Country music legend “Kitty Wells” was born Ellen Muriel Deason. A Nashville native, Kitty’s paternal lineage goes back to the Deasons who landed in Maryland and then migrated south into North Carolina and Tennessee around 1800.

My 4^th great grandfather, John R. Deason, was born about 1809 in North Carolina. He married Lydia Ann Turbeville in the early 1830s, most likely in Bedford County, Tennessee according to another researcher. (Bedford County was home to a plethora of Deasons about this time.) John and Lydia moved the family to Weakley County, Tennessee sometime before 1850. The identities of John’s parents are unknown to me currently but I am pretty confident Kitty’s “Deason” ancestors and John are related. “Deason”, after all, isn’t a common last name and they were all living in the same area. So, it’s a matter of connecting the dots. But, whether I’m able to connect those dots or not, I have Deason DNA-matched cousins “telling” me that Kitty’s “Deason” ancestors and mine are most likely the same people.

There’s more work to be done here, for sure!

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: Not quite certain… yet!
Common ancestors: Most likely the Deasons who settled in Maryland circa 1700

Might as well get this post out of the way. My mother would not be amused. She might have even whacked me over the head for posting this where anyone could find it. There’s a very strong probability my mother married a distant cousin of George Herbert Walker Bush. And she gave birth to three distant cousins of George W. Bush. Her grandchildren are also distant cousins of both father and son.

Bush. Bush. Bush.

Presidents 41 and 43 are descendants of Thomas Mercer and Elizabeth Barnes of Cecil County, Maryland. (Just Google it.) My  7th great grandmother, Mary Mercer, is presumably the daughter of the same Thomas Mercer and his first wife Elizabeth Bentley. Mary attended the same church (St. Stephen’s Church) as Thomas and his wives and their other children. Although a church record of Mary’s birth or baptism did not survive, she married James Veazey there in 1716. And, as distant cousin Ann Veazey Davis points out on her website, there were no other Mercers living in the area at the time. So if Mary wasn’t the daughter of Thomas and one of the Elizabeths, how’d this Mercer maiden just happen to end up in Cecil County, Maryland at the same church circa 1700?

Cousins George and George once removed are looking pretty solid. I better wrap this one up quickly and start hunting for a Kennedy, Carter or Clinton connection if I know what’s good for me in the afterlife.

Kenfolk: Trantham
Relation: 7th great grandmother
Common ancestors: Presumably Thomas Mercer and Elizabeth Bentley, my 8th great grandparents

Reference:
http://members.tripod.com/~ann_vz_davis/mercer.html

“Cherry Grove” is the homestead of my Veazey ancestors. Located in Cecil County, Maryland, the land was acquired by John Veazey, my 8th great grandfather, about 1670. It remained in the Veazey family for more than 100 years. Many of the early Veazeys are buried in a family cemetery located somewhere on the property. It is believed (logically) that John is buried here too.

Today, the land is privately owned and posted. Although I had driven just shy of two hours to explore my Veazey roots, I opted not to tempt fate and settled for enjoying the serenity of “Cherry Grove” from the public access road. Simply put, Grandfather John chose well. The landscape is tranquil and picturesque. Thankfully, the Maryland Historical Society erected a marker at the entrance; so it wasn’t difficult to locate.

Much of what I know of the Veazeys is due in large part to author and distant cousin, Ann Veazey Davis. She writes in her book, Descendants of John Veazey, that John might not have been the first Veazey in the Americas. According to her research, a “Nathaniel Veazey” had settled earlier in the 1600s in Bermuda. His son, also named “Nathaniel”, settled in Southern Maryland. Other Veazeys, all contemporaries of John, can be found living in New York, Maine and Massachusetts. A genealogical connection between the various families, however, has yet to be made.

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 8th great grandfather
Common ancestors: The Veazeys of Essex, England, where John was born in 1647

Reference:
Davis, A. V. (1995). Descendants of John Veazey. Zebulon, North Carolina: Veazey Family Association

Note: the complete title of Ann’s book, as it appears on the title page, is: Descendants of John Veazey of “Cherry Grove” Cecil County, Maryland

After months of exchanging emails, carefully inspecting family trees and sifting through countless birth records (in vain), my DNA-matched cousin “Kathie” and I finally know how we’re likely related.

