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Hi,
I have a Hughes relative I’m trying to find parents and grandparents for.
His name is Richard Emery Hughes, born about 1790, first found in Union Co area of SC.
What I’m especially curious about is why his middle name is Emery. This name is past down in the family to his grandson (or nephew.)
There are one or two other Richard Hughes there, which is confusing things. (One could be his father, but I suspect uncle.) One of the Hughes in Union Co SC also lives next door to an Emry.
Both Hughes and Emery are Indian Trader names. (As are other surnames in my family, such as Jackson and Moore and Bird.)
I’ve read some intriguing stories about a John Amory who got a couple of NDN slaves out of slavery, and NDNs supposedly then passing down variations of the name. His kids also probably married NDNs. But I haven’t gotten far on making a connection between those Amory/Emory/Emerys and my SC Emery Hughes.
Any thoughts on which of these leads are worth pursuing? (I’ve gotten myself stuck up a tree again. :rolleyes:)
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Also, on a different trail — I’ve been looking at census records but they only name head of household. Are there good sources for finding which kids were born when?
(I’m also trying to determine whether my gg-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Hughes, was Richard Emery Hughes’ son or brother. Knowing which of the two birthdates reported for him is correct, 1810 or 1825, would determine this.)
Hi Bill,
I saw a Jefferson Hughes in the right county, but think he isn’t my guy but a relative instead, as by then TJ had left the state first marrying in MS, then going to Texas before 1850. There may even be a second, younger TJ Hughes floating around about that same time.
I’ll reconfirm he was actually in those places but there seems to be enough of a trail to be sure Jefferson is someone else. Only question is whether he was born in Cross Keys in 1825 or in Union in 1810, and as the census for 1810 I found had little detail, wasn’t able to confirm which of these is correct so far.
Of course there was a point to my question.
Location is everything. Let me know what you can confirm.
Bill
😀 Oh I know you don’t say things with no point! — neglected to mention for anyone reading, and like me, learning here — that for 1850, while only the head of household is on the index, if you look at the actual record, you see the kids’ names (which is how I knew this Jefferson is too young. But I looked at his siblings’ names, too, in case what was recorded in family history as children, were actually siblings.) And I checked the next door neighbors, which one finds on the original page, in case there were other relatives there.
Let me be specific. I did find a Thomas J. Hughes on the 1850 census, who WAS born in one of the years you cited, AND living with his presumed parents, SO, I was curious if you had found him on the 1850 census – for comparisom purposes. – that’s all.
Did you find him on the 1850 census and if so, which one?
Bill
Originally posted by Bill Childs
Let me be specific. I did find a Thomas J. Hughes on the 1850 census, who WAS born in one of the years you cited, AND living with his presumed parents, SO, I was curious if you had found him on the 1850 census – for comparisom purposes. – that’s all.
Did you find him on the 1850 census and if so, which one?
Bill
! No, I only found a Jefferson Hughes, age 15 (which makes him too young to have had kids born in the 1840s in MS) in the home of parents Rebecca and Joseph h.
I looked through every Hughes household I could find. (Some of the handwriting was pretty hard to read.) Are their different censuses? I think mine must have been Federal.
TJ’s wife, Mary Meeks, was from Tippah, Ms and he seems to have traveled there where he met her and had a couple kids, before moving to Texas. He certainly could have stopped back in SC on the way to TX to visit his family. (And I should recheck the marriage date and birthdates to see how old he was with his first. I recall his wife was Quite young.)
MEEKS? ah, that’s a leading question where I come from.
I don’t think anyone knows what Nation certain lines of Indian MEEK/S come from – most say Cherokee, but I doubt it due to the geography – but MEEKs is a lead. Actually, most of the MEEKs researchers don’t mention “it” at all, but from the lines they are tracing, they certainly couldn’t be ignorant of the fact. I keep “stumbling” over them (the researchers) as I research “Blackfoot” lines.
Okay, back to specifics….. but I can’t find my notes on Thomas J. Hughes’ census data. If your’s had children born in the 1840’s in MS, this can’t be the same one that I referred to earlier…… so, just have to keep looking.
Hana and Bill:
I can tell you from personal experience that Meeks is native. They were when I was in high school. There are Meeks related to my Sinkeys and we knew that there was dissonance between families because of “Indian.”
Techteach
MEEKS?! You’re kidding. That’s one of my few family lines I Wasn’t suspicious of!
Like our Jacksons, someone had traced them all the way back to England. (But I guess that doesn’t mean that various spouses along the way weren’t non-English!)
