Looking for parents of Smerviemore Johnston, borm 1035 in England

Question

Looking for parent of my Johnson/Johnston lineage I am stuck at Smerviemore Johnston born 1035 in England.

 

Thanks,

Ron

Comments

Ron,

Not sure if you still check this site but I am stuck there as well. He would be my 23rd great grandfather!

Wilson

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Hi. My name is Billy Johnson. I believe I am a direct ancestor too. Traced back through Moses Johnson who died in Shelby, Alabama. Any more luck tracing this back further?

Answer 1

Ronald,

     The first problem we are confronted with by people during this period of  time is they did not have last names.  Your date of 1035, is it an estimate of the time period this person lived in, plus or minus?  Bear in mind any records we may find are based on historical record.

If they are of Nobility, then there may be birth, marriage and death records.

How did you arrive at the surname Johnson?  Is there a record you could cite? Was this copied from another tree?

It would be helpful if you could provide some sort of trail for us to follow.

Comments

I am there as well ( noone checks this anymore im sure ) but he was knighted as a sir, so...And smerviemores father was born 1015 and died 1060, i dont know his name and thats what i want to find out

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I believe that Smerviemore's father was William Johnson.  The dates concur, and I have found several mentions of this; however, I have no conclusive proof.

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ROBERT JOHNSTON/JOHNSON 1015-1060

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smerviemere johnson is my 27th great grandfather directly decended so i dont know where you got 23

Answer 2

I too am stuck on Smerviemore Johnson (Johnston).  I have corresponded with the Head of Archives of Shropshire, England where he supposedly died but their records have all been turned over to another library and are not indexed at this time.  I have also contacted the French town where he was born but got no information at all.  If any of you have any success, please let me know and I will do the same.

Patricia Sutton Burgess

Comments

I found out Smerviemore was likely a direct descendant of king robert the first of france which is pretty interesting.

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Another thing I believe he died in Scotland and as he was a decendant of King Robert of France that is why he was in a French Town

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I would like to know how Smerviemore connects to King Robert the First of France, I have checked King Robert's descendency don't see the connection.  Thank you

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Found this page

https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=emsuggs&id=I94568

but I can't locate the source cited.  I don't know why it suggests looking at the Archibald Constable publications, I doubt if they'll be any use.

PS

For reference, other versions at

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:S1M4-VFJ

https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=brjohnson&id=I1185

Mentions "Europe's Royal Families" by E. L. Sandberg, but I can't find that either.

 

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The French thing might come from confusion with a different Smervimore, who was a chief of Clan Campbell in the 6th century, so we're told

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Coslidh-1

The story goes that he was a son of King Arthur.  Many websites make Guinevere his mother, but the official story says his mother was a daughter of a King of the Franks

https://archive.org/stream/houseofargyllcol00glas#page/10/

But that would be a Merovingian king, not a Robertian.

 

Answer 3

The Roxbury immigrant line seems to have been disconnected between

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Johnson-2898

and

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Johnson-3743

leaving the English line floating in the air with no clue as to why it's there or whose ancestry it's supposed to be or which book it came from.

Obviously the line won't be found in English sources, we need to locate the American book.

 

Comments

Something called "Twenty Generations of the Burley Johnson Family" gets mentioned, but apparently it's unpublished.

Burley Johnson is presumably this 20th century Californian LDS bishop

https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=brjohnson&id=I7

whose ancestry can be chased back to Smerviemore Johnson b 1035.

There's an Ancestral File number given, 1F4H-58.  Searching for that

https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results?count=20&query=%2Bafn%3A1F4H-58

doesn't find anything in AF as such, but it does find this line in PRF

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:S1MW-K1Q

which is similar to the RootsWeb line.

But when we get back to the immigrant

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:S1MW-51K

the sources listed get a bit indeterminate, like "Peerage Book".

However, this line is different from the Johnson of Roxbury line back to the 13th century, where the lines join up at Sir Charles Johnson and his wife Ethelred and continue back to Smerviemore Johnson.

Top of Burley Johnson line:

https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=brjohnson&id=I267&style=TEXT

Top of Roxbury line:

https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Johnson-Family-Tree-47290

So I still don't know where the disconnected Roxbury line is coming from.  Though looking at the names, I'd have to think the Lower East Side.

 

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Found it on Abebooks

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=22853307131&searchurl=isbn%3D0788424939%26sortby%3D17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title1

But apparently there was an earlier book in 1984.

PS The blurb is garbled.

 

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This one

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4621314-the-biography-and-genealogy-of-captain-john-johnson-from-roxbury-massac

PS no that isn't the earlier book.

 

 

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Less garbled version

https://www.amazon.com/Ancestors-Descendants-Johnson-Abigail-1590-2003/dp/B001L1ZAJS

Mentions two earlier books.

 

 

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Got there in the end

https://archive.org/details/genealogyofcapta00john

Nearly.

 

 

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So Smerviemore was not descended from Robert? I saw a source somewhere I can find.