Posting Member: Jenn
Topic: Blue People from Kentucky. A Knot or two. Broken Notes.
Family Name Associations: Berry, Given(s), Hamilton, Hume, Walker, Nighswonger
Mood: I could use a nap, but it’s not happening today!
Music:
Recently Mark and I were reading about a family of blue skinned people from Kentucky in a genealogy report that was investigating contained location and genetic inheritance. One of the descendants simply put “There was no roads”.
The further back in our family histories that we get, the more we realize… There were no roads. I like to joke with Dad, that when both the Bride’s last name and the Groom’s last name were the same, there’s something funny going on.
The truth about inbreeding is that the further back that you go, the less people traveled to find a spouse. The more likely you’ll find first cousins marrying, or even closer relations. Simply put, there was a whole lot of bush and very few people in North America, and people didn’t travel in Europe to go out and get a mate. Sooner or later, every tree is going to have a few knots.
The Berry line of Nancy Given or Givens and William Berry is a perfect example of a knot. Jenny Given and John Berry had William Barry, who married Nancy Given. Nancy was daughter of Elizabeth Graham and James Given. Jenny and James were children of Agnes Bratton and William Givens, making the connection one of married first cousins.
If I just confused anyone out there, don’t feel bad. The ‘tree’ diagram goes more in a circle than a line, which is why I like to call them knots.
I don’t think ‘inbreeding’ was so much of an issue for the Hume, Humes who were probably Hume, Walker and Nighswonger lines in early Illinois. More so, that seems to be that the families just intermarried with each other a whole lot and had the same names, or family naming trends. Leaving instances where we have two Elizabeth Hume or Humes married to two different husbands from different families, but still involving the same children.
Early orphaned children often make our jobs so very difficult.
The current knot we’re dealing with is surrounding Elizabeth Hume and Asa Buffington, who had 3 sons and a daughter named Amanda or Ami. Amanda later married James Walker. She was also found on a census that placed her with Eliza Breeden, who’s maiden name was Hume or Humes. The Hume and Humes lines are relatively the same family with an added letter depending on who wrote the name. They’re descendants of the surname ‘Home’, of Sir George Home, the tenth Baron of Wedderburn.
Elizabeth Hume and Eliza Humes are probably cousins, we think we’ve pinned Eliza’s parents as Sally Robinett and Joseph Hume. After Elizabeth died, Eliza took her cousin’s daughter in with her own and the boys went to Nighswonger families in the area.
Naturally, all of this will be added to the trees as we can document it and write it down in any way that makes any sense at all!
To add into our excitement, we’ve been contacted by cousin Glenda who recently found some of our Find A Grave postings and has additional information on the Nighswonger clan. Specifically, Susan Buffington, sister of Asa, and her husband Reason Nighswonger and their children. This is obviously thrilling news and we can’t wait to dive into the research… 😀 It’s a good thing we’re adding Richard to our ranks. Once the New Year hits we’ll be good to go!
We’re still having issues with TNG and Notes. My biggest concern is that we’re facing some sort of corruption – No, I don’t want to have to start all over again, thanks anyways! And that we’re loosing information (Insert mad screaming here) every time a note turns up blank. We’ve already tried to gather up past notes and insure nothing is lost, but we haven’t had a lot of success with that. Mostly because the notes that we’ve got recorded stay in place, and the rare ones we forgot we had put up are the ones getting eaten!
Mark’s going to look further into that today… Hopefully we’ll get some answers that don’t involve going back to square one. The thought just makes me shudder!
