The Raven's Perch Annex contains files that are NOT related to the Grand Canyon and Lower Colorado River regions
The Annex is used to post documents pertaining to genealogy, for the use of family and any interested parties. They have been distributed elsewhere by Earle Spamer, in printed and digital formats. Posting the PDF versions to this website allows for convenient management on one host site.
These documents are PDFs (Portable Document Format). The free Adobe Acrobat Reader or comparable Acrobat product is required (see Adobe options at https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/acrobat/pdf-reader.html)
Genealogy and Historical Notes of Spamer and Smith Families of Maryland
Principal and collateral lineages with notes about people, places, and events internationally but mainly in Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania
by Earle E. Spamer 2008 / updated 2011 : PDF files are fully searchable and contain hyperlinked additions and corrections; copiously illustrated
and an abbreviated, illustrated narrative version, 2010
THERE ARE NO FURTHER UPDATES TO THESE FILES AT THIS TIME
Use the buttons farther below to download these separate PDF files — the buttons show the file sizes and number of pages
Part I. The Spamers of Baltimore. Emigrants to U.S. from Germany by 1830-1832
Part II. The Smiths of the Eastern Shore. Established in Old Talbot County, Maryland, by 1683
Appendix 1. The Martel and Blouin Families of Québec from France, 1664-1665; Blouin and Martel emigrants to U.S. from Canada, ca. 1900
Appendix 2. Selected Collateral Genealogies for Strongly Cross-Connected and Historical Family Groups Within the Extended Smith Family: Bayard, Bache, Cadwalader, Carroll, Chew, Coursey, Dallas, Darnall, Emory, Foulke, Franklin, Hodge, Hollyday, Lloyd, McCall, Patrick, Powel, Tilghman, Wright
Indexes. Two indexes were prepared for the printed version of this genealogy. Although the PDF versions of the genealogy are fully searchable, the indexes are still useful for browsing even for use with the digital versions, and of course for use with hardcopies of each part.
- A “Concise Index” was prepared first, which contains just the names of principal individuals (or “main-line descendants”) in the genealogy.
- A “Comprehensive Index” of nearly 300 pages was compiled later to include every individual and place mentioned in the texts as well as some selected subjects. The “Comprehensive Index”, however, omits Appendix 2 of the genealogy due to the significant overlap that Appendix 2 has both within its sub-parts as well as within the “Smith Family” genealogy that it supports. The prepared indexes do not include the additions that were made after 2008.
An abbreviated, more readable family history based on the Smith family and including chapters for selected other family groups is also available (see farther below).
Also posted to this website are other original Spamer and Smith family historians' documents (see farther below).
NOTE ABOUT THE FAMILY TREES: The family trees are basic diagrams, with individuals’ names and dates inside boxes, connected to their respective parents by straight lines. Each “row” on the charts represents one generation. The trees are drawn out on multiple pages in PDF format; they may be printed and pieced together to create a long horizontal scroll. One decided disadvantage of these computer-generated trees is how the program uses the birth and death date fields. In the database, one may qualify a date as “before”, “after”, or “about” a given date; but when this software prepares a tree it uses just the number and thus may give the impression that the date range is certain, when in fact it may not be. It is not a good idea to rely on the trees as a definitive source for a person’s dates; instead, rely on the texts.
Special note pertaining to the BLOUIN family that is a part of the Martel family in these genealogies:
About 2015 (my email correspondence from the account that I then used is no longer accessible), I had been in contact with Clermont Blouin of Québec. He was preparing (and has since completed) a privately printed and distributed genealogy of the Blouins from 1600 to today. I contributed a very small amount of information, and photos, from my Blouin ancestor (Arthur Blouin, my maternal grandfather). The cover reads "Blouin; Loyal et constant", displaying a coat of arms. The volume is undated and there is no separate title-page. This is a marvelously detailed genealogy, unpaginated but more than 200 pp., well illustrated. Having appeared after the completion of my own genealogical work, the information in Clermont Blouin's genealogy does not appear in the genealogies I prepared.
Earle Spamer
SHORTER NARRATIVE VERSION
The Smith Family from Maryland: An Illustrated & Narrative Genealogy, 1600s-1900s
with separate chapters for the Spamer Family from Maryland, Sevil Family from Delaware, Potts Family from Pennsylvania, and Martel Family from Québec and New England
by Earle E. Spamer, 2010
This is an abbreviated version of the Smith family genealogy, based on the 2008–2010 edition of Genealogy and Historical Notes of the Spamer and Smith Families of Maryland (see farther above).
