Albert (Toby) 
Bob (Harry) 
Sollie (LaCrecy) Sonnie (Margaret)
Fifteen years ago, if someone had asked which branch of the Hicks family I was affiliated with, or who Anderson Hicks was, I would have been unable to answer.
My grandmother died when I was 7 months old so I did not grow up spending much time around my grandfather Albert, nor this family.
Genealogy is like a good mystery. You know the crime or event and work backward to fill in the pieces, many leading into other areas of interest and connection. To the best of our knowledge Anderson Hicks had 2 families.
Of Anderson’s two families, we have information on the offspring of 5 children (Toby, Harry, Tom, LaCrecy and Margaret). This reunion is the meeting of only 4 branches. Tom’s family fades in the third generation.
Susan Lowe descends from Albert’s grandfather Toby’s sister, Margaret , which makes her my half 4th cousin. Quite a mouthful and quite a calculation. Thank God for computers.
ALICE & TOBY HICKS
Anderson /Toby /Alfred /Albert /Doris / Deborah
MARGARET HICKS HAWKINS
Anderson/Margaret/Edith/Sonnie/Claudette / Susan
MARION PARM & FAMILY
My generation has seen some of the greatest advances in the shortest amount of time. From vendors with horse drawn wagons to rockets circling the universe. Dick Tracy cartoon watches and rectangular phones in booths with circular dials to credit card sized, devices that give time, voice and text messages, wake you up and take pictures.
Who remembers Buster Brown and PF Flyers? Fifteen cent McDonald hamburgers. 3 cent newspapers, twenty-five cents for a gallon of gas? Hop Scotch? Root the Peg? Black and white TV with 5 inch screens? Carbon paper? Dick and Jane?
Putting together a family tree is like getting all the parts to a good mystery book. Start with yourself, sisters, brothers, and parents, That’s 2 generations. Add grandparents, nieces, nephews, great uncles and aunts and you have 4. Talk to the family elders and get more names. Look at the family bibles, pictures, grandma’s obituary collections and the picture fills in even more.
Last year, Mrs. Emma Tillman became the oldest person in the world and 4 days later she was dead. But through a marriage in Susan Lowe’s branch, we can make a connection to history. Google Her!
You never know where a question will take you. My question was “How did the family come to Chicago?” The answer was they left the south around the time the cousins were lynched. That story has taken on a life of its own. The cousins were shot and killed in 1894 as part of Tennessee’s largest lynching. Ida B. Wells wrote about it, the case went to the federal courts in Washington and newspapers covered the story.
Everyone needs to search their memories, their closets, and attics for documents to fill in the blanks. online to ancestry.com for the census records. Put in a name of a family member, as recent as 1930, the census will give household information, relationships, parents information, jobs and tells how educated the people were. In 2010, the 1940 census will be released. Check the pages before and after and you will probably find more family members. Researching and creating the family histories are good research projects for children, teaching them Internet skills, research skills, history, geography, world events and family heritage.
Your most valuable assets are the senior members of the family. Interview them or just listen while the older members of the family tell their stories: who they are, what they have accomplished, who their parents, siblings, grandparents were. Ask them to go back as far as they can. It helps to have a tape or video recorder, but if you can take good notes, do so. I have found that if you can get 2 or more members of the family together and just let them talk while you record and make notes, this works.
Go back at the end and ask them to answer questions that may have come up, such as the ‘real’ name for a relative that they only mention by nickname. It’s amazing how many relatives are known only by nicknames It may take years to get these names but they will come. Ask to see the family bibles, collections of obituaries, family papers. for more names and dates.
If you have a computer, select a good software program and start entering. This will be an ongoing process. Remember, people are born, marry and die all the time. The story is never really finished.
Whatever you choose, start today and good luck!
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so
that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others."
Nelson Mandela
N U O D N X M E G U Q D S C L S F F U N H C M R
O O R S D V R F O S B L A C K E U A S T T L H G
H S T O R L M I C M G L P P L E E M C E E S T J
D F F T C P W D A E A L W I A G E I X U H C O Y
P N Y W O Q E D U G E D A X R U H L Q Y D N P W
E A H T N C M A G N I M R A F T E Y A C I R F A
S I N A F S R O T N E V N I N S D T M N Y F I R
T S R S E P A R A T E B U T E Q U A L U L C Z D
Y I L C D G I L E G U C E H K I C L T V H D O H
K V S R E A M I D D L E P A S S A G E T E T K F
S S E E R L T A E M O D E E R F T D S P I P C L
G T N L A C A R G P E P T T T W O R C M I J A S
J P R I T E A D Z R G L A U T I R I P S E O R O
M E K G E J D N N A Z S E D S M S P K S X O E E
C S K I I R I U E D O T M G L W P G X U N E I E
H T N O M Y R O T S I H K C A L B V I D S N N O
S L Q N H S G R V B M G L D V C R T T F S P E O
H T T U S K E G E E A I R M E N Y D Q E O S D R
A C V C X I N R E B N R F N R N S A M D U O R P
R H T N E E T E N U J L O E Y D W T C T R F G A
R F U O M E P D Q F E I M R A F J S G T T A H N
R S O S B C A N H C N V A L U E S I Q A I Q C O
S R O V I V R U S U O I E P W S S M Y G C T M N
E E Z O N X B P P O R C P G H L S A N Y M O E B
AFRICA AMISTAD
BLACK BLACK HISTORY MONTH
CIVIL RIGHTS CONFEDERATE
COTTON EDUCATORS
FAMILY FARMING FREEDOM
INVENTORS JIM CROW
JUNETEENTH LEGACY
MIDDLE PASSAGE PROUD
RELIGION SEPARATE BUT EQUAL
SLAVERY SPIRITUAL
SURVIVORS TUSKEGEE AIRMEN
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD UNION
VALUES WAR