Danish Smith Ancestors

Throughout my years doing genealogy, I have mostly focused on my researching mother's ancestors because my paternal grandmother does a lot of research on my father's side, so I've stuck to my mom's side for the most part. But over the last year or so everytime I happen to glance at my gneealogy file and see some Danish ancestors on my dad's side, I think that I need to look into that family line a little. I've put it off, mostly because I don't know anything about research in Denmark. But a week or so ago I decided not to put it off any longer.

The line I was interested in is that of my paternal great grandmother, Eliza Lucinda "Cindy" Smith Chidester. Cindy was married to James Parker Chidester and they had seven children. My grandfather, John Leo Chidester, and his twin sister Jean were the youngest children of Jim and Cindy Chidester. Cindy's parents were William Smith and Mary Moss. Both William and Mary were born in Utah, and both were the children of Danish immigrants who came to America as new members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints. And William Smith and Mary Moss happened to be my only two great, great grandparents who I didn't have a copy of at least one photo of. I didn't really know where to start in my research, as there were several different Danish lines I could have started with. So I decided to see what I could find about William Smith and Mary Moss. Before going to any genealogy sites, I just did a google search to see if anything happened to come up. Not suprisingly, I didn't find anything relavent for William Smith and Mary Moss -- not the most uncommon names out there. So I decided to see what I could find for William Smith's parents, Jorgen Christiansen Smith and Mette Marie Villardsen Johannesen. Pretty soon I came to the website of the Hamaker family, "Hamaker's Homestead" at , and this family happens to have a relation to my Danish Smith ancestors. And there was a pretty lengthy history for Jorgen Christiansen Smith with some photos, and info about a number of other related Smith relatives. I tried contacting the author of the website, but my email was returned. Luckily, they had posted the names and email addresses of all the people who had contributed family histories or photos to the website, so I was able to contact Eugene "Gene" Halverson, the author of the history on Jorgen and the contributor of the majority of Smith photos on the site. Gene and I have since been sharing genealogy via email daily, and he has been very generous to take the time to send me numerous histories that he has written and family photos. I am still taking the time to read through all the histories, but the first one I have started to read about Jorgen and his wives is very interesting.

Apparently, my great, great, great grandmother, Mette Marie Villardsen Johannesen, was the second wife of Jorgen Christiansen Smith, who was practicing polygamy. His first wife was Christina Maria Bertelsdatter Birkedal, and they were married when they still lived in Denmark. They came with several children to America. After settling in Utah, Jorgen took a second wife, 18 year old Mette, and they had several children. And Jorgen also took a third wife, Wilhelmine Pedersen, an older widow with three children from a previous marriage. The families moved around a lot, settling different Utah towns and dealing with the deaths of quite a few of their children through the hard living conditions. From Gene's history, it seems that they also dealt with the difficulties and jelousies of a polygamous family. I can't even imagine what that would have been like. Gene has given me permission to share his histories and photos on this blog, so I'll post the history of Jorgen Christiansen Smith here too.