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Showing posts with the label Houston County

"Those Places" Thursday: Houston County, Alabama

Have you browsed through census documents, vital records, or city directories and wondered exactly what your relatives' hometown looked like?  Where did your loved ones live, work, and play?  For today's "Those Places" topic, I chose a very broad one...Houston County, Alabama.  The majority (possibly all?  will have to check) of my father's family lived in this area of Southeastern Alabama at some point.  I have visited before, but only a few times...and on at least one of those trips I spent an hour or so walking, bent over at the waist, scouring a freshly plowed field for Native American artifacts.  During high school, I participated in a summer archaeology program through Fernbank Natural History Museum in Atlanta...working alongside their resident anthropologist and his team.  Identifying pottery shards and points became second nature to me.  My dream was to become an archaeologist.  Deep down, that dream never died :).  Just ask...

Can You Relate?

This week, my brain has been on overdrive.  As in, mind-exhausting working.  Twisting, turning, stretching, crunching, typing, wondering, connecting, wondering, searching, finding, giving up kind of work. Can you relate? Here's my genealogical topic of choice for the week.  You know, the one that's driving me crazy?!? Here's where it all starting.  Going to just blame this one on my dear ol' Dad  (he's the Hughes, after all!).  He blessed me with a surprise bundle of historical digital photos of our Parrish, McMath, and Mercer families.  One such piece of info he shared was an obituary for his mother's late sister, Christine Parrish (1927-1941).  In the article was a mention of a "Betty Hughes" (she and Christine both died in a tragic car accident) and "Otis Hughes", Betty's brother (a passenger in the car).  This got me thinking about, well, one of my biggest brick walls at the moment - my HUGHES family line beyond my great-gra...

Finding Friday: Mary Woodcock Hughes

(Photo passed along to me from my father.  Photocopy of an original held by his cousin, Vivian Jordan) Instead, should I entitle this post, "Fishing Friday" - since I'm really and truly fishing for more information?  A few long lost cousins with information to share? One of my current puzzles at the moment is my 2nd great-grandmother, Mary Woodcock Hughes.  Mary is the mother of my father's grandfather, Dallas Jackson Hughes.  At this point...I'm fairly "puzzled" about both Mary and her husband William J. Hughes (spelled 'Hughs' in a handful of places).  Not much that I've been able to definitively trace beyond their immediate family.  Some guesses, but nothing concrete.  I've been sidetracked with other projects, and now I have a bit of time to devote to examining what I've heard referred to as the "FAN Club" - Friends and Neighbors.  Taking time to examine each census telling, making note of each of the surrounding ...