Many online family trees record Nancy’s parents as Isaac Smith and Frankie Childers, others as Isaac Smith and Frances Elizabeth Harmon or Hammon. I know of no source for that attribution, but have listed it as a tentative link.

The only primary source is the Clay County marriage records, which record the marriage of Jesse Cornett and Nancy Kelley. No family histories mention the surname Kelley or Kelly, though.

In Elliott County family histories, all undocumented and derived from interviews with descendants, she is generally referred to as Nancy Branham Smith. It is unclear whether Branham is meant to be a middle name, perhaps honoring her mother’s side, and Smith her maiden name, or Branham a maiden name, and Smith the name of a previous husband. Sometimes the two names are combined, as Branham-Smith.

The death certificate of their daughter Margaret gives her maiden name as Branham, but since Margaret died in 1914, almost 100 years after Jesse and Nancy were married and about 60 years after Nancy’s death, and the informant was Margaret’s son Elihu S. Turner, this record is essentially oral history equivalent to the many family histories, that is, it is supportive of the conclusion that Jesse and Nancy’s grandchildren fairly consistently reported their grandmother’s maiden name as Nancy Branham Smith.

I have not found any marriage record for a Kelly or Kelley husband to a bride named Nancy in the 1808 to 1815 time frame, nor any prior marriage record for a Nancy Smith or Nancy Branham.

Another possibility is that Nancy was born out-of-wedlock, with a Smith (or Kelly) father or stepfather and a Branham (or Kelly) mother. This is very often the case when someone is known alternatively by two or three different surnames. (If combined, the father’s or stepfather’s name usually comes second.)

This family is in my database because several of their children moved to Rowan Co., Ky, and then had children who married relatives of mine. (E.g., their grandson Jesse H. Cornett, son of Wesley, married my great-great-aunt Nancy Jane Pettit.)

The exact birth order of their children is difficult to pin down, as most of them had left home by 1850, and there is much discrepancy in the later records.

Many later records give the birthplace of their children as Letcher Co., but that apparently means the parts of Clay Co. and Perry Co. that were later used to form Letcher Co., as Letcher Co. was not formed until 1842.

Most information on this family, except where other sources are mentioned (marriage records, census, etc.), is from correspondence in 1989 and 1990 with Elaine Winkler, 815 S. 5th St., Ironton, OH 45638, a great-great-granddaughter of Jesse's daughter Elizabeth.

Another general source is the History of Elliott County56 compiled by the Elliott County Historical Society.

Clay Co., Ky marriage records list the marriage on 12 May 1816 of Jesse Cornett and Nancy Kelley.

This is the date given in the History of Elliott Co. for the marriage of Jesse Cornett and a wife referred to as “Nancy Branham Smith”. See Nancy’s notes for further discussion of the maiden name question.

1850 census of Letcher Co., Ky, district 1, p. 155b, records as family #173:
Cornitt, Jesse H., 55, Va; Nancy, 55, Va; Marinda, 17, b. Ky; Wesly, 22, farmer, b. Ky; Frankie, 15, b. Va.