Something of a Genealogical Quagmire, September 2, 2015

Children are the bridge to heaven.

~ancient Persian Proverb

New Birth. Congratulations to Chris and Amanda Clark Farrell on the birth of Easton Farrell, born August 20th in Frisco, Texas. Congratulations to the first time parents, and to grandparents Jerry Clark and Jane Clark Brock of Lubbock, Texas. It is a happy time for Chris and Amanda's entire family! 

This beautiful picture of Easton with his mom and dad was posted on Facebook recently (photo credit to Natalie Roberson). Many of you have seen it, but I include it here with best wishes to Chris and Amanda!

An Anniversary from LONG Ago. Today, September 2, 2015 is the wedding anniversary of my 6X Great Grandparents Matthew Gillespie and Lucy Pickens. This couple lived so long ago in our family history you may not even recognize their names. Here are some interesting notes about this young couple.

We are related to Lucy and Matthew through Grandmother Nola Shannon Gower, in particular her father Samuel Pickens Shannon. He was given the middle name Pickens because his grandmother's maiden name was Anna Pickens. Giving a child a middle name that is the last name of a Grandmother was not uncommon years ago, and even is done occasionally today.

Lucy Pickens and Matthew Gillespie were both born in Ireland at the turn of the 18th century. We even know that Matthew's birth town was Limerick, Ireland. But they did not marry, and may not have even known each other, until they came across the Atlantic, where their families settled just north of Philadelphia. 

Something of a Genealogical Quagmire. In the new world they were part of a large clan of Irish immigrants who tended to marry within the clan. Lucy and Matthew Gillespie's son, Matthew Gillespie Jr., married back into his mother's Pickens family (probably a cousin). Then their granddaughter, Mary Q. Gillespie, also married back into the Pickens family. So if you look at our family tree you see Pickenses all over the place because of the intermarrying. It is something of a genealogical quagmire, which may be a little easier to understand by looking at the lineage at the bottom of this post.


Young Matthew and Lucy married at just 22 and 20 years old. Immigration records show that Matthew arrived from Ireland in 1722 -- the same year they married -- so he was fresh off the boat when he married fellow immigrant Lucy. It is very possible that both their families came over together in the same ship. In a new land, beginning a new family, facing new challenges; it must have been a very exciting, if not bewildering time for Matthew and Lucy to start a new life together. 

They were married in Abington, Pennsylvania, in the Abington Presbyterian Church, a congregation near Philadelphia that still exists today (here's their website). They were one of the earliest marriages of this congregation, whose history dates from 1716. The following is an excerpt from the records of the Abington Church, of Matthew and Lucy's marriage on September 2, 1722. Their last names are spelled a little differently, but after nearly 300 years, a little little discrepancy is understandable!

Matthew and Lucy were only married 8 years when Matthew died at just 28 years old. Lucy then outlived him by over 30 years, living to be 60 years old, which was very old by 18th century standards. In the 8 years of their marriage they had 3 sons and a daughter, son Matthew Jr. being the one from whom we are descended. Two years after Matthew died, Lucy remarried a man named John Kerr, and lived the rest of her life with him.

Here then is an 11 generation lineage which shows how we are descended from 6X Great Grandparents Matthew and Lucy Gillespie, whose wedding, long, long ago, we remember today.

• Matthew Gillespie (1700-1728) who married Lucy Pickens (1702-1762)
• son Matthew Gillespie Jr. (1726-1793) who married Anna Pickens (1726-1775)
• daughter Mary Q. Gillespie (1756-1789) who married Andrew Pickens (1753-1844)
• daughter Anna Pickens (1785-1867) who married David McKnight Shannon (1790-1860)
• son David Reid Shannon (1821-1864) who married Peggy Gray (1829-1899)
• son Samuel Pickens Shannon (1858-1930) who married Finetta Dearien (1861-1960)
• daughter Nola Shannon (1903-2004) who married Leroy Gower (1899-1974)
• daughter Maida Gower (b. 1924) who married Eugene Shepard (1921-2003)
• son Steve Shepard (b. 1948) who married Cindy Harris (b. 1948)
• son Nathan Shepard (b. 1977) who married Chenda Sou (b. 1980)
• daughter Preslea Maida Shepard (b. 2010)

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Steve Shepard

Family Keeps You Going, March 30, 2014

Trials keep you strong,
sorrow keeps you human,
failures keep you humble,
but family keeps you going.

