[2] Fanny Cochrane's mother Tanganutura and a man named Nicremeric (or Nicermenic), sometimes reported as her father, were two of the Aboriginal Tasmanian people settled on Flinders Island in the 1830s by George Augustus Robinson.

[need quotation to verify] She was born at Settlement Point (or Wybalenna, meaning Black Man's House) on Flinders Island.

The matter was settled in 1889 when the government of the Colony of Tasmania granted her 300 acres (120 ha) of land and increased her annuity to £50, recognising her as the last "full-blooded"[a] Tasmanian Aboriginal person.

In 1898, Henry Ling Roth published a paper in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute examining Smith's claim to be a "full-blood" Aboriginal Tasmanian.

He did not examine her personally, but compared locks of her hair with samples of earlier Tasmanians, and conducted a photographic comparison of her and Truganini.

Roth concluded that Smith was actually mixed-race, as she had "Europeanised" facial characteristics, much lighter skin than Truganini, and hair that was "wavy" rather than "woolly".