The George Smith Branch

Generation 2

Alma Smith Carthan Spearman

BT-PER-00267

Daughter of George Smith in the family account, mother of Mamie Elizabeth Carthan Till-Mobley, and the family historian whose written family history is one of the archive's cited sources. Carthan and Spearman are both her married surnames: the records once kept separately under those names describe one woman. The archive has not yet examined a contemporary record establishing her parentage, so that generation link is carried as under investigation.

Under Investigation

Generation 3

Mamie Elizabeth Carthan Till-Mobley

BT-PER-00268

Daughter of Alma Smith Carthan Spearman. Born 23 November 1921 and died 6 January 2003; those dates are well established in published accounts, and the archive carries them on that basis rather than on a certificate it has examined.

Under Investigation

Generation 4

Emmett Louis Till

BT-PER-00269

A descendant of the Smith-Tolliver family, born 25 July 1941 and died 28 August 1955. Those dates are well established in published accounts and are carried here on that basis. BEFORE TILL follows this family backward through the generations whose lives preceded 1955; this profile is genealogical and is not a biography.

Computed from the graph

The line, in both directions

Downward · the branch narrative

From John + Laura to Emmett

John Smith
BT-PER-00004
Documentedlink from the generation above
George Smith
BT-PER-00266 · b. 21 April 1881 (death record) or about 1872 (1880 census) - conflicting · d. 3 March 1936
Under Investigationlink from the generation above
Alma Smith Carthan Spearman
BT-PER-00267 · b. about 1902 (memorial) · d. about 1981 (memorial)
Under Investigationlink from the generation above
Mamie Elizabeth Carthan Till-Mobley
BT-PER-00268 · b. 23 November 1921 · d. 6 January 2003
Under Investigationlink from the generation above
Emmett Louis Till
BT-PER-00269 · b. 25 July 1941 · d. 28 August 1955

Upward · Emmett's ancestral path

From Emmett back into the family

Emmett Louis Till
BT-PER-00269 · b. 25 July 1941 · d. 28 August 1955
Mamie Elizabeth Carthan Till-Mobley
BT-PER-00268 · b. 23 November 1921 · d. 6 January 2003
Under Investigationlink to the generation above
Alma Smith Carthan Spearman
BT-PER-00267 · b. about 1902 (memorial) · d. about 1981 (memorial)
Under Investigationlink to the generation above
George Smith
BT-PER-00266 · b. 21 April 1881 (death record) or about 1872 (1880 census) - conflicting · d. 3 March 1936
Under Investigationlink to the generation above
John Smith
BT-PER-00004

Branch confidence

Branch verified through John Smith

A descent path is only as strong as its weakest step. The weakest link on this branch is currently held as under investigation, so the branch is not presented as a verified lineage below that point, no matter how well known the people at the end of it are.

George Smith
Under Investigation
Alma Smith Carthan Spearman
Under Investigation
Mamie Elizabeth Carthan Till-Mobley
Under Investigation
Emmett Louis Till
Under Investigation

Neither ladder is drawn by hand. Both are generated from the published parent-child records at the moment this page loads. Correct a link in the archive and both change; remove one and the path shortens or disappears.

Identity guardrail

Alma's two married names

Two names — one person

Alma Smith Carthan Spearman

Carthan

The married name under which she is named in published accounts as the mother of Mamie Elizabeth Carthan Till-Mobley. She is carried in this archive as a daughter of George Smith on family knowledge alone.

Spearman

The married name she carried as the family historian whose written family history this archive cites as a source. Both surnames are married names belonging to the same woman.

Her record

The archive previously held these names as two separate people. They have been merged on the family's account that Carthan and Spearman are successive married names of one woman. Evidence entered under either name now belongs to the single record above.

Evidence trails

Claim → evidence → source → current conclusion

Trail ADocumentedBT-CLM-00274

George → child of John + Laura

Claim

Parent-child relationship between john-smith and george-smith, held as a single generation link rather than as part of a lineage assertion.

