Curiouser and Curiouser
I hate when a story hits a mysterious dead end.
I spent an hour talking to a cousin who is the unofficial geneologist of my father's side of the family. I learned a few things...there are way too many preacher's in my family and two, we settled in Louisiana...but we did not come from Louisiana.
.
This is John Marshall Cannon Sr (Yes, I apparently come by my action hero naming schema honestly) my great great grandfather. He was obviously mixed race and his children said that he had hazel eyes and straight brown hair...no one knows who is parents are. According to her, the oldest of my great great aunts and uncles were children when he and his wife brought them from Alabama to Southern Louisiana after the Civil War, other children were born around the turn of the century (There were 10 total fairly spaced out) The baby was my Great Great Great uncle Lott who was born in 1880 but he was outclassed by Octavia Cannon who was born in 1905.
John Marshall Cannon died in New Orleans and no one seems to have written down or passed down who his parents were or where he came from outside of "Alabama" which may be a euphamism for "Georgia but we are ashamed to talk about it." Course he could also be the son of a slave owner and was cast away...look at him. There was no diaspora back then, just breeding.
I feel a litttle guilty for fixiating on this part of my family. But to be fair, I have obsessed on my Mother's side for a while. I have pictures of my great great grandparents on my mother's mother's side of the family and I have a migration path for my mother's father's side of the family. But my father's side of the family was a mystery. And while I now have a slew of names there is still this...element that massages at my imagination...particularly since all the disjointed info has been replaced by a concrete family tree. (HOOO FUCKING RAY FOR ACTUAL FAMILY TREEE's).
I could leave it alone but now...I have something to work with. Heh, turns out I'm not just a mutt, I'm an uber mutt. Now I have to figure out how to learn about my father's mother's family. He dosen't know much about but he tells me that her father was Choctaw, but she has no documentation....then again I'm finding with depressing regularity that "documentation" and Mississippi in the early 20th centry was mutually exclusive. She was 96 when she died three or four years ago....yah, I can see how there would be no official records.
There is a rich field of fantasy possibility here. I'm going to mine it for fabulousness. Oh and if I ever have a little girl, I'm naming her Siobahn...: )
I spent an hour talking to a cousin who is the unofficial geneologist of my father's side of the family. I learned a few things...there are way too many preacher's in my family and two, we settled in Louisiana...but we did not come from Louisiana.
.
This is John Marshall Cannon Sr (Yes, I apparently come by my action hero naming schema honestly) my great great grandfather. He was obviously mixed race and his children said that he had hazel eyes and straight brown hair...no one knows who is parents are. According to her, the oldest of my great great aunts and uncles were children when he and his wife brought them from Alabama to Southern Louisiana after the Civil War, other children were born around the turn of the century (There were 10 total fairly spaced out) The baby was my Great Great Great uncle Lott who was born in 1880 but he was outclassed by Octavia Cannon who was born in 1905.
John Marshall Cannon died in New Orleans and no one seems to have written down or passed down who his parents were or where he came from outside of "Alabama" which may be a euphamism for "Georgia but we are ashamed to talk about it." Course he could also be the son of a slave owner and was cast away...look at him. There was no diaspora back then, just breeding.
I feel a litttle guilty for fixiating on this part of my family. But to be fair, I have obsessed on my Mother's side for a while. I have pictures of my great great grandparents on my mother's mother's side of the family and I have a migration path for my mother's father's side of the family. But my father's side of the family was a mystery. And while I now have a slew of names there is still this...element that massages at my imagination...particularly since all the disjointed info has been replaced by a concrete family tree. (HOOO FUCKING RAY FOR ACTUAL FAMILY TREEE's).
I could leave it alone but now...I have something to work with. Heh, turns out I'm not just a mutt, I'm an uber mutt. Now I have to figure out how to learn about my father's mother's family. He dosen't know much about but he tells me that her father was Choctaw, but she has no documentation....then again I'm finding with depressing regularity that "documentation" and Mississippi in the early 20th centry was mutually exclusive. She was 96 when she died three or four years ago....yah, I can see how there would be no official records.
There is a rich field of fantasy possibility here. I'm going to mine it for fabulousness. Oh and if I ever have a little girl, I'm naming her Siobahn...: )