Happy Birthday, Joan! Tomorrow is the birthday of my cousin Joan Shepard, mother of Havilah Wardle, daughter of Elmer and Beryl Shepard and granddaughter of William and Bura Davis Shepard. Joan was born and raised in the San Diego area but lives today in Davis, California. She is the third one in our family who was born in early 1954 and therefore is celebrating an important milestone birthday.

Joan: The years continue to bring blessings. The older I become the more I appreciate all our progenitors and our children--the love and gratitude flows both ways. I still have great health, which is probably a legacy from Bura and William. I remember Granddad Shepard climbing a large, old walnut tree to trim branches when he was in his 80's. We came home that day to find him over 30 feet in the air with a saw in his hand. That's a goal to consider!

A highlight of my year was visiting Havilah and Kevin in South Texas, their current home. It's a delight to be with them and sightsee.  I always learn exponentially when with them. They help me advance into the 21st century, this time with my Christmas gift, a Nook. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to podcasts with them and brought home some favorites for my tablet, "Stuff You Missed in History Class," for example. Being with them is a joy beyond compare no matter what we do. Blessings to everyone... Joan

The first picture (above) shows Joan while she was visiting in Texas last summer. The second picture (below) is an old family photo taken in 1975 in Mira Mesa, just north of San Diego, California at the home of my brother Gary and Jackie Shepard (pictured on the right). Joan is in the middle standing next to our grandparents Bura and William Shepard. Others pictured here are Darrell Shepard (standing to Joan's right), Barbara Shepard holding Kelly Shepard, Darren Boyd, Dane Shepard, Kerri Shepard, Jason Shepard and Kim Boyd. On the ground is Russ Shepard.

Woman of Note: Anna Pickens Shannon. On this last post of March, 2014 (National Women's History Month) I want to highlight one more woman in our family tree: Anna Pickens Shannon.

My GGG grandmother Anna Pickens was born in Abbeville, South Carolina on March 24, 1785 (229 years ago this month!). She was the great granddaughter of French-Irish immigrants William Henry Pickens and his wife Margaret Pike who came to America in 1722 from Limerick, Ireland.

Anna was the child of Andrew and Mary Gillespie Pickens and was born just 2 years after the American Revolution. It was not only a time of fighting the British, but also of dealing with warring American Indians. Her father Andrew Pickens served honorably in the Revolution, while her father's first cousin (also named Andrew Pickens) was a decorated General in the war. Anna Pickens' family has a prominent place in the history of South Carolina, not only because of Abbeville where many kinfolks settled, but also because of the namesake town of Pickens, 60 miles north of Abbeville.

Anna's grandmother was also named Anna Pickens, because her maternal grandfather was a first cousin of her father. This phenomenon of marrying relatives, though not too good for the long range health of the family tree, was fairly common at this particular time in American history.

As a young woman her family migrated a few hundred miles west to the area south of Nashville, Tennessee where she met her husband-to-be, David Shannon. They were married in 1808 and helped populate the American frontier by having a family of 9 children. Sometime after the children were born her family migrated southward to the area near Tupelo in northeastern Mississippi, where she lived the last years of her life. She and husband David are buried in Keyes Cemetery near Tupelo (see photo of Keyes Cemetery by Jonathan Phillips). 

Just as the American Revolution greatly affected Anna's early life, so the Civil War affected her later life. She outlived her son David Reid Shannon, who died in the War between the States as a young family man in Louisiana in 1864. One of Anna and David's grandchildren was my great grandfather Samuel Pickens Shannon (Nola Shannon Gower's father), who was named after his grandmother Anna Pickens Shannon.

You have to give it to Anna: she endured the aftermath of the American Revolution as a child, then moved as a youngster from South Carolina to Tennessee, where she married and bore 9 children on the American frontier, and finally relocated to Mississippi, where she was a Civil War Gold Star Mother for her last years. Even though her life was not too different from many frontier women, her sacrifices were great and her place of honor in our family tree is well deserved. She is remembered with gratitude on this Women's History Month.
- - -
Steve Shepard

"In the End the World Will Break Your Heart", April 8, 2013

To be Irish is to know

that in the end

the world will break your heart.

~Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Hello Family and Friends,

Greetings to all of you from Tampa, Florida where Cindy and I find ourselves today. We are getting ready to board a Carnival Cruise ship that will set sail later today for a trip across the Atlantic to Europe. We are with our friends Papa George and Yaya, experienced world travelers -- and fun people -- who will help make this a memorable experience.

Happy Anniversary! Speaking of memorable, tomorrow is the 7th wedding anniversary of Jerry and Cathrina Clark of Lubbock, Texas who were married back in 2006 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Best wishes to both of them for many more happy years together.