Guess I’m gonna have to drop the assumptions!
Hana:
The Meeks wife would have nothing to do with the relatives of her husband, as they were Indian. I recall that this was the Meeks father’s sister. I seem to recall that they were named Sinkey, but that might not be correct. However, I run into the name as I explore all the time. I have been looking at northern OH names on early census the last few days, looking for Sinkey and Cooley and found several Meeks, Meeker, Meek.
Techteach
It’s those family disconnects that are getting to me. So far I have at least 3 family lines where I get back to the town with our first known for-sure ancestor, find lots of other folks in town with the same surname, yet none of them are seemingly directly related. My Hughes, Gregorys, and Wimberleys.
And whenever I get to one of those disconnect spots I find all kinds of interesting names popping up in my family. Emery, with the Hugheses, which I’ve read has strong NDN connections, especially spelled that way and in that area.
The wimberleys are the worst. I mean there were only a few of Wimberleys in the state of NC at the time and they were right nearby, and none of them were imports. BOTH sides insist we aren’t related. And Quinney (or Queney), which for a girl’s first name in the 1790s, was highly unusual I believe. Her father was supposed to be Stephen Vaughan, yet out of some 60 entries on the Mormon Family Search website, no one has parents for Stephen, despite the common Vaughan name, and no one can find his wife Priscilla’s last name. (And there’s a woman who’s been searching for some 26 years. Of course she wasn’t looking for, and apparently had never even Considered, NDNs!)
Even when I find prominent, pillar-of-the-community people in my family line, they appear to have no Parents. This is true for the Gregorys and Wimberleys. I mean, my distant relative made a point of telling me how rich and successful Zachariah Wimberley, our ‘original’ forebear was. His son, too, made a name for himself. Yet no one was willing to claim Pleasant as grandson, or Zachariah as son and brother. Or nephew, or cousin or….
I know I’ve been justly accused of jumping to conclusions from time to time, and skipping steps… But…! Doesn’t this look just a Bit suspicious?
Hana:
We all have that situation on this board. My ancestors seem to have taken the names of “famous” people around them. Many have the names of local ministers, one has the name of a general, and none seem to have parents. However, by taking these names, it gets confusing, because since they usually called themselves white, they might have ended up as members of that local family in someone’s genealogy. I have several of these.
Techteach
Yeah, I guess this was more of a rant than anything else. I appreciate the confirmation, though, as the other related researchers I’ve come across don’t even seem to have considered the possibility of NDN ancestry. (And discounting what my Grandpa said because They never heard of it, really pisses me off.)
Anyway, Bill’s census reading and such inspired me to go through every census I could find for SC… and there was something interesting.
1790 census has a Richard Hughes (my ancestor’s name is Richard Emery Hughes, father possibly another Richard, who is son of yet another). This Richard Hughes has a Lot of people in his household, including 3 FPCs! He’s in the right part of SC — Union/96th. And his nextdoor neighbors are a Woodson and a McJunkin, both of whom also have FPCs in their households.
But in the 1800 census half of the household is gone and all the FPCs (and slaves), including those in the McJunkin neighbor’s household. Then I noticed that the way the census labels people has changed. Instead of FPC, in 1800 the column says “all free persons of color except Indians untaxed.” Now does that mean that Indians are no longer counted? That the column is only for non-Indians? OR am I misreading?
Also, there was a Richard Hughes in another county in 1790 (chester co.) who leaves down the block from an Embry, who is right next door to some other Hugheses.
In 1840 there is an Emery Hughes with lots of kids in Union, but not the census before or after.
But there was a report that an EH Hughes, married to a Jane and with kids of the right names is on the census in NC. Will have to check this. It’s unclear to me yet, whether my Richard Emery Hughes used different versions of his name to, say, differentiate from other Richard Hugheses, or whether there was someone else named Emory/or EH or Richard H. Hughes around.
I’m kind of thinking outloud here about where to go next. (Organization and working in a straight line isn’t my strong suit.) 😮
The “….except Indians untaxed” is a very defining statement …..
It doesn not say that “Indians” were not counted…..
It divides Indians living as Indians (i.e., no “legal” ownership of the land = “squatters”) which weren’t counted, from people of Indian descent, regardless of quantum, no longer living as Indians (i.e., assimilated, not obviously culturally distinct from their neighbors) who were counted. “Color” was viewed differently in different areas of the country in different time periods and this regional bias has to be taken into account when attempting to indentify ancestors on records of the period.
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