I grew up thinking I was Southern. My mother described her family generally as Scots-Irish. She said that the family was both "poor" and "genteel." I labored under these ideas for most of my lifetime. I thought I must have descended from dirt-poor farmers and pioneers--all dour, well-behaved ancestors. The truth of the matter was far more complex than that.
My mother, Frances Morrison Fauteck, born 19 June 1923 in Red Oak, Oklahoma, labored under similar ideas, and she wanted to break through them to the something else she suspected or wanted to be there. She researched her family's histories for many years in old books and public records, in bibles and family stories, leaving meticulous notes and a family pedigree chart behind her, markers to follow. The chart showed ten generations in some family lines, to Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia colonies; it showed lengthy gaps in other lines. She died 14 July 1994 in Davis, California, just as computers and the Internet had started to make it easier.
Her first cousin, William Mann Morrison, had published an extensive family genealogy in 1977, The Morrison-Williams Register, which she was building upon. My grandmother Lillian knew some of the family tree by heart, and it differed in places from the Register. So did my mother's chart when she was done.
I read my mother's work, was curious about it, but didn't explore it seriously until 2012. It wasn't quite what my mother said. She was a Southerner, that was true. Culturally, I was close to Southern, but half of my heritage wasn't--my father, who was Swiss, German, English, Welsh, and Unknown--had lived in New Jersey most of his life. There were a few initial surprises--her family was dotted with Protestant preachers. Genteel. People of faith. Soldiers and pioneers showed up in her research and The Morrison-Williams Register. Feisty. Hardy. And many of my ancestors weren't Scots-Irish, although a few were. Dour went out the window.
Her father, John D. Morrison, was born 1 January 1883 in Mt. Vernon, Jefferson County, Illinois. His father, Rufus Adlai Morrison, born 20 December 1842 in McNairy County, Tennessee, fought in the Civil War in the Union Army and was a farmer. A brother, Samuel Bartlett Morrison, was a preacher. John D.'s paternal grandparents, Adlai Sharpe Morrison (b. 13 October 1808, Wilson County, Tennessee) and Mary Bartlett (b. 17 May 1811, Hardin County, Kentucky), had fled from Tennessee to Illinois with their family during the Civil War. Rufus Adlai had fought in the Civil War for the Union army.
My maternal grandmother, Lillian Agnes Williams, was born 1 January 1892 in Walker County, Georgia. Her sister, Theresa Ethelma Williams, married a preacher, the Rev. Marshall Lucien Crowder. My grandmother and her sister were daughters of a preacher, the Rev. William Rudicil Williams, born 4 September 1868 in Chattooga County, Georgia, and his wife, Cora Rebecca Evitt, born 4 May 1870 in Independence County, Arkansas. Cora Rebecca, in turn, was the daughter of another preacher, the Rev. Nehemiah Evitt, born 20 December 1836, probably in Bledsoe County, Tennessee, and his wife, Rosana Emiline Andrews, born 1 May 1836 in Orange County, North Carolina.
When I dug a little deeper, beyond dates and places, to find the substance of their lives, I began began to understand that there were bigger stories in my family, stories that had fallen between the cracks of time. I was looking at the legacies of colonization and slavery, war and migration, religious beliefs, and economic and political realities, among other things. The history of my family suddenly became very real and far more complex than I had expected.
