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It sometimes seems that I have more questions than answers about my family history. On this page, I will present some unsolved
puzzles.
Did some of our Haning ancestors once live in Nova Scotia? Is there a Cajun connection?
What was Grandma Haning's full name?
My father did not know his grandmother's name. C.W. Malone (Uncle Charlie) Great-Aunt Cleo's husband, was a great kidder.
When I was a little girl, Charlie told me that Grandma Haning's name was "Cleopatra Annie Boleyn." As an adult,
I asked my parents about it and they said Uncle Charlie was just teasing me. When pressed for an alternative first name, my
father said "Mary" but he did not sound as if he really knew. Somewhere I have a picture of my great-grandparents'
gravestones and the given names used are simply "Frank" and "Annie." Now, could Uncle Charlie's joke have
made it into the record books or is there evidence that Grandma Annie was actually "Cleopatra Anne Boleyn", strange
as the name is?
Brooks Family Stories
Lily ? , date and place of birth unknown, lived in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, with her husband. Some
family members believe his last name was Thomas. No one knows his first name. Both Lily and her husband died in a smallpox
epidemic. No relatives were left alive to care for their two children, so my great-grandmother Fannie and an older brother
were taken to Texas, possibly adopted, by a family reportedly named Howard.
Frances (Angelina?) (Thomas?) "Fannie" was born in Indian Territory, May, 1867
Frances (Angelina?) (Thomas?) "Fannie" was