Jane Ann Smith

AUDITED 10 Aug 2026 — a controlled negative on her parents, and a search trap. PARENTS NOT FOUND, and no candidate is nominated. Every Smith household in Anderson County, Kansas in the 1860 census (six townships) and the 1870 census (eight townships) was read from free KSGenWeb transcriptions: not one person in any of them was born in Missouri, against 100 Missouri-born persons in the 1860 file and 364 in the 1870 file. The control could have failed and did not. The 1860 West household is three people with no Smith in it or adjacent. The only Smith who could be cross-identified, Daniel W. Smith of Greeley City Cemetery, born 1820, is too young to be her father. This weakly CONTRADICTS the assumption that she was in Kansas Territory with her family. SEARCH TRAP: the marriage place recorded from her husband's 1918 obituary as "Lane" is anachronistic. In Oct 1855 the place was the Shermanville post office, universally called Dutch Henry's Crossing, on the Pottawatomie; it was renamed Lane on 28 Jan 1863 (Andreas, History of Kansas, 1883). Any search of 1855 to 1862 keyed on "Lane" returns a FALSE ZERO. Search Shermanville, Dutch Henry's Crossing, or Pottawatomie instead. PROVENANCE: St. Louis is now stated by a 1931 source independent of Find a Grave - her AP death notice (29 Sep 2026, below) - though that notice says she came FROM St. Louis, not that she was born there. The exact date 23 May 1839 still rests only on unsourced Find a Grave fields; the notice's "92 years old next month" fits a May 1839 birth. "Missouri" alone is carried by two independent enumerations. SETTLES IT, in order: the Kansas death certificate, Ford County, 10 Apr 1931, which names father and mother's maiden name. The Franklin County marriage record that was listed second here has since been read and names no parent (26 Sep 2026, below). Evidence: ancestry/sources/west-jane-ann-smith-2026-08-10/ (136 files). Report: ancestry/agent-report-west-jane-ann-smith-2026-08-10.md. CANDIDATE POOL ADDED 19 Sep 2026 - CANDIDATE, NOT EVIDENCE. Owen's call, triaging the free-web dossier ancestry/agent-report-1120-jane-ann-smith-2026-09-19.md. This qualifies the 10 Aug line above, "PARENTS NOT FOUND, and no candidate is nominated", in ONE respect only: a pool now exists to test. It names no father, and no grade moves - the 10 Aug controlled negative stands in full. THE POOL: three adult male Smiths of MISSOURI origin enumerated in District 5 alongside the West household - ALFRED SMITH, HARRISON SMITH and HICKMAN SMITH. They are attested IN THE DISTRICT. Not one of them is attested AS HER FATHER, and no record read to date connects any of them to her. The derivation is set out in that dossier. WHY A POOL AND NOT A FINDING: it is the first candidate pool this project has ever had for her, so its value is in naming what to test and in stopping a later session re-deriving it. Marking it "candidate" keeps the 10 Aug guardrail instead of quietly retiring it. THE DOCUMENT THAT WOULD SETTLE IT has to be ordered from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, because it is in no death-certificate collection on FamilySearch or Ancestry (checked 22 Sep 2026, register K793): her own Kansas death certificate, 10 Apr 1931, Ford Co. Kansas death certificates of that period carry the father's name and the mother's maiden name as separate fields; registration is reliable in Kansas from 1911, and the informant was very likely a son who had lived with her. That would answer both halves from one document. AUDITED 26 Sep 2026 - THE MARRIAGE REGISTER NAMES NO PARENT; HER HUSBAND'S PENSION FILE IS THE NEXT DOCUMENT. Register K834, K836. The Franklin County marriage register page behind the 1855 index entry has now been read on the image (Franklin Co., Kansas, Marriage record vol. 1, p. 43; FHL film 1451454). It is a minister's return, copied into the book in 1863: "I Wm C. McDow a minister of the Gospel do hereby certify that on the 23rd day of October 1855. the rites of matrimony were duly solemnized by me, between Wilber D. West and Elizabeth Jane Ann Smith. Franklin County Kansas." It gives no ages, no witnesses, no house and no consent, although an 1858 entry on the facing page of the same register records all three. The Franklin County marriage record cannot name her parents. Her husband's pension index card (U.S., General Index to Pension Files, NARA T288) shows that she applied as his widow from Kansas on 20 June 1918 and was granted widow's certificate 853,628 (application 1,122,257; his own invalid certificate 201,456 dates from 1879; Co. F, 11th Kansas). To be granted it she had to prove the 1855 marriage, so that file should hold her own sworn account of it - the only document known in which she speaks for herself about where she came from. It will name her parents only if an affidavit happens to. Like the death certificate, it is a paid order and has not been placed. THIS PARAGRAPH IS ABOUT EVIDENCE READ, NOT A GRADE - her parents remain unknown. AUDITED 29 Sep 2026 - HER DEATH NOTICE IS FOUND. IT NAMES NO PARENT, BUT IT SOURCES ST. LOUIS AND PUTS HER IN KANSAS BY 1854. Register K889. The Associated Press carried her death from Dodge City, and The Mercury (Manhattan, Kansas) printed it on 11 April 1931, p. 4, under "Kansas Pioneer Dies": "Mrs. Jane A. West, Kansas pioneer who would have been 92 years old next month, died here last night. For the last 13 months she has been bedfast. Mrs. West came to Garnett, Kans., from St. Louis in 1854 and in 1900 moved to Ford county." That is the whole item; it names no parent, husband or child, and no informant. What it adds. St. Louis is now stated by a source independent of Find a Grave, though as where she came from, not where she was born. And she reached Kansas in 1854, at about fifteen and a year before her marriage, so she very probably came with a family: a Smith household that moved from St. Louis to eastern Kansas in 1854-55 is what to test the District 5 candidate pool against. The 1854 date is the notice's own, written 77 years later; Kansas Territory opened only in mid-1854 and "Garnett" is a later town name for where she settled, so read it as "in the first year of the territory", not as an exact date. This also weakens the 10 Aug remark that the census reading contradicts her having been in Kansas with her family. Still unread: the local obituaries, which are fuller than a wire item and may name survivors. Newspapers.com holds no Dodge City paper for April 1931 and no Garnett paper after 1924 (checked 29 Sep 2026 with positive controls). THIS PARAGRAPH IS ABOUT EVIDENCE READ, NOT A GRADE - her parents remain unknown.