More About the Irish. In my last post I mentioned the family of William and Margaret (Pike) Pickens, ancestors of ours who immigrated to this country from Limerick, Ireland in the early years of the 18th century. 

I told you that two of Willie and Marge's grandchildren (first cousins) married each other, illustrating how some Irish immigrants remained in family clusters and intermarried. Another anomaly of their family is that at least 3 of their children married members of one other family, by the name of Davis.

Their first child, Israel Sidney Pickens, married Martha Davis; their 3rd child, Robert Pike Pickens, married Miriam Davis; and their 4th child, Andrew Pickens, married Nancy Ann Davis. All three Davis girls were presumably children of Church friends George and Lydia Davis. (George's name was spelled "Davice" in Ireland, and became "Davis" in America.) It appears that the Pickenses and the Davises -- both immigrant families -- settled near each other in Pennsylvania, and in three instances their children hooked up with each other.

This reminds me of two of my Grandmother Bura Davis's sisters, Winona and Myra Davis, who married Kilpatrick brothers back in the early 20th century. Curiously, the last name of the women in both instances is the same -- Davis. But the 2 Davis girls married their Kilpatrick boys in Oklahoma, 200 years AFTER the 3 Pickens boys married their Davis girls in Pennsylvania. I have found no indication that these sets of Davis folks -- 200 years separated -- were related. But it certainly is a remarkable coincidence nonetheless.

George and Lydia Davis (the parents of those 3 girls who married the Pickens boys) were Irish immigrants themselves, and can be added to our growing list of immigrant ancestors, with the total now reaching 20. So we can see again that there was such a large number of Irish immigrants in Pennsylvania at this time that they tended to live near one another and in some instances even married within their families.

Two of the aforementioned Irish immigrants who had come over separately, but had met and married each other in the new world, were Israel Sidney Pickens and his wife Martha Davis. They married in Bensalem, Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1726, but migrated southward beyond Washington, D.C. into Virginia. Israel died in 1749; Martha died in 1774. They are both buried at Cub Creek Cemetery in Charlotte County, southwest of Richmond,Va. (see picture of the cemetery - photo by Cathy Powers).

Here then is a lineage that traces our immigrant ancestors George and Lydia Davis to the present.

George Davis married Lydia Emory, 
their daughter Martha Davis married Israel Sidney Pickens, 
their daughter Anna Pickens married Matthew Gillespie, 
their daughter Mary Gillespie married Andrew Pickens, 
their daughter Anna Pickens married David McKnight Shannon, 
their son David Reid Shannon married Peggy Ann Gray, 
their son Samuel Pickens Shannon married Finetta Dearien, 
their daughter Nola Shannon married Leroy Gower, 
their daughter Maida Gower married Eugene Shepard, 
their son Steve Shepard married Cindy Harris, 
their son Nathan Shepard married Chenda Sou, 
and their younger son is William Quincy Shepard (b. 2012)

Over the next few weeks Cindy and I, with our friends, will be at sea, or traveling around Europe, but I plan to continue these blog posts with information about our Irish heritage. There are still some remarkable family stories to share!
- - -
Steve Shepard

More Irish Blood, April 3, 2013

A person is better than their descent.

~old Irish law

Hello Family and Friends,

Happy Birthday Nate! Today is the birthday of our son Nathan Shepard of Alameda, California. Nathan works for Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco. He and wife Chenda are the proud parents of three little ones, Preslea, Logan, and William Shepard, who -- have I told you this before? -- are the most beautiful grand kids in the world. They are among the participants in the following magical photo presentation that celebrates Nathan's birthday.

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Happy Birthday Ciara! Tomorrow is the birthday of Ciara Ortiz, one of the GGgrandchildren of Will and Bura Shepard and the granddaughter of Kim Boyd Clark. Ciara lives with her family, including mom and dad Desiree and Jeremy Ortiz, in Blue Springs, Missouri. Thanks to Desiree for this picture that shows birthday girl Ciara.

Desiree: Thursday Ciara will be 11. I just can't believe how much she has grown up. Next year she will start middle school and has been selected to be in honors math. She is very excited. Jeremy and I are very proud she is such a smart girl:) We will be traveling to Tucson on Ciara's birthday so we celebrated early with the family by enjoying dinner at Samari Chef a Japanese steak house where they cook your meal in front of you. We had a great time!

Happy Birthday Jim! Tomorrow is also the birthday of my cousin Jimmie Gower, the second son of the late Starlene and Hank Gower. Jim and his wife Cheryl live in Ft. Mohave, Arizona. He is the second grandchild of Leroy and Nola Shannon Gower.

