Description
Every name is a story. This one begins with an anvil.
“Smith” started as a job — the man who forged the iron, shod the horses, and mended the tools — and the name followed the trade wherever English-speaking people went: from the forge villages of England to the American frontier, where Schmidts, Kowalskis, and Mac Gabhanns all poured into the same four letters at the clerk’s desk.
This lavishly illustrated volume traces Smith through eight chapters — the forge that became the name and the saint who watches over it; the heartland of England’s smithing villages; the crossings that carried the name west; the signature story of the longest unbroken reign in census history — Smith has been the number-one surname in the United States in every census from 1790 through 2010; the heraldry that belongs to particular lineages and never to all; a gallery of great bearers — Captain John Smith, Adam Smith, Joseph Smith, the Empress of the Blues, the Senate’s “Declaration of Conscience,” the captain of the Titanic; the curiosities, from the man who founded the Smithsonian without ever visiting America to the apple named for Granny Smith; the towns that kept the name; and where the Smiths live today — first in America, first in every census ever taken.
Printed in dramatic 8.5″ × 11″ large format, Smith: A Surname History is the perfect gift for anyone who bears the name — past, present, and future — and for all those who love them.
Find your name. Find your story.
The fourth volume in The Surname Histories Series by Tamara Gribble.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.