Elisabeth Smith Family
http://awtc.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=canney&id=I14403
- Name: Elizabeth (_?_) WAY
- Sex: F
- Birth: ABT 1624 in England 1
- Death: APR 1711 in prob. Saybrook, Middlesex Co., CT
- Note: She was the step-dau. of John Smith of Boston and later of New London, CT. Her mother was Johanna, a famous doctress and nurse. Elizabeth went to New London with her daughters Agnes and Alice and lived with or near her parents while her sons stayed with her husband. In 1675 after Providence was burned George tried to get is wife to return but she stayed away so he sued to enforce her to return and the court ordered her to do so under penalty ofimprisonment. There is no record of this so she must have returned.
Her mother, Joanna, was a widow when she married John Smith of Boston, MA and later of New London, CT. At the death of her second husband in 1680 Joanna withstood two court challenges by his nephew, Edward Smith, to the terms of John'' final will. Depositions were taken from several neighbors and friends, who told how John Smith had always treated Edward Smith as though he were his own son and that he had called for him out of England with the intention of making him his heir. Edward came as a minor and worked diligently with his uncle and fully expected to become his heir at the death of Joanna. Her constant distress at the terms of an earlier will leaving all to Edward at her death, brought John Smith to change his will in his last days, leaving all to Joanna with no provision for Edward.
It was very clear from these depositions that it was Elizabeth, wife of George Way, for whom Joanna fought so hard, because the earlier will would have left nothing to Joanna's children, but the later will would allow Joanna to remember her daughter or not, as she wished.
The hapless nephew, Edward, died in an epidemic, with his wife and eldest son, only a few years after his last unsuccessful challenge and in 1687 Joanna Smith left her estate by will to her own descendants.
Among the depositions taken in the John Smith will controversy, Richard Smith of New London indicated that John Smith said "his wife had been very earnest with him to make one of her daughters children his heir but...he wholly declined it because his wife's daughter was a Quaker and he could not abide the Quakers; and also her husband was a rude and lewd man in his wife. [The Ancestry of Emily Jane Angell 1844-1910 by Dean Crawford Smith, edited by Melinde Lutz Sanborn]
Marriage 1 George WAY b: 1619 in England- Married: ABT 1650 in Boston, Suffolk Co., MA 2
- Elizabeth WAY b: 19 MAR 1651 in Boston, Suffolk Co., MA
- George WAY b: 19 JAN 1655 in New London, New London Co., CT
- Alice WAY b: 1658 in Boston, Suffolk Co., MA
- Agnes WAY b: 1660 in Boston, Suffolk Co., MA
- Joanna WAY b: 1663
- Thomas WAY b: 1666
- Mehitable WAY b: 1670
- Author: Torrey, Clarence AlmonTitle: New England Marriages Prior to 1700
Abbrev: New England Marriages Prior to 1700
Publication: Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc., Baltimore, MD 1995 - Author: Sanborn, Melinde LutzTitle: Second Supplement to Torrey's New England Marriages Prior to 1700
Abbrev: Second Torrey SupplementPublication: Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD 1995
Another person wrote, however:
- Reported on several family trees to be daughter of John Smith b. 1598 England and Joanna Ormsby b. 1614 Theddlethorpe, All Saints, Lincolnshire England. The information about her mother is false! A very well documented story about Joane (sic) Ormsby/Ormsbee's father Richard Ormsby, says Joane was born 1622/23 in Theddlethorpe, All Saints, Lincolnshire England, married John Smith in 1644/45 (location not stated) and died 1646/47 at age 24. She is not the mother of Elizabeth Smith born anywhere near 1630, or is she the mother of any of the other 3 childrenborn in the 1630's. Obviously the result of some non-researching puke who bends the dates to make the person fit their tree, thereby pollutting other trees like a virus!