Alvin Smith of Cork Ireland

We have a relative who has gone missing. Yes, the trail is rather cold at this point but I still have hopes of finding traces of his life, and perhaps his burial place. Alvin Smith came to America from Cork, Ireland, probably in the early 1800s. Supposedly he took a Cherokee woman as his wife and they had a son, Julian Alvin Smith, born in Missouri in 1827. Next we find the son, Julian Alvin Smith, in Oklahoma Territory, married to Julia Addeline McConnell and the father of a son, William Franklin Smith, born November 15, 1865. Another son was born to this couple, John Alvin Smith, January 17, 1868, just three weeks before his father's death. From 1827 to 1865 I have no records showing where Alvin Smith or his son Julian Alvin Smith lived, worked, married, etc. Julian Alvin Smith died February 7, 1868, age 41, in a border clash between Indians and settlers, leaving a young wife and two small sons. But did he have another family before his marriage to Julia? And what became of his father and Indian mother? Did they have other children? What a mystery.

As for why Alvin Smith came to the U.S., there is a good website about Irish Immigration that explains it better than I can. I don't know how much time passed from when he arrived on the eastern seaboard until he fathered a son in Missouri in 1827 - maybe just a year, but I'm guessing it took five. That would have him setting sail from Cork about 1822. I'm assuming he was single since he married a Cherokee woman in the U.S. but did he travel here alone? Family legend says he and his wife and young son continued west out of Missouri to Indian country, later known as the Oklahoma Territory. My challenge is to find evidence of this in public records.

By the way, this young son I speak of, Julian Alvin Smith, is my husbands great-great grandpa. Of course this makes Alvin Smith of Cork, Ireland his gr-gr-gr-grandpa.