Relatively Speaking

Welcome to my version of our family history. Do feel free to copy anything you like and share it amongst your family connections. Do feel free to contact me or leave a message, especially if you can clarify, correct or confirm any of the information. Where possible, I will give links or acknowledgement of sources. This blog is a way of accumulating and sorting my family research so I can create fuller and more coherent picture of our ancestors in the context of their life and times. Check out the Descendants of William and Mary Harris Facebook page, and feel free to join, and share and compare your information and photos.

Meet William and Mary Harris - my great-great grandparents.

They married in 1847 and arrived in New Zealand in 1858.

Much more information to come later - this is just a brief introduction.

William and Mary Harris, most likely pre-1857, before they left Cornwall for New Zealand.

The photo above was in my grandmother's photo album (which would have belonged originally to her father, Richard Harris, Mary's youngest child - or it might even have been William and Mary's photo album). I didn't know who they were until I matched it against the two individual portraits(see below) which hung on my grandmother's wall (and now my wall) and saw the similarities. The Canadian Studio mark on the frame is most likely to have been from a copy made of the original portrait, as Canadian photography studios were in Auckland around the turn of the century. Note the outline of a frame in the top left curve just above William's head, indicating that this is a photo of a portrait. Perhaps it was taken so all family members could have a copy? I wonder what happened to the original portrait? I wonder if anyone else has a copy of this in their family photo collection?

If this was taken before they left England in 1857, it would have been in the earliest days of photography. I wonder how they could have afforded it? Mary, in particular, looks very young - and petite - and they had already been married for ten years by the time they came to NZ. Would they have been able to afford this photo in their early days in New Zealand? The clues are obviously in the clothing, so might need some expert knowledge on that to give it a time frame.

Mary Harris nee Heard. This is a snapshot taken of Mary's photo, found in my grandmother's photo album This photo would have been taken in New Zealand. Her son Richard had this photos enlarged and coloured, and the interesting hat was "photoshopped" off Mary's head. He also had the interesting marks removed from behind her head. I wonder if this was a miniature taken from a larger photo? She still looks quite young - not the same age as William (below) and there is only two years difference in their age

William Harris - This was the original from which a larger coloured portrait was commissioned by my great grandfather. It used to hang on the bedroom wall at my grandmother's and used to scare me when I headed off to bed under his unblinking thin-lipped glare. "What rot!" my grandmother would scoff unsympathetically. "You want to be more afraid of the living than the dead!" (Sounds like something William might have said to her as a grandchild?)

The surname NAYSMITH is an old Anglo-Scottish medieval surname. One version of its origin is that it is from a pre-7^th century Olde English word cnif smit. Smit comes from the verb smitan meaning to smite - and this could be related to our understanding of the word ‘smith’ as in blacksmith or a soldier. In medieval times, when all skills were quite specific, there was a wide range of skill-specific smiths: White smiths worked with hot metals, black smiths worked with cold metals, and there were green smiths, copper smiths, gold smiths, silver smiths, and so on. Soldiers had to be skilled in maintaining or even making their own weapons so it could be that originally a knife smith could have been a soldier who used a short sword, and a sword smith would have used a long sword. Hence, the earliest recording of this name was Roger KNIFSMITH in the records of St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1246.

NAISMITH is also recorded as an occupational name - 'a maker and seller of nails'.

By 1379 (also found referenced as 1273), a James NASMITE was recorded in York, and in 1415, Alan NASMITH was recorded as the owner of lands in Brechin, Scotland. In 1734, James NASMITH was recorded as the sheriff of Norwich. Another record is of a James NASMITH and Mary Barthol married at St. George's Chapel, Mayfair, London in 1745, and in 1751, Ann, daughter of Alexander NAESMITH was baptised at St. James's, Clerkenwell, London.

The Scottish Naysmiths are believed to have been first found in Renfrewshire (a historic county of Scotland which is today covered by the council areas of Renfrew, East Renfrewshire and Inverclyde in the Strathclyde region of south west Scotland), where they held a family seat. Their first records appeared on the census rolls taken by the early Kings of Scotland to determine the rate of taxation of their subjects. There have been many spelling variations over time, including Naismith, Naysmith, Naesmyth, Nesmith, Nasmyth, Nasmith, Naesmith, Knifesmith, Neasmith and Neesmith.

