Wild Kudzu DNA

12/16/2025

Pretty sky earlier tonight. ♥️

05/06/2025

Eva A. Dennison was my great-aunt. She was born March 8 1893, in Rexville, Steuben, New York. Her father was the postmaster of Rexville, New York. He also operated a farm. Her mother was Florence Labarr. She was of French descent. Eva gained some notoriety in the winter of 1911 when she was persuaded to run away to New York City with a man named Emil Hollinger. It seems that her aunt had answered a newspaper add from said Emil Hottinger who was seeking a wife. The young man had visited the Dennison home in West Union and had met the acquaintance of Eva. He took an immediate liking to her, favoring her over the aunt.
The two continued to correspond. Emil visited the Dennisons again at Christmas time at which time he asked Eva for her hand in marriage. Though Eva's mother approved of the union, George did not. George asked the young man to leave. Sometime later, Emil convinced Eva to run off to New York City to Elope. When her father George discovered her gone, he enlisted the help of his brother Calvin, the deputy sheriff and his son Lee to bring her home. The couple was located before the marriage could occur. Eva was reportedly not quite 18 when the attempted elopement occurred. Emil was arrested on kidnapping and trafficking charges. George had enlisted the help of the governor of New York Dixon. Many of the local newspapers ran the story as it enfolded. Eva came home willingly and in 1913 married a James Cocoman who was a rural mail carrier for Rexville. The couple had two daughters and a son. Following the death of James, she married Brody Kildruff and resided in Kenmore, New York until her death on 25 November 1966. She was 72 years old at the time of her death. She is buried in Saint Mary's Old Catholic Cemetery in West Union, Steuben County New York.

04/17/2025

Found out today that my paternal grandmother's sister Alice was married to a boxer named Creighton Jack Dorval. They called him Napolean and he was also dubbed the Pennsylvania Timber Wolf. He kept breaking his hands though because genetically his bones were prone to fracture. They were married for under 3 years because he died in a plane crash.

04/05/2025

This is my great-grandmother Ella May Rinehart Dennison Wilcox. She was born in North Urbana, New York, on 23 December 1882.
She was a tough woman. Her first child, George, died as an infant. She had a daughter who also died before she was 1 year of age. Her ten year old daughter, Agnes had heart problems and passed away when she was ten. Her first husband died when she was 36 years old. He had a massive heart attack. Ella supported her remaining children by doing laundry for her neighbors. Back in those days, clothes were scrubbed on a washboard. She remarried but when she was 67, she was killed when a car being driven by her husband lost control going around a curve in Independence NY. She was thrown from the car and she struck a tree. Her husband tended to drive too fast. They didn't have seat belts back then. She had a habit of hanging on to the door handle when she was riding with him. Her 7 year old grandson was sleeping in the back seat and was not injured. Her husband also was not injured.

02/28/2025

My Genealogy Certificate finally arrived via mail. Now I can get some work. Yay!

02/28/2025

02/16/2025

One of my favorite childhood memories was going up the hill to Grandma Allen and Grandpa Bill's house every Sunday. The adults would play poker in the kitchen while all of my cousins would play in the barn or the woods. We would often pick blackberries and of course, my mother would bake pies with our spoils.

02/13/2025

Chief Logan was one of my ancestors on my father's maternal line. It is a tragic story.

Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one. by Robert Griffing

02/13/2025

There is an ancient Indian saying that something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware these men for they are dangerous themselves and unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember and of those who seek the truth.
~ Floyd ‘Red Crow’ Westerman (Dakota Sioux) actor, activist, singe to
I love this philosophy. Family lore says that my maternal great Grandmother Harriet Allen was a full blooded Native American. She was working in a little diner. My great grandfather, William Edson Allen had to travel for work and that is how they met. Harriet was a tall woman. She towered over my great grandfather. She had high cheekbones so I think there is a strong possibility that she was Native American. She was a " see-er" and had many dreams and premonitions that came true. I have native American ancestry on my father's side as well. Various DNA testing companies exist such as ancestry, 23andMe, my Heritage, FT DNA. They each offer Ethnicity testing. You are likely to get results that vary with each company. This is because of the data pool of testers that they have and the algorithms that each uses. Keep in mind that in European populations especially, the countries are all in close proximity to each other. People tended to migrate back and forth across the borders of these countries reproducing. It is therefore vary hard to accurately differentiate between , for example France, Germany, Poland etc. so if you are scratching your head and thinking, " where did this French in my ethnicity results come from?" This is the reason. When you test for ethnicity and expect to find great grandmas native American, you may not find it listed as Native American. One reason is that its ancient origins will often show as Asian.

02/13/2025

If there's an interesting article about one of your ancestors, I can find it.