Evidence

The family history names George Smith among the children of John and Laura Smith. No census line, birth record or death record naming both parents has yet been transcribed into this archive.
BT-EVD-00276 · Supports · weight weak
The Illinois death index entry for George Smith, who died 3 March 1936 in Chicago, Cook County, names his father as John Smith and his mother as Laura Tatlefero. This is the first record entered in this archive that names both of George's parents. "Tatlefero" is one of the phonetic spellings of Taliaferro that appear across this family's records.
BT-EVD-00525 · Supports · weight strong

Source

Bibliographic details pending — family history by Alma Smith Spearman [BT-SRC-00040 · Book · Authored Narrative]COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION NEEDED. Published family history / descendant-authored narrative. Title, publisher, and publication date have not yet been supplied. A valuable family source; it is not automatically contemporary documentary proof for events predating the author's lifetime.
Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947, entry for George Smith, died 3 March 1936, Chicago, Cook County [BT-SRC-00524 · Vital Record · Index]

Current conclusion

George Smith was a son of John Smith and Laura Taliaferro Smith. His 1936 Illinois death record names both parents - father John Smith, mother Laura Tatlefero - and gives Mississippi birthplaces for both that match the counties where John and Laura appear in this archive.

What is known: A 1936 Illinois death record names George Smith's father as John Smith and his mother as Laura Tatlefero, a phonetic spelling of Taliaferro. The 1880 Copiah County census enumerates a George, age 8, as a son in the John Smith household.
What is not known: The death certificate image itself has not been examined. The informant who supplied the parents' names is not identified.
Next records to search: Order the certificate image from Cook County or the Illinois State Archives and read the informant line.

BT-CON-00535 · version 2

Trail BUnder InvestigationBT-CLM-00279

Alma → child of George

Claim

Parent-child relationship between george-smith and alma-smith-carthan, held as a single generation link rather than as part of a lineage assertion.

Evidence

Family knowledge places Alma Carthan as a daughter of George Smith. The archive holds no contemporary record for this link, so the generation is carried as under verification.
BT-EVD-00281 · Partially Supports · weight weak

Source

Family knowledge supplied by Amberly R. Carter-Mills [BT-SRC-00264 · Oral History · Authored Narrative]Family knowledge, recorded as such. It is evidence of what the family carries, and it is not a substitute for a contemporary record.

Current conclusion

Family knowledge places Alma Carthan as a daughter of George Smith. The archive holds no contemporary record for this link, so the generation is carried as under verification.

What is known: Family knowledge places Alma Carthan as a daughter of George Smith. The archive holds no contemporary record for this link, so the generation is carried as under verification.
What is not known: No contemporary record establishing this relationship has been examined by this archive and entered as an original.
Next records to search: Locate and examine a census enumeration, birth record, death record naming parents, marriage record, obituary, Social Security application, church record or probate file.

BT-CON-00280 · version 1

Trail CUnder InvestigationBT-CLM-00283

Mamie → child of Alma

Claim

Parent-child relationship between alma-smith-carthan and mamie-till-mobley, held as a single generation link rather than as part of a lineage assertion.

Evidence

This relationship is stated in widely published accounts. BEFORE TILL has not yet examined an original record for it, so it is held as under verification rather than documented.
BT-EVD-00285 · Partially Supports · weight weak

Source

Widely published account of the Carthan–Till family [BT-SRC-00265 · Other · Abstract]Derivative. Named here so the pathway is honest about what has, and has not, been examined in the original.

Current conclusion

This relationship is stated in widely published accounts. BEFORE TILL has not yet examined an original record for it, so it is held as under verification rather than documented.

What is known: This relationship is stated in widely published accounts. BEFORE TILL has not yet examined an original record for it, so it is held as under verification rather than documented.
What is not known: No contemporary record establishing this relationship has been examined by this archive and entered as an original.
Next records to search: Locate and examine a census enumeration, birth record, death record naming parents, marriage record, obituary, Social Security application, church record or probate file.

