Really we don’t know for sure the full names of the Smith children’s parents. Sadly, the birth and baptism records for their father Robert Christian Smith and mother, Maria Rebecca Millerd have not been found for various reasons. We hope to document this story and to follow DNA trails; thus, we may get some new clues to their true identities. Robert and Maria are one of the main reasons for doing this blog. Many family members have tried to unravel the story and find the identities of our 2x great grandparents.

As this story is made up of many pieces of a puzzle, we will do it piece by piece and focus on the Smith family first and then look at what we know Robert and Maria’s own stories before they married in further posts.

Robert and Maria married on 19 December 1872 at Burwood, the Sandhills, Newcastle with the ceremony taking place the home of Emanuel Millard, who was Maria’s father. The marriage certificate shows that Maria was under the age of twenty-one years and therefore needed to be granted permission by her father, to marry. From this, we estimate Maria was born about 1852, but this is not confirmed.

Without an authentic birth record and relying on other records, we have assumed that Maria was about twenty when she married, and Robert was found listed on a shipping record created a few months before their wedding, as being twenty-nine years of age. We certainly feel that Robert was not completely open about his age at the time. There are some variations of a few years in uncovered records, and family members also recall they were told by his children, that Robert changed both his name and his age. Further to this, in the following April 1873, on their first child’s birth certificate, Robert was the informant, and  his age is listed as 31 years, which was just four months after the wedding, where he was 29. We do estimate that he was probably born between 1840 and 1844.

The wedding record shows that they were married in the Wesleyan Church of Newcastle by William, Jones Kellick Piddington at the residence of Emmanuel Millard. Further investigation of records show Reverend Piddington himself was part of early colonial and church history and had two sons who later famously became early members of parliament in a newly developing Commonwealth of Australia.

Both Robert and Maria signed their names on the certificate. Their witnesses were John Taylor and Maryann Millard with John’s signature shown, but Maria’s sister Maryann put her mark. Throughout the search for evidence there are several variations of spelling for Millard. On the marriage certificate of Robert & Maria, it is transcribed as Millerd and also Millward in other records.

Where did Robert and Maria Smith make their family home?