More Irish Blood. Speaking of Nola Shannon Gower, I want to mention a few more of our Irish ancestors -- these are named Pickens -- from whom we are descended through her.

My grandma Gower's father was Samuel Pickens Shannon. His middle name came from his grandmother Anna Pickens. She was the GG grandchild of William Henry Pickens and his wife Margaret Pike, who came over from Ireland in the early 1700s, during a time of massive Irish immigration. 

In Dexal Shannon's family history book that I mentioned in my last post, it is stated that Irish immigration was such that by 1749 a fourth of the entire population of Pennsylvania was Scotch Irish. (And you think we've got an immigration problem today!?) Our family history witnesses to that statistic, with numerous Irish immigrants settling in that state, among them William and Margaret Pickens. They are also examples of how Irish immigrants often remained in family clusters for generations, and sometimes intermarried. Two of William and Margaret's grandchildren, Anna Pickens and Matthew Gillespie (first cousins) married each other, an anomaly which (thankfully!) I have not discovered elsewhere among our ancestors. Not yet, anyway.

Margaret Pike Pickens was from the town of Limerick, in the south of Ireland, while her husband William Henry Pickens was originally from La Rochelle, France. He immigrated first to Ireland before he and Margaret came across the Atlantic to the new world and settled north of Philadelphia in the Neshaminy Creek area. 

William and Margaret came to America in the first decade of the 1700's, with their 6 children. In the book Scotch Irish Pioneers by Charles Bolton -- you can read it online here -- William and Margaret are listed in the records of a Presbyterian Church at Neshaminy Creek, Pennsylvania, as having been welcomed into the congregation in 1722 as "persons from Eerlant (Ireland)". Also listed as having been welcomed "by certificate" are their son Israel Sidney Pickens, their son-in-law Matthew Gillespie, and Israel's in-laws, George and Lydia Davis, all of whom are found in our family tree, and are people from whom we are directly descended.

I have more to say about these Pickens ancestors, but I will save that for my next post. For now we can add to our growing list of Irish immigrants, William and Margaret and 6 of their children: Israel, Margaret, Robert, Andrew and twins Lucy and Anne, all of whom came over from Ireland. Not long ago I numbered our Irish immigrant ancestors at 11, but that number has now grown to 18.
- - -
Steve Shepard

What's In A Name? May 7, 2011

I remember my mother's prayers
and they have always followed me.
They have clung to me all my life.
~Abraham Lincoln

Hello Family and Friends,

Greetings to all of you on this day before Mother's Day. Happy Birthday this coming Wednesday to Jacinta Saunders Shepard of Newcastle, Oklahoma. This "Cindy Shepard" is the mother of Nathan and Kaylan Shepard and the wife of Dane Shepard. A special Mother's Day wish to Cindy and all mothers in our families! Below is an updated Mother's Day photoshow celebrating our moms.

What's In A Name? With our daughter-in-law Chenda soon to become a mother once again, we have been thinking a lot about names. As a result I have been pondering outstanding names in our family tree.

What makes an outstanding name, you ask? Admittedly it is a very subjective matter. For me an outstanding name is one that rolls off the tongue easily (is phonetically pleasing), or one that has some depth of meaning to it (is rich with history), or one that strikes me as strong, intelligent, handsomely masculine or beautifully feminine. (See what I mean about subjective?) Of the 1,393 people presently in our family tree, the following are my choices for the Top 10 outstanding names.

10 - Mary Questionable Gillespie (1756-1789) - her grandmother was from Questionable, Ireland. Both "Q" names may be questionable, however.

9 - James Brooks Davis (1870-1928) - my grandmother Davis always spoke her father's name with great respect.

8 - Rebecca Floride Calhoun (1745-1814) - among our Gower/Shannon/Pickens ancestors; hopefully her middle name is pronounced "floor-a-day" or "floor-a-dee," not "floor-ride".

7 - Nathan William Shepard (b. 1977) - I confess: I am prejudiced here. What can I say? It's Biblical and it includes William Shepard.

6 - Thomas Laurens Van Buskirk (1668-1748) - my 9G Grandpa; son of a Danish immigrant; The Donald can only WISH he had such a rich, distinguished name. 

5 - Julius Theophilus Vessels (1871-1942) - See Acts 1:1; his mother was Narcissus; father was Julius Ceasar. He was from Limestone, Alabama.

4 - Preslea Maida Shepard (b. 2010) - I admit it: I am shamelessly prejudiced with this choice. But every part has real meaning.

3 - Robert Columbus Shannon (1893-1923) - Grandma Gower's brother. With a name like this, it would be criminal to call him "Bob."

