BACKGROUND on BIRTH of WILLIAM HENRY SMITH

William was born in 1873, probably in Virginia. The other possibility is that he was born in Pennsylvania, but Grandpa says that William told him he was born in Virginia. We do NOT know who William's father was. That is the biggest mystery that we need to solve. We THINK his mother was Effie Craver Smith Harkins (more to come on her)... BUT we're still not even positive on that fact. We don't have a birth certificate for William, and most likely, there wasn't one ever created for him.