Some of the stories behind the Naysmith name's origin:

Alexander III was King of the Scots between 1249 and 1286. On the eve of a battle (most likely the Battle of Largs, October 1263), a young man was required to mend the King’s damaged armour. He was not particularly skilled in metalwork and the result was rough and rudimentary. During the ensuing battle, he proved himself to be brave and skilled in fighting, and was accordingly honoured by Alexander, who commented, “Though he is nae a smyth, he is a brave gentleman, indeed.” From then on, he was known as Sir NaeSmyth.

A slight variation has a young squire cleaning and preparing his lord’s armour the night before battle, Noticing a crack in the handle of his lord’s martel (war hammer) the young man tried to repair it himself, even though he was not a smith. The next day, in the course of the battle, the handle did not stand up to being swung, and it broke. Seeing his lord’s life endangered, the young man grabbed a sword and fought heroically beside him, dispatching several of the enemy.

After the battle was over, the young man was chastised by his lord for not telling him about the broken hammer, but he appreciated the young squire’s bravery. Before the assembled knights, he said, “Although ye are nae smyth, ye are a brave gentleman.” And so the young squire was knighted. The coat of arms shows a broken martel or war hammer and the young squire’s hand grasping the sword that saved his lord’s life.

Consequently, the NAESMYTH (NAYSMITH) coat of arms has a left hand holding a sword between two broken hammers. The colour red with the drawn sword represents bravery, and the two broken hammers represent the lack of skill as a smith. The motto: “Non arte sed marte” can be translated as “Not by art but by war” or “Not by art but by arms”. See a range of interpretations of the NAYSMITH coat of arms below.

Another variation of the origin of the Naysmith name - and coat of arms - comes from the 1863 autobiography of the engineer and inventor of the steam hammer, James Nasmyth. This is the closest to the version our father had told us as children - except the story had moved to the times of Bonnie Prince Charles three centuries later. I’m thinking that somewhere along the line, one of our NZ ancestors must have come by copy of James Nasmyth’s book in New Zealand, as it was published well after Henry and Mary Naysmith arrived in NZ 1842. A sister and I located and visited a Naysmith family in Vancouver when we were both there in 1988, and that family had the exact same family origin story as we did, which makes me think their family had come across James Nasmyth's autobiography, too.

The story is set in the reign of James III, King of Scotland 1460 to 1488. There was constant feuding between the King and Barons, one of the most prominent and ambitious being the Earl of Clan Douglas, who was declared a rebel, and his estates were confiscated. Douglas and his followers crossed the border to England where they were met by the Earl of Angus, the Johnstons and the Scotts, and some fighting ensued. At one stage, the Douglases had the advantage and our Naysmith ancestor, who was fighting under the royal banner, took refuge in the smithy of a neighbouring village. The smith offered him protection, and gave our ancestor a leather apron to disguise himself as a hammerman and asked him to help him work. Meanwhile, a party of Douglas partisans arrived and looked suspiciously at our hammerman, who, in his nervousness, struck a false blow with his sledge hammer, and the shaft broke in two. Seeing this, the pursuers rushed at him, calling, “Ye’re nae smyth!” Our Nae Smith, managed to take the sword off the attacker, and with the help of the smith - armed with a hammer - turned on the assailant, overpowered him (them?) and drove the Douglas men out.

A party of royal forces arrived, and “Nae smith” led them against the rebels, turning the previous advantage into a defeat. A grant of lands were bestowed upon Nae smith for his service and his armorial bearings consisted of a hand holding a dagger between two broken hammer shafts. The motto was 'Non arte sed marte', 'not by art but by war'."

My own theory, based entirely on the evidence above, is that our name's origins relate to the use of, or work with, sharp and potentially dangerous objects - whether they be knives, nails or swords - and that genetically, we were probably not that good with hammers.

According to Sir Bernard Burke’s General Armory 1884, the coat of arms was Registered at Posso, County Peebles in 1706 under the spelling of NASMYTH.