I’m sorry it’s been so long between posts. I feel like all I’ve done is try to fix a website that wasn’t really broken on my end. It was down for 5 weeks while I called and called tech support to no avail. I tried everything I could think of to fix it. Something went wrong on their end and they did not admit it. Please, never use Bluehost. Their tech support is horrid. With the help of a really nice fellow named Kumar at WP Fix It, we migrated the website to a new host that is already SO much better. SSL was installed almost instantly. I found Kumar here. After an hour or so (maybe more) on GoToMeeting, Kumar and I are now Facebook friends. {{{{Hi, Kumar}}}} He does the greatest sculptures from Shilpkar clay. Cute!
Now, I have some time to be creative again and to post some photos that I’ve been wanting to post since before Thanksgiving. We have snow on the ground now and the temperature was 8°F last night. It’s supposed to be warming to 12°F tonight. That’s a far cry from some of the photos, and the warm(?) 50s that we’re supposed to have this weekend.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before. If you didn’t know, I’m a genealogy addict. ADDICT!!! I love reading mysteries, and genealogy is my personal mystery.
I was reading my friend Ruth’s post about a small shocker of a discovery in her ex’s family tree and started thinking again about my suspicion that my mother wasn’t who she thought she was. I got my DNA tested and began getting matches and “Circles” from Ancestry, but none for the Hickey line. My Poppy and his brothers and sister, were they really my relatives? True, my mom had red hair like they did, but…
You see, Granny & Poppy were married in April of 1935. I found the license in the Knox County Archives records. Granny never told anyone the date. My mother, their only child, was born in August of 1935. Do the math.
On a side note, I totally understand this. They were engaged for years. They had just come through the Great Depression and the horrible accidental death of Granny’s little sister. They had very little money, few prospects and my Granny came from a very dysfunctional family. They were in their early twenties. It must have been practically impossible to wait for marriage. Poppy’s family got around too. From A WAY BACK. Although at this time he and Granny went to church–she played piano there. He settled down and became domesticated after meeting her from what I’ve heard.
Then there was my mom’s unusual middle name, Hu. She was named after a friend and neighbor, Jehu Hinshaw. Hmmmm… I had taken this named-after-a-friend thing at face-value all my life. Now it made me think.
But Poppy really liked Jehu too, so… I wondered about this all for a couple of months and then…Voila! My Hickey line showed up on Ancestry! Whew!
But I had mixed feelings. Thankful that my family was really my family, but now I didn’t have a new mystery to figure out. I guess I’ll just have to keep chasing my regular dead ends, Manerva Jane Parson(s) alias Wilson who married George W. Hickey–old enough to be her father, and my nemesis Jane McClain.
Jane & her many children
Argh! Jane, why didn’t you name fathers for any of your kids? She was apparently a Jezebel. I can’t find her parents either. I believe that Susannah McClain was her mother but lack proof. And there are “Jane McClains” everywhere.
Manerva, you behaved a LITTLE better, but where did you come from? She is one of my “Circles” on Ancestry, as is George Hickey, and Gilbert Hickey, their son. There is photographic evidence that she was a real person even though, apparently, she had no parents.
Manerva Jane, where did you come from?
Oh, well. Back to the hunt in my downtime. Meanwhile, I’m sewing.
