Origins of surname
This, the commonest of all UK surnames, comfortably ahead of Jones, Taylor and Williams, is renowned as being the most difficult for family historians to research, just because there are so many of them, and have been for a long time.
Contrary to popular misconception, the origins of the name have nothing to do with a blacksmith, or any other sort of smith. The name comes from the word smitan, meaning 'to smite', and as such is believed to have described not a worker in iron, but a soldier, one who smote. That he also probably wore armour, which he would have been required to repair, may have lead to the secondary meaning
Early records
The name has been present in Jersey since the 1620s, although our Comprehensive list of Jersey surnames, which was compiled not without an element of insular snobbery, ignores it.
The 14 baptisms registered between 1621 and 1778 were all girls.
Variants
- Smith
- Smyth
- Smithe
- Smythe
- Smiths
- Smithson
Family records
Family trees
- Descendants of Jonathan Smith Added 2016
- Descendants of Arthur Smith Added 2021
Church records
- Smith baptisms in Jersey
- Smith marriages in Jersey (groom)
- Smith marriages in Jersey (bride)
- Smith burials in Jersey
Great War service
Family wills
Burial records
Family businesses
- James Smith, a silversmith and clockmaker was in business at 75 King Street in the 1830s and '40s, later in partnership with G Bensa
- Londoner Albert Smith became one of Jersey's most successful commercial photographers
Family photo album
A Smith family gathering at Highfield, St Saviour c1909, photographed by Francis Foot
Family gravestones
Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs
The grave of Great War casualty Francis Henry Smith at Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery
The grave of Great War casualty George Harry Smith at Bonnay Communal Cemetery, near Corbie
The grave of Great War casualty Joseph James Smith at St Sever Cemetery, Rouen
The grave of Great War casualty Percy Oliver Smith at Hagle Dump Cemetery, Ypres
The grave of Great War casualty Walter Smith at St Vaast Communal Cemetery, near Cambrai
The grave of Great War casualty Ernest Duhamel Smith at Warlencourt British Cemetery, Pas de Calais
Tips
The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.
We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling
The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.
New records
Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form
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