2 - Benjamin Harrison Davis (1888-1963) - his namesake, a popular hoosier politician, was elected our 23rd President just 3 months after BHD's birth. Great choice by his parents Charles and Melinda! I never knew our Davis people were so political. (See picture of our Benjamin Harrison, alongside President Harrison.)

1 - Kyle Christian Sauvage (b. 2004) - a superb combination of sounds and strength; handsomely masculine; even a wonderfully bit oxymoronic.

What do you think? I am sure each of you has your own favorite outstanding family name. Who would you include? I'd like to hear from you and share your choices in a future post. 

Kids Say the Darn- dest Things. My niece Kelly Sauvage of Weather- ford, Texas, (mother of Kyle Sauvage, mentioned above) told the following story on Facebook. I think you will enjoy it as much as I did.

"I was at 'Yogurt Story' with my boys tonight when two girls walked in wearing prom dresses. One of them was showing a whole lot of cleavage. My 8 year old son Nate, who will say anything to anyone, says, "Excuse me, you may want to pull that up!"

The second picture shows Kelly and Nate in the summer of 2008 at our last Shepard Family Reunion in Anacortes, Washington.

Our next family reunion will be in Anacortes once again, on Saturday, August 13. If you plan to attend, please notify me or one of the Shepards in Anacortes. The meal preparers are making plans, and we want to make sure everyone will be well fed! Select this link for all the reunion details.
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Steve

Kissin' Cousins, Oct. 15

Cousin to cousin we'll always be,
Special friends from the same family tree.
~author unknown

Hello Family and Friends,

In my last post I referred to my Ggrandfather Samuel Pickens Shannon. He received his middle name from his grandmother Ann Pickens, who was a Ggrandchild of immigrants William and Margaret Pickens. Curiously, Ann was also the GGgrandchild of William and Margaret. "How can someone be a Ggrandchild and a GGgrandchild of the same couple," you ask?

Here's how it happened: It's confusing, and a little bizarre, so follow me closely. Two of William and Margaret Pickens' grandchildren (first cousins) married each other, Matthew Gillespie and Anna Pickens. They had a child who they named Mary Q. Gillespie. She married Andrew Pickens, who was yet a third grandchild of William and Margaret. Are you following me? (Evidently Willie and Marge's grandkids didn't wander far from the family farm.)

The following is a 12 generation lineage that begins with European immigrants William and Margaret Pickens and continues through their youngest descendant Preslea Shepard. It includes the aforementioned first cousins who are indicated here by asterisks*.

1. William Pickens (1670-1735)
   (who married Margaret Pike)
2. Israel Pickens (1693-1749)
   (who married Martha Davis)
3. *Anna Pickens (1726-1775)
   (who married *Matthew Gillespie)
4. Mary Q. Gillespie (1756-1789)
   (who married *Andrew Pickens)
5. Ann Pickens (1785-1867)
   (who married David M. Shannon)
6. David R. Shannon (1821-1864)
   (who married Peggy Ann Gray)
7. Samuel Pickens Shannon (1858-1930)
   (who married Finetta Dearien)
8. Nola Shannon (1902-2004)
   (who married Leroy Gower)
9. Maida Gower (b. 1924)
   (who married Eugene Shepard)
10. Steven Shepard (b. 1948)
    (who married Cynthia Harris)
11. Nathan Shepard (b. 1977)
    (who married Chenda Sou)
12. Preslea Maida Shepard (b. 2010)

I am 1 of 12 first cousins who are grandchildren of Leroy and Nola Gower. I am also 1 of 12 first cousins who are grandchildren of Will and Bura Shepard. (See the collage of cousins: Beverly, Rex, Jimmie, Gary, Hershell, Dane, me, Paula, Linda, Michael, Joan, Gloria, Kim, Darren, David, Russ, Barbara and Darrell.) Of all my cousins, none married each other, or even came close.

250 years ago, however, the marriage of first cousins happened on occasion. In some families it was encouraged. In others it was almost necessary because of the "slim pickens" in their not so highly populated communities. But today it is illegal in some states.

Now, be careful before blaming your weird personality traits or your forgetfulness on these ancestors of ours who messed up the family gene pool. The marriage of first cousins is perfectly legal in most of the United States, because there is simply not the scientific evidence to confirm the genetic dangers. Most of us would never marry a first cousin, not because it's dangerous, but because of our modern day cultural conditioning.

How often have first cousins married in the history of our extended family? I haven't been able to turn up any others besides Anna and Matthew. Can you?
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Steve