Hilda Effie (Orpet) Smith (1917 - 1998)

Born 4 Jan 1917 in Rowley, Essex, Massachusetts, USA

Ancestors

Daughter of Albert Harold Orpet and Effie Clara (Burrows) Orpet

Descendants

Died 25 Dec 1998 at age 81 in Sacramento, California

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Barry Smith [send private message] and Weldon Smith [send private message]

Biography

Born in Rowley, MA, her family with four children moved to New Canaan, CT when she was still a girl. Little is currently known about her childhood, although it appears to have been a proper English family.

Hilda graduated from New Canaan High School in 1934 with highest marks, and went to work as a secretary, since women in her family did not attend college. She worked off and on, both before marriage, and then when the children were older, to help make ends meet.

She was skilled in typing and shorthand, skills she learned in school, along with homemaking. She studied French as her foreign language and liked to speak it, teaching her children some simple phrases and songs. She liked classical music, particularly opera.

Hilda married Jim Smith and they lived briefly in Baltimore and on Long Island at the start of the WWII before moving with their first born, Weldon, to New Canaan, where they lived for over ten years. Gail was born while in CT. In 1952, they moved west to Colorado, where daughter Debora was born, and finally, in 1957, to the Los Angeles area. During the LA years, Weldon left to attend Stanford and Gail went to college locally at Cal State Northridge before marrying her college sweetheart. Hilda and Jim retired to Placerville, CA., with youngest daughter Debora still living with them. After the move, Debora left to attend UC Berkeley, get married, and then earn her DVM at UC Davis.

One of the highlights of Hilda's later years was a trip back to childhood New Canaan for her 50th High School reunion.

Hilda was passionate about animals and her garden. She always had dogs, an occasional cat, sometimes a goat, and was very fond of birds, which she attracted with her feeders. In a childhood family picture, the children are holding a cat and rabbit. She was close to her older sister Dorothy.

Hilda was expert at working crossword puzzles, and particularly liked the NYT Sunday puzzle. She liked to knit. She liked daytime TV soaps, particularly All My Children, which she watched as faithfully as possible for over 25 years.

Sources

• Personal remembrance and family research by her son

Autosomal DNA

• A PATERNAL aDNA match is found via testing at 23andMe.
  • Matching DNA was found between Patricia (Foster) Morrison (PM) and Weldon Smith (WS).
  • Predicted relationship from 23andMe: "2nd-3rd cousins, based on 2.09% DNA shared across 9 segments, with largest segment 37cM"; actual relationship 2C1R.
  • WS and PM share a total 156cM of DNA across 6 chromosomes.
  • The MRCA of WS and PM is Owen Orpet and Mary Adcock
  • The lineages to MRCA are: PM<-Margaret Alice Foster<-Edward Owen Orpet II<-Edward Owen Orpet<-MRCA->Albert Harold Orpet->Hilda Effie Orpet->WS.
  • Based on this paternal line of evidence, Albert is CONFIRMED as WS paternal grandfather, hence Hilda's father.

• A maternal aDNA triangulation is found via testing at MH (Chromosome 8: 13-19, 10.9 cM).
  • The MRCA couple are Samuel Borrow+Grace Hurford.
  • The testing descendants and MH-predicted relationships are: WS (self), DC (3rd-5th cousin), and KS (3rd-distant cousin).
  • The respective lineages and actual relationships are:
    • WS (4th g-grandson)->Effie Clara Burrows->Edward Burrow->Mathew Burrow->James Borrow->Samuel Borrow
    • DC (6th g-granddaughter)->Zelda Scholey->Alice May Wright->Cuthbert Kerslake->Thomas Kerslake->Mary Ann Billing->Samuel Billing->Alice Borrow->Samuel Burrow, 5C1R to WS)
    • KS (5th g-grandson)->Alice May Wright->Cuthbert Kerslake->Thomas Kerslake->Mary Ann Billing->Samuel Billing->Alice Borrow->Samuel Burrow , 5th cousin to WS)
  • Based on this maternal line of evidence, Effie is CONFIRMED as WS maternal grandmother, hence Hilda's mother.

Non-Recombinant DNA

• Y-DNA paternal confirmation: All the male Orpets in the DNA-CONFIRMED segment of our shared tree have Y-chromosome DNA signature R-L48, the Frisian sub-variant of the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (brought to Europe in the Neolithic when Eurasian Steppe pastoralists expanded to the west of the Black Sea). This signature is documented by the Y-DNA signature of Robbie Orpet, a direct male descendant of Owen Orpet, Hilda's grandfather..

• Mitochondrial DNA Background: Through genetic testing by her son, Hilda is CONFIRMED as mtDNA haplogroup U5b1c2b, a western European haplogroup found in Southern Europe (Portugal and Italy) among mesolithic Western European hunter gatherers (WHG). U5 itself is an ur-European mitochondrial signature, likely comprising the majority of the female population of Western Europe 40 thousand years ago.