piper, Ramsey, Ranson, Schwepe, Smith (again!), Summers, Swangle, Weaver, West, and Woodcock.

Members of the Indiana Genealogical Society can read it on line.



“Randolph County Relatives: Ina (Smith) Burdick’s Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins, Part One,” Indiana Genealogist 26(2) (June 2015): 5-29.

“Crossing the Continent with Common Names: Indiana Natives John and Elizabeth (Smith) Smith,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 105 (March 2015): 29-35.

The February Aggregator: more resources for Indiana, Ohio, Michigan,and

Cleaning out my mailbox so I can fill up yours!

Valerie Beaudrault at the New England Historical and Genealogical Society's "Weekly Genealogist" has spotted three collections of 20th-century obituaries on line for Randolph County, Indiana, and Darke County, Ohio, 1934-1948; Perry County, Indiana, 2001- ; and Garrett, DeKalb County, Indiana,1975-2012.

Not a database but a nice reminder of the value of store records appears in the Winter 2012 American Ancestors (also published by NEHGS), in particular the 51 volumes of "ledgers, journals, cash, day, inventory, and invoice books dating from 1882 to 1946" for S. Stern & Co. of Marcellus, Cass County, Michigan (southwest of Kalamazoo), now held at the Western Michigan University Archives and Regional History Collection. I have not viewed this collection, but if it is like some other business records, it may include information about the store's suppliers around the country as well as its customers in the immediate area.

Midwestern campus history is also burgeoning, with photo archives of Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, McLean County) and a century of University of Iowa yearbooks (1892-1992).