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It is unfortunate that this website needs a Section called Important Corrections, especially when most of those problems were the result of the shortcomings of a man I have called the Mythmaker. To be truthful he was not the only one. The others have been identified in the other articles where I have unveiled their "contributions". Actually, if these had not existed, there is little likelihood I would be spending money to rent this website, free of all advertizing. However, I feel strong enough about a number of mistakes and outright lies being shared among my cousins that I want to do something to correct their misunderstanding. |
| For some 38 years I have not identified the Mythmaker by name. And for as long as I have had a website (1999) I have not done so. I have enough not provided enough personal information about him so that a casual reader could an identify him. Those who know of the situation personally (and there have been hundreds who have, but many of them are now deceased) will know of whom I write. This reluctance to identify him was NOT because of any respect I have for the dead. The Mythmaker spent his adult life spinning lies about the family and I see no reason for his death to cause us to forgive him. Because of his fabrications, folks for centuries will be believing in a phony ancestry, because his material has been printed in genealogies, histories and obituaries. His actions in life do not merit him any respect in death. And, my reluctance to identify him was NOT because I want to spare his survivors any embarrassment. It is my understanding that some of them believe his papers are correct, or at least, perhaps to save face, pretend to believe that, and they are sharing those papers with others. In any case, that action does not earn any compassion or respect from me. They are as guilty as he of genealogical fraud. |
| The Mythmaker, Joel William Smith II was born 27 Dec 1890 in [Liberty,
now] Long County, Georgia. He was a first cousin to my grandfather,
Milton Calder Garrason (1878-1951), and a second cousin to my grandmother, Sallie Etna (Stewart)
Garrason (1881-1975). They knew him all their lives and so did I, at least those years when we
existed at the same time. The farm of Joel's parents adjoined that of my grandfather's parents.
Several now deceased relatives, all of whom I highly respected in their lifetime,told that as a child, a young boy of perhaps 8 or 10 or 12 years, the Mythmaker would occasionally visit their home for the day. He could always be counted on to tell "tall tales" which the other children found unbelieveable. They made fun of him and called him a liar. In desperation, time and time again, he would run to their mother (his father's sister) and beg in a plaintive voice, "Please, Aunt Nettie, tell them I am telling the truth!" After he reached manhood, other relatives would laugh behind his back when he spealed out his version of the family history. Some will say it is unfair of me to subject him to armchair psychiatry, because he is dead and I am not a qualified psychiatrist. But, I cannot resist suggesting that he was a pathological liar, that is, a person who really believes the tales he tells, a person who cannot, for whatever reason, distinguish between fact and fiction. Such a person deserves our pity, but that does not mean they deserve our forgiveness for corrupting the family history, nor does it mean we have to respect them once they are dead. |
| I was told by an older, now deceased, sister of the Mythmaker, that as a child he
was a dreamer, always pretending to be somewhere other than the farm they
grew up on. He abhorred farm work and his parents did not force him,
leaving that labor to his older brothers. When he became interested
in genealogy, he sat at home with pencil and paper and invented a family
that he could be proud of.
What is so pitiful about these inventions is that he made up names and dates. A country walk of a few miles miles would have taken him to either of two cemeteries where numerous relatives were buried under stone markers. Other relatives rested in cemeteries a bit further away, but rides could have been arranged, or on the weekend, a horse or mule ridden to those places. There were old folks -- aunts and uncles, cousins of his father and mother and even his grandparents, great aunts and great uncles -- living within the county who could have been visited and questioned. Rather, he chose to tell them how he wanted the history to be. Yet, it is apparent he did not do any research. How else do we explain made up names when relatives, family Bibles and tombstones could have supplied the correct information? |
| When I became interested in the family history at about age 13, I was
not really aware that his material was so questionable. At a family
gathering which he attended, I asked him for information. He lived
many miles away and promised to copy some items for me. Remember,
this was before we common folks had access to any type of photocopier,
so his copying was to be done by hand. Time passed and I wrote to
remind him of his promise. He answered back that the pressures of
work made the copying a slow process. I never heard from him again,
and because by that time I had been told how worthless his material probably
was, I did not bother him again. Many years later, after his death,
I was asked to be the genealogist for that family group. However,
I was never able to get my hands on his papers, and in time was told they
had been destroyed. They had not been.
His older sister, whom I mentioned above, was able to copy out his mis-information on the early generations of several surnames. When she gave that to me, I asked her why so many of his names and dates were different from those on tombstones or in other records. She gave me an embarrassed smile and simply said, "I don't know." Her eyes told me everything and while I had always had a great deal of respect for her, I felt even more after that, because, in spite of the scoundrel her brother was, family loyalty kept her from criticizing him. It should be obvious to the viewer that he was too distantly related to me for me to feel the same loyalty to him. |
| When an arrow appears to replace the colored block before an item you may click on that to read more detail. |
| mmm | 1. Fabrication of two generations of Smiths, Madison Sr and Jr, who cannot be proven to have existed. |
| mmm | 2. Impossible names for some of the Baggs ancestors, their wives and their in-laws. |
| mmm | 3. Impossible names for some of the Hope ancestors, their wives and their in-laws. |
| mmm | 4. An unproven name (Mary Townsend Platt) for the first wife of William Smith, Sr. (c1760-1841) |
| mmm | 5. Erroneous locations of graves and the very existance of one when markers were placed in the Smith Family Cemetery in the 1930s. |
| mmm | 6. An unproven, and later found erroneous, connection between my Grandmother Sallie (Stewart) Garrason and Gen Daniel Stewart for whom Fort Stewart was named. |
| mmm | 7. Complete ignorance of William Smith, Sr's second wife and family. |
| mmm | 8. Misidentification of two members of the Schmidt family of Effingham Co, GA as children of William Smith, Sr. |
| mmm | 9. Erroneous names and dates supplied to the late genealogist Folks Huxford who found him out when Joel sent Huxford a list he claimed to be from the Lang Family Bible. Huxford had the original Bible record (not just a hand-written copy) in his files and found that Joel was not honest in his work. |
| mmm |
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