The narrative is designed for more casual reading; it omits family-group data from censuses and other similar sources. It is well illustrated, but not as profusely as the principal Genealogy and Historical Notes of Spamer and Smith Families of Maryland (see farther above). Notes and precise credits for facts and quotations are omitted in this narrative. However, all omitted information will be found in the far more comprehensive Genealogy and Historical Notes.
The narrative is a background history leading up to about the early- to mid-20th century only. A few later individuals are noted if they have interesting stories that should be related to readers. (All known individuals of the family and numerous collateral (marriage) families are accounted for in the complete Genealogy and Historical Notes.) The Foreword and the Introduction in the narrative provide further explanations about its scope and content.
Four important lineages are also accorded their own chapters in the narrative; they are collateral lines to the Smith genealogy:
- Sevil family from Delaware, which is the ancestry of Ella Seville (1854–1931), wife of Rev. John Edward Smith (1848–1930)
- Two chapters cover the marriages of children of J. E. and Ella Smith: Lora Rebecca Smith (1874–1952) who married John Ward Spamer (1869–1960); and Gilbert Haven Smith who married Nora Mary Potts (1881–1961)
- The marriage of one of J. W. Spamer’s children, Edward Lawrence Spamer (1909–1955) to Jeannette Leda Blouin (1920–1987); Jeannette's maternal lineage is the Martel family from Québec and New England
The narrative is supplemented by family trees drawn out for the Smith, Spamer, Sevil, Watson–Potts, and Martel families. The trees contain information for all pertinent family members as documented in the Genealogy and Historical Notes.
Special note pertaining to the BLOUIN family that is a part of the Martel family in these genealogies:
About 2015 (my email correspondence from the account that I then used is no longer accessible), I had been in contact with Clermont Blouin of Québec. He was preparing (and has since completed) a privately printed and distributed genealogy of the Blouins from 1600 to today. I contributed a very small amount of information, and photos, from my Blouin ancestor (Arthur Blouin, my maternal grandfather). The cover reads "Blouin; Loyal et constant", displaying a coat of arms. The volume is undated and there is no separate title-page. This is a marvelously detailed genealogy, unpaginated but more than 200 pp., well illustrated. Having appeared after the completion of my own genealogical work, the information in Clermont Blouin's genealogy does not appear in the genealogies I prepared.
Earle Spamer
Original Family Historians' Documents
Spamer Family: The “Genealogy of the Spamer Families of Baltimore” by A. M. Spamer (1984) was reproduced from a copy sent by him in 1984 to Katharine S. Spamer. An unknown number of copies were distributed by him, although two copies were deposited in the Library of Congress and in the Maryland Historical Society (Baltimore). (These people are deceased.)
The content of this text has been transcribed, with notes, in pertinent parts of the present Spamer Family Genealogy.
Smith Family: The "Smith Genealogy and Some Reminiscences", by Edward Seville Smith (1963), is reproduced here from one of Smith's own carbon copies. (The disposition of the original typescript is unknown.)
The content of this text has been transcribed, with notes, in pertinent parts of the present Smith Family Genealogy.
This copy was presented by him to his brother, Earle Covington Smith, and Earle's daughter, Elisabeth Covington Smith (later Dewing). Many additional copies have been reproduced xerographically by various family members ever since the 1970s, each from other copies (whether they were additional carbon copies or still yet other xerographic copies is not known). The number of xerographic copies held by various family members is not known. Also, the number of carbon copies made by Edward S. Smith is likewise not known. (These people are deceased.)
Earle Covington Smith's World War I Materials
These are PDF reproductions of the World War I memoir and notebook by Capt. Earle C. Smith, U.S. Army, which are described in the Smith Family text (the memoir is also fully quoted there, with notes added by Spamer). The relatively brief memoir, written by Smith with his then-very young daughter in mind, is profusely illustrated with postcards obtained by Smith while in Europe during the war. The illustrations are included in the PDF here but are not a part of the Smith Family Genealogy. The memoir is also accompanied by some maps and official documents. The notebook is arranged alphabetically by subject or mnemonic note.
The originals of both documents were donated by Earle Spamer to the Library of Congress as part of the Veterans History Project. They were digitized and may be viewed online at: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.12817/
(If this link does not open, the documents may be accessed through the Veterans History Project website at http://www.loc.gov/vets/ and searching for “Earle Covington Smith”.)
The memoir was placed by Smith in a loose-leaf binder with a stenciled cover, "Proof Officers Hand-Book", which was simply a binder reused by Smith. Unfortunately, the Library of Congress has used that title as the title for the memoir, although information given in the file informs otherwise.
Earle Smith is deceased.