My original intentions for this post didn’t quite pan out.  I was watching some Pocahontas on TV and got to thinking about the most common name among English speaking countries and how beyond John Smith the explorer, there were several other John Smith’s who were amazing historical figures.  But the other John Smiths I was thinking about at the time weren’t actually John Smiths once I reminded myself about their history.  They were Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) and John Jones (ally and brother in law to Oliver Cromwell).  Outside of John Smyth the baptist minister, and Wikipedia’s list of notable John Smiths, I don’t really have the post I thought I did.

Why then am I posting anyway, you might ask.  ‘Cause it was a good idea!  It just wasn’t real.  It’s like finding a wealth of information on the Christopher Cotton who was a cousin to your ancestor but from whom you are not lineally descendent.  Or like that guy in your genealogy database who lived for 120 years and none of the other genealogists who have the same guy in their trees seemed to have caught this.  Can you tell I’ve been doing a lot of family searching lately?