Kathie is my 9th cousin, 2x removed on my paternal grandfather’s side of the family. According to numerous pedigrees, our common ancestor was Henry Hollingsworth who was born in Ireland in 1598.

The only problem with this “conclusion” is that while genealogical records support this relationship, our DNA does not.  A retired medical professional, Kathie prefers her genealogical research done at the chromosome level which is why it’s not a closed case.

She is a Hollingsworth by way of her father. Using more closely-related relatives, she’s mapped out each of her chromosomes. Thus, she knows with certainty that where she and I share matching segments of DNA rules out her father’s side of the family. Genetically, we must be related on her mother’s side. And that side of her family tree contains names that look like they might have been taken from a phone book in Berlin.

All jokes aside, we suspect our common German ancestors came from Lippe-Detmold. Most of my paternal grandmother’s ancestors hailed from there as well. The implication is that Kathie could very well be a distant cousin to BOTH of my paternal grandparents. I can’t make this stuff up.

For now, though, she and I are distant Hollingsworth cousins.

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 9th cousin, 2x removed
Common ancestors: Currently, the Hollingsworths of Ireland

Unless you lived under a rock in the 1980s, you’ve probably seen at least one episode of The Golden Girls. I’ve probably seen all of them at least once if not twice or three times. Rue McClanahan’s character, Blanche Devereaux, hailed from the Hollingsworth family. Southern to the core, the fictitious Blanche grew up at “Twin Oaks” under the watchful eye of her father and the patriarch of the family “Big Daddy”.

Blanche, it turns out, is a “cousin”.

Julia A. Veazey, introduced in the previous post, is the granddaughter of Elizabeth Hollingsworth, who was born in 1727 in Cecil County, Maryland and died in 1812 in Hancock County, Georgia. James Veazey was Elizabeth’s second husband and the father of Julie’s mother Elizabeth (Veazey) Veazey. (Veazey Veazey? Yes. See previous post.)

The Hollingsworth family is a prestigious one. They even have their own society – all descendants of Valentine Hollingsworth, who came to America in 1682 and settled in William Penn’s newly-formed colony (Pennsylvania). They’re maintaining a database of 57,000 cousins. To join the society, you have to fill out an application which should include your lineage to a Hollingsworth.

I can do that. And I’ll include the names of a dozen or so of my Hollingsworth DNA-matched cousins. That should certainly make me “Hollingsworthy”.

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 6th great grandmother
Common ancestors: The Hollingsworths of Pennsylvania and Ireland

Finding the name of my great grandmother’s mother – Mary Emma Goodger – took some doing. But it was worth the effort because it’s revealed new and unexplored tree branches. One of these branches – the Veazey branch – has been remarkably well-documented by other family members. So, there’s not much more for me to do other than to reap the rewards of their research and explore hundreds of new cousins. A dozen or so of the living ones show up as DNA matches on Ancestry.com. That’s always a plus. They’re like little beacons lighting my way up the tree, letting me know I am on the right path.

Julia A. Veazey was Mary Emma’s paternal grandmother. That makes her my 4th great grandmother. Julia is a descendant of John Veazey, who settled in Cecil County, Maryland around 1670. (Little did I know that when I moved to Maryland I was getting back to my roots.) Thanks to my distant Veazey cousin and author, Ann Veazey Davis, I’ve been able to determine that John is my 8th great grandfather. Ann’s extensive research into the Veazey family culminated with the publication of her 1995 book: Descendants of John Veazey.

Twenty years later, she’s still researching the family. When I contacted Ann via her website, she was happy to hear from me because Julia’s descendants are “missing” from her work. She knew Julia had married a man by the name of Stephen Goodger but that was it. She hopes that I’ll be able to help fill in some of the gaps. In our first exchange of information, Ann revealed that Julia’s parents were most likely first cousins. Uh oh. Unfortunately, it gets worse. There’s a strong possibility that her maternal grandmother was her paternal grandfather’s stepdaughter. Eek.

Another researcher and Veazey cousin named her book The Veazey Vine. That seems very appropriate.

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 4th great grandmother
Common ancestors: Julia’s 2nd great-grandparents John and Mary (Broccus) Veazey are my 8th great grandparents (twice)