The Search Goes On

When I was in college, I began getting curious about my family's history. Where do we come from? What were our ancestors like? Did we make history? I wanted to put it all together from the tidbits I'd heard growing up hearing.

When people asked, where's your family from? I'd typically response, "from all over Europe...I'm a bit of a Hines 57." I'd been told that we were German mostly on both sides of my family with a bit of Irish, French-Canadian, Native American, Polish, I think someone mentioned Italian at one point too...no one really knew for sure though so I started digging.

I put together the family tree that I knew of and was able to ask family about. There weren't a lot of details other than names and it only went back maybe five generations at most. From that, I was able to confirm a German Grandmother on my mom's side and that was the only definite I had to go on as far as "where we're from."

The summer between my junior and senior year in college, I went and worked at a camp in Missouri. My mom and Gma came down for a trip to visit family near by and I was able to take a couple days off and go with them. While we were down there, we went and visited family property, court houses and grave sites and were able to get a bit more information and dates. The branches started filling in, with details but not much to go on to extend the tree further into the past.

After college, my time got more consumed with other things and I didn't do much with my research until a few years ago when a friend offered me her Ancestry account to use; that's when things really took off!

I have now confirmed family lines to Germany, France, Russia, Ireland and Scotland. I have also been able to stretch back to the 1700s on one line, but have recently gotten stuck trying to find anything more including if my ancestor fought in the Revolutionary War. My goal is to find this information so I can possibly submit my Gma for membership in the DAR (Daughter's of the American Revolution). She is 92 so I'm starting to really rush to do this for her. She's always been interested in what I've found out so I'm always trying to find new information for her.

Where I am stuck is on John Tucker who was born either in 1750 or 1755 presumably in NC. I have no documentation of his birth. The first documentation I've found is record of his first marriage to Keziah Breshears on August 31, 1772. They had two children together before John left her (no divorce that I have been able to find) and went west as a pioneer. He signed the Cumberland Compact in 1780 which was the founding of what is now Nashville, TN. Records show that he married Jenny Harrod as part of the second marriage in the new settlement.

My family is descended through his and Jenny's eldest son, Enoch (1784-1855). There apparently was a big contest against John's will which has put quite a bit of information out there about the family however it does not go back and history any further.

My search will go on, but I'm putting this out there into the wide world to see if anyone comes upon this and give me any information to go on further.