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2024 Week 47: Random #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

The topic of 'random' sent me back looking into my tree for a woman I had come across who had a connection I never would have expected to find in my family tree, a tree  which is full of Central Lowland Scots, Irish and a scattering of English people. The woman in question was Effie Hanchett, a lady born in 1870 in Plymouth, Nebraska, USA. I had come across Effie when I was researching my maternal Adams line. Effie had married a William Henry Adams in Fairbury, Nebraska in 1893 and William is my first cousin three times removed. William's grandfather was my 3 x great grandfather. 

Effie Hanchett (1870-1848) Source: shared on Ancestry.com

In 1872, William, aged 8 and his younger sister had emigrated from Lanarkshire in Scotland with their parents, William and Marion, to start a new life in America. His father William was a coalminer like many Scots who emigrated at that time and he continued that job when they got to Illinois as can be seen in the 1880 census for La Salle, Illinois. At the age of 16 young William was also a coalminer.

Source: Ancestry.com 1880 United States Federal Census for  La Salle, Illinois.

However William did not stay a coalminer all his life. In the 1900 Federal Census, we find William has relocated to Fairbury, Nebraska and he has a wife Effie and two young children - and he is now a lawyer! His father, now a widower, is also living with them. Further research found that he had married Effie Hanchett in 1893 in Fairbury.
 

So we come to Effie Hanchett. Her marriage certificate lists her parents as P H Hanchett ( Philemon Howard Hanchett) and Lucinda Givens. Research on Ancestry and elsewhere provided me with a lot of information and photographs of Effie and her ancestors. Why has she been so well researched??? Is it just that she had a lot of descendants interested in genealogy?

Then I came across a term that I had only known through watching the American TV show "Finding Your Roots", a show which I love and which has taught me a lot about American history. Effie was a 'Daughter of the American Revolution' (DAR).

For those of you, like myself, who are not familiar with the term, membership of the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution, is for women who are direct descendants of a patriot of the American Revolutionary War. Membership is thus limited to women who can prove they descend directly from soldiers of that era, signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence, participants in the Boston Tea Party and a few other categories. Membership of DAR is highly sought after. 'Finding Your Roots' has taught me that being associated with a patriot is an honour.

Here is Effie's entry from The Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage Book: NSDAR Vol. 114:1915, showing her direct connection back to one Jonah Hatchett, born in Connecticut in 1758.

Source: as mentioned above from Ancestry.com

I randomly had come across someone with a proud and deep connection to the greatest event in the history of the USA! You never know who is lurking in or on the outskirts of your tree.

(Apologies to any American readers if I have got any of the details regarding DAR wrong)



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