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.
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.
Oh, well. Back to the hunt in my downtime. Meanwhile, I’m sewing.
Jane, your days of being a ghost are numbered!
