Help needed to find John Smith

[Lynn The Forest Fan]

I was thinking about how few contacts I have in my Smith family & inparticular, the lack of actual Smiths. I looked at my ggg grandfather's family & realised that of his 5 sons, only 1 had children that I know of, & he is my diret relative. Three of the others died young & the fourth goes missing after 1881. So I was wondering if anyone could help me find out what happened to the missing son.

His name was John Free Smith born 21/2/1863 at Tetney Lock in Lincolnshire.In 1871, he was in Tetney with his family (DOB 1864) & in 1881 he is visiting in Driffield with his sister Rebecca (his place of birth listed as Barton Lincs). But after that, he vanishes& I have been unable to trace him. His father & sister Agnes were in Barton in 1881 & Rebecca was also with them in 1891, but no sign of John.

Can anyone help me trace him?

[KiteRunner]

Hope your thread title hasn't put people off, Lynn! I wonder whether he emigrated - I'll have a try at searching for him tomorrow. His full name sounds familiar, though - maybe I've tried before?

[Harrys mum]

There's a John Free Smith in Qld in 1903.

[Harrys mum]

In 1903 he's a labourer on a station (large farm)
Seems he married Florence Edith Cunningham in 1918 and was in Tiaro Qld in 1925, a farmer. If he's your fellow he'd be 55 when he married so wonder if there was a son.

[Lynn The Forest Fan]

His name might sound familiar Kate, because I wrote an article about his father John Free Smith for the magazine. I don't think I've ever asked for help on this one.

That does sound interesting Libby, I have only just considered that he could have emigrated, prevously I just thought he must have died. His brother , my gg grandfather named his 2nd son John Free Smith as well, so it was obviously a family name

[KiteRunner]

It does often turn out that if you can't find somebody on several consecutive censuses then it is because they emigrated. I'm just tracing some Browns who went to Australia - luckily they also had unusual first or middle names.

[Lynn The Forest Fan]

I've never really dealt with people emigrating, so am not really sure where to look. The only reason my Smiths have previously been so easy to trace is the "Free" middle name, although I have yet to discover where it came from

[KiteRunner]

Lynn, I usually look up Australia in our Wiki and then work through the links in there. There will be some national ones and some for each state.

[Lynn The Forest Fan]

Ok thanks Kate, I will give that a try

[Lynn The Forest Fan]

Just as an update to this, a newly found relative has found the death for this John Free Smith, which lists his mother's maiden name as Agnes Featherstone, which is almost right, as it was Weatherstone, but pretty much proves that he emigrated. So many thanks Libby for finding that one

[Guest]

I started to look for him then realised when I saw Kiterunner how old this thread was LOL

[Lynn The Forest Fan]

Yes, when i found the thread again to update it, I was amazed at how long it had been since Libby found this information, how time flies!