BT-CON-00284 · version 1

Trail DUnder InvestigationBT-CLM-00287

Emmett → child of Mamie

Claim

Parent-child relationship between mamie-till-mobley and emmett-louis-till, held as a single generation link rather than as part of a lineage assertion.

Evidence

This relationship is stated in widely published accounts. It is entered here as a derivative statement pending an original record examined by this archive.
BT-EVD-00289 · Partially Supports · weight weak

Source

Widely published account of the Carthan–Till family [BT-SRC-00265 · Other · Abstract]Derivative. Named here so the pathway is honest about what has, and has not, been examined in the original.

Current conclusion

This relationship is stated in widely published accounts. It is entered here as a derivative statement pending an original record examined by this archive.

What is known: This relationship is stated in widely published accounts. It is entered here as a derivative statement pending an original record examined by this archive.
What is not known: No contemporary record establishing this relationship has been examined by this archive and entered as an original.
Next records to search: Locate and examine a census enumeration, birth record, death record naming parents, marriage record, obituary, Social Security application, church record or probate file.

BT-CON-00288 · version 1

Generation 1 · 1936

The record that names George's parents

The record

Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916–1947

An index entry derived from a state death certificate. The certificate image itself has not been examined by this archive, and the parents' names on it were supplied by an informant after George had died.

Event date: 3 March 1936
Event place: Chicago, Cook, Illinois
Name: George Smith
Descriptors: Black, Male, 54
Birth date: 21 Apr 1881
Birthplace: Mississippi
Father's name: John Smith
Father's birthplace: Brook Haven, [Lincoln], Miss.
Mother's name: Laura Tatlefero
Mother's birthplace: Hazlehurst, [Copiah], Miss.
Occupation: Janitor
Residence: Chicago, Cook, Illinois
Spouse's name: Clara [Chess?]
Burial date: 6 March 1936
Burial place: Lincoln Cemetery; Worth, Cook, Ill.

Find a Grave memorial 92711754 (maintained by contributor AR Jackson, accessed 14 October 2021) gives the same dates and the same cemetery. It is not counted as a second witness: a memorial can be built from the same certificate.

What it settles

George Smith's parents are named on a record of his own for the first time: John Smith and Laura Tatlefero, a phonetic spelling of Taliaferro. The birthplaces given for them — Brookhaven in Lincoln County and Hazlehurst in Copiah County — sit in the Mississippi counties where this family already appears. His death, burial and Chicago residence are settled by the same entry.

What it does not settle

Clara's maiden name is read as "Chess" with a question mark and is carried here as unread. The birthplaces for John and Laura are informant testimony from 1936 and are held at that strength until a Mississippi record is examined. Nothing here touches the link between George and Alma, which remains the weakest point in the branch.

Conflicting evidence

Two birth years, no verdict

1936 death record

Born 21 April 1881

Reported by an informant about a man who had died, forty-plus years after the fact.

1880 Copiah County census

Age 8, born about 1872

Reported while the child was in the household, by whoever answered the enumerator's door.

A man enumerated at age 8 in 1880 cannot also have been born in 1881. Both readings are recorded and neither is chosen. The index's own bracketed remark, "[Census records c. Jan 1872]", is an indexer's note — it is not a second source.

Generation 1 · the memorial

Nine names in one household

A contributor's list, not a record

George Smith's household, as the memorial gives it

A memorial's family list is typed in by whoever maintains the page. It is a strong lead and a map of where to look next; it is not a birth, marriage or census record, and nothing on this list is treated as established until one of those is read.

Spouse

Clara Chess Smith 1878–1949

The 1936 death record read her surname as "Chess?". The memorial spells it out. Both readings come from the same household, so the surname is still carried as unconfirmed.

