Benjamin Waller (b. 1716) m. Martha Hall-VA

Benjamin Waller (apparently a son of John Waller "II" and Dorothy King) and Martha Hall had a daughter who was named Sarah Waller (among many other children).Sarah Waller married John Smith (in the late-1780s, per one post on the internet).This John Smith was apparently the known son of Col. Maurice Smith of Middlesex Co., VA, and Maurice had married the widow Mrs. Catherine (Carter) Jones (widow of Humphrey Jones, Junior and a daughter of Peter Carter and Catherine Rogers) in 1753.John Smith left Middlesex and lived in nearby Mathews Co., VA with his wife Sarah.My questions/comments are:

1) Was Benjamin Waller living in Spotsylvania Co., VA, and if so, does anyone know how/why John Smith of Middlesex/Mathews Co., VA would have met and married Sarah Waller?

2) John and Sarah (Waller) Smith apparently had a son who was named James Smith.On 1 Jan 1822, James Smith (listed as an heir of John Smith) was provided 1/8 of the remaining Middlesex estate of Maurice Smith (Maurice had died in about 1795) in a chancery court case decision, and that court case showed that this James Smith was living in Orange Co., VA in 1822 (which had been created from Spotsylvania Co., VA).I see an old post on the internet that states that a James Smith in Orange Co., VA had a daughter named Mildred Smith, and that Mildred Smith married a James Cooper, who was himself a son of an earlier James Cooper.I have no proof at this time, however, that this particular James Smith was definitely the son of John and Sarah (Waller) Smith (though that would certainly not surprise me....there was only one James Smith on the 1820 Orange Co., VA census).James Cooper and Mildred Smith had a son named Edmund Landrum Cooper.I see that a John Waller (born 1774) in this same overall Waller family had married a Mary "Polly" Cooper, and I know that "Edmund" was a name used on a few occasions by the Waller family.....so MAYBE these are "clues" that this James Smith was, in fact, a son of the John Smith who had married Sarah Waller.Does anyone know who this James Smith married, and does anyone have any proof that this James Smith was, in fact, the son of John Smith and Sarah Waller?Does anyone know the "SOURCE" of the given name of "Landrum" in this case?

Note: I also see that William Edmund Waller (born 1747; died 1830...he was in the Rev. War...he was a son of Edmund Waller and Mary Pendleton) had married a Mildred Smith.So far,, I cannot seem to find any connection between THIS particular Mildred Smith and the family of the John Smith who married Sarah Waller.

3) John and Sarah (Waller) Smith had a daughter named Sarah Waller Smith, and she married a Mr. Brockenbrough in Essex Co., VA in 1823.It appears that both John Smith and Sarah Waller were dead by the time of this wedding (actually, John and Sarah were apparently both dead by the time that the above-referenced chancery court case was settled on 1 Jan 1822).Does anyone have any idea if Sarah Waller Smith was living in Essex Co., VA prior to her wedding there (since weddings were usually held in the "hometown" of the bride), and if so, why would she have been living in Essex instead of Mathews Co., VA by 1823?

4) The above Colonel Maurice Smith was a known/proven descendant of the Alexander Smith who died in Middlesex Co., VA in 1696 (Alexander Smith had been in Lancaster/Middlesex Co., VA since at least the 1650s).Alexander Smith (whose wife is not proven....but some researchers believe that she was named Mary Ann Cocke) had a neighbor who was named John Smith (died 1669 in Middlesex Co., VA), and this John Smith was married to a Margaret Unknown.A descendant of this John and Margaret (Unknown) Smith named Jane Smith lived in Caroline Co., VA in the early-1800s, and she married John Benjamin Waller (son of Benjamin Waller and Lucy Carter).Some researchers suspect that the above Alexander Smith (died 1696) and the above John Smith (died 1669) were brothers....but we have no proof of that at this time.We have some living male Smith DNA donors from the Alexander Smith family,but we currently have no DNA donor from the neighboring John Smith family, to which those DNA results could be compared.

5) It strongly appears that my mother's Smith family was out of the above-referenced John Smith and Sarah Waller, and hence, it appears that I am a Waller descendant....but research continues.Mathews Co., VA has almost no surviving records before 1865 (or so I am told), so I don't know if there is much chance of finding wills and/or other documentation for either John Smith and/or his wife Mrs. Sarah (Waller) Smith in that county (I am just starting my "Mathews Co., VA research").

Comments on any of the above?Thanks!