The Meads have also been traced to Ireland. I still have a lot of work to do on this side of our family but thanks to Dian and Val, I am slowly piecing it together. Our gr-gr-gr-grandfather was John Paul Meads who was born here in Charleston, SC abt. 1797. We have not found our gr-gr-gr-grandmother's name but we are still searching. John had 1 son, Daniel Elkerson Meads (gr-gr-grandfather) born in Charleston on September 1, 1820 and died in Brompton, St. Clair County, Alabama on March 3rd, 1883. Daniel was married to Francis Elizabeth OHern who gave birth to 7 children and one son, Paul M. Meads is our gr-grandfather who was born in Charleston, SC on October 3,1844. He married Mary A. Hambright and one of their sons Ervin Meads was our grandfather. He married Martha Hambright and she had 9 children, of course one was our Granny Pearl Jane Meads Smith.I will post a picture of both Granny Smith and Granny Meads as soon as I can. The Meads family also owned land in Alabama and I do have copies of all of the Reno, McElvana and Meads land patents if anyone would like to see them.

What can I say about our Smith line but it has been the longest and windingest road I have ever been on. The only thing I have had to go by to search our Dad's and Papa Smith's side is the names of his parents who were Bill Smith and Etta Alvoson, which is not the correct spelling.I searched for months on Alvoson and finally Mom told me that her name was not spelled that way.After about another week of research on the spelling Alverson, I received an e-mail from Marjorie DelBert, who is one of our cousins.Marjorie told me that she had a Mary Etta listed in her family and she was married to William D. Smith in St. Clair County.She gave me some URL's to look at and bingo, Papa Smith was found. Papa Smith was born Herman Dewey Smith on July 19th, 1897 and died in Jefferson County Hospital on September 8th, 1957. He was born in Coal City, Alabama and was a coal miner.Before his death, he had pulled two Greyhound buses on a hill in Cardiff, Alabama and that was his home when he passed away.The buses are still there and our Gr-Aunt Eller who is 98 still lives in them.The main thing I remember about my Papa was that Granny Smith would not let him smoke, so she would try to hide his cigarettes but Papa would have us looking like a bunch of chickens pecking at seed to try and find butts for him by the church.I also remember He would fix us Hot Toddies when we were sick,in case you don't know what a Hot Toddie is, it is whiskey, lemon juice and water. The best thing back in those days when you had a cold. I do remember that when he died, our Granny Smith's sister would not let me, Sheila and Brenda out of the car at his funeral. She told us we were too young to experience death but I will tell you, NEVER deny your children from learning about death first hand.I have grown up hating my gr-aunt for not allowing me to kiss my Papa goodbye one last time. Even though now I understand her reasons and have forgiven her, it will always be a lost memory of my Papa that I would have loved to have to comfort me when I think of him. So please if your children want to attend a family funeral,let them.Don't let them always have a regret that they never got to tell a loved one goodbye.By the way, Papa Bill Smith was Cherokee and Creek from what I can remember Dad saying, and Grandma Etta was Norwegian.