Children listed · 8

Elizabeth Smith Wright
1900–1970
New to the archive.
Mamie J. Smith Hall
1900–1967
New to the archive. Not to be confused with Mamie Till-Mobley, her niece in this reading.
Alma Smith Spearman
1902–1981
Already in the archive as Alma Smith Carthan Spearman. Her dates are taken from this memorial.
Hosea Smith
1906–1966
New to the archive.
George P. Smith
1907–1968
New to the archive.
Cary P. Smith
1911–1982
New to the archive.
Studge G. Smith
1913–1989
New to the archive.
Rubin Smith
1918–1996
New to the archive.

The memorial also carries a contributor's line: "George was the great-grandfather of Emmett Till." It is recorded as a statement made on that page. The archive works that pathway out from its own records, and the George-to-Alma step in it is still unproven.

Find a Grave, database and images, memorial page for George Smith (21 Apr 1881–3 Mar 1936), Find a Grave Memorial ID 92711754, citing Lincoln Cemetery, Blue Island, Cook County, Illinois; maintained by AR Jackson (contributor 47847137), accessed 14 October 2021.

Generation 1

George Smith, and what a lead is worth

Open research tasks

What has been ordered for George Smith

Order the death certificate image behind the Illinois index entry
Read the informant line on that certificate
Locate an obituary
Locate the Lincoln Cemetery interment register
Locate a Chicago marriage record for George and Clara
Read Clara's maiden name from an original record
Locate the 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 census entries
Locate a draft registration, if one exists
Locate Social Security-era records, if applicable
Resolve the birth-year conflict between 1881 and about 1872

DocumentedBT-CLM-00343

When was George Smith born, when did he die, and where is he buried?

A user-contributed online cemetery index gives a birth of 21 April 1881, a death of 3 March 1936, burial at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois, and a mother named Laura Taliaferro. That entry is a research lead, not evidence: no original death certificate, cemetery register or obituary has been examined by this archive. The dates are shown here as an unverified lead and are not written onto George's record.

Can a death certificate, cemetery register, obituary or funeral record independently establish George Smith's dates and burial?

DocumentedBT-CLM-00344

Who was George Smith's wife?

No spouse has been entered for George Smith, because no marriage record, census household or death record naming a wife has been examined. The archive will not import a spouse from an unsourced online tree.

What marriage licence, census household, obituary or death certificate names George Smith's wife?

The move north

Movement, period and motive are three different things

Historical context

The Great Migration — context, not motive

Between roughly 1915 and 1970, several million Black Americans left the South for northern and western cities. Mississippi to Illinois is one of the best-documented corridors of that movement, and this family's recorded geography sits inside it.

This archive will not write that any Smith moved north “because of the Great Migration.” Motive requires a source: a letter, an interview, a testimony. Where the archive has none, the record reads only that their movement occurred within the broader period historians call the Great Migration.

Where did the family go?

Mississippi → Illinois, as far as the records reach

Copiah County, Mississippi
Documented
The documented origin of the Smith–Tolliver household.
Lincoln Cemetery, Blue Island / Worth, Illinois
Documented
George Smith's burial place, 6 March 1936, given on his Illinois death record and repeated on the cemetery memorial.
Brookhaven, Lincoln County, Mississippi
Under Investigation
Reported as John Smith's birthplace by the informant on his son's 1936 death record. Secondhand, decades later, and not yet checked against a Lincoln County record.
Chicago, Illinois
Documented
George Smith's residence and place of death in 1936, on his Illinois death record. Also named in published accounts as the Carthan household's city, which no record examined here confirms.

No single route is drawn across this family. Each person's movement is entered only when a record places that person in a place. George's 1936 death record places him in Chicago and in Lincoln Cemetery; it does not say when he left Mississippi, and nothing here fills that gap in.

Open the archive map

DocumentedBT-CLM-00345

When did George Smith leave Mississippi?

The family line begins in Copiah County, Mississippi and later appears in Illinois. The archive has not yet entered a record fixing when, or whether, George himself made that move. Any movement he made occurred within the broader period historians call the Great Migration; that context is not a statement about his motive, which no record in this archive establishes.

Which census years, city directories, draft registrations, marriage records or children's birthplaces bracket George Smith's departure from Mississippi?

Under InvestigationBT-CLM-00348

What records document the Carthan household's move from Mississippi to Chicago?

Published accounts place Mamie's childhood in the Chicago area after a Mississippi birth. The archive has not yet examined a census line, school record or city directory for the household, so both the route and the years are open. The movement falls within the Great Migration period; no record in this archive states a motive for it.

Which census, school, directory or employment records place the Carthan household in Mississippi and then in Illinois, and in which years?

Generation 2

Alma Smith Carthan Spearman and the Carthan household

The bridge generation

The Carthan household

This is the household that carries the Smith family into Mamie's generation, and it is the part of the branch the archive can say least about. The frame below is deliberately empty: each slot names a record the archive intends to enter, and none of them is filled with a plausible guess.

Head of household: Not yet documented
Spouse: No marriage record examined
Children: No enumerated household entered
Location: Chicago area, per published accounts only
Census years: 1920 · 1930 · 1940 — none entered
Occupations: Not yet documented

Under InvestigationBT-CLM-00346

Whom did Alma Smith Carthan marry, and when?

The surname Carthan reaches this archive through published accounts of Mamie Till-Mobley's family. No marriage licence or census household has been examined here, so no spouse record has been created for Alma. The archive will create one when a record names him.

What marriage record or census household documents Alma Smith's marriage and her husband's full name?

Under InvestigationBT-CLM-00347

Are Alma Smith Carthan and Alma Smith Spearman the same person?

Two women named Alma Smith appear in this family's research: Alma Smith Carthan, named in published accounts as Mamie Till-Mobley's mother, and Alma Smith Spearman, the family historian whose written history the archive cites. Nothing examined here indicates they are the same woman, and the archive keeps them as separate records. Evidence entered for one is never applied to the other.

What records fix the birth, marriage and death of each Alma separately, so that neither can be collapsed into the other?

Generations 3 and 4

Mamie and Emmett, held to the same standard

Mamie is not only a mother here

In this archive Mamie Elizabeth Carthan Till-Mobley appears first as a daughter, a granddaughter and a great-granddaughter of a Mississippi household. Her later public life is documented at length elsewhere and is not the work of this phase. What this phase owes her is a parentage supported by records examined here — which the archive does not yet have, and says so.

Under InvestigationBT-CLM-00349

What record establishes Emmett Louis Till's father?

This archive has entered no father for Emmett Louis Till, because it has examined no birth certificate or other original record naming one. A father widely stated in published literature is not entered here as a relationship until a record is reviewed. Fame is not evidence.

What birth record, military record or vital record examined by this archive names Emmett Louis Till's father?

Source hierarchy

What counts, and in what order

Source hierarchy

Not all sources weigh the same

Preferred evidence

01 Birth certificate
02 Death certificate
03 Census enumeration
04 Marriage record
05 Social Security application (SS-5)
06 Obituary
07 Military record
08 Church record
09 Cemetery register
10 Funeral program
11 Family Bible
12 Contemporary newspaper

Secondary and derivative

· Written family history
· Find a Grave and similar user-contributed indexes
· WikiTree and similar collaborative trees
· Online genealogy trees without attached records

A derivative entry is a reason to order a record. It is never a substitute for one. This archive does not give equal weight to all source types, and it does not upgrade a lead because it agrees with the family account.

What we still don't know

Public research questions

George Smith

Who was his spouse?
When did he move north?
What work did he do?
Where did he live?
Can his death and burial be independently documented?

Alma Smith Carthan Spearman

What records establish her parentage?
When did she marry, and to whom by name?
Where did the household live, and in which census years?

Mamie Elizabeth Carthan Till-Mobley

What records connect her to the Smith family?
What can be documented about her early family life before she became publicly known?

Emmett Louis Till

What ancestral records connect him to John and Laura Smith?
What record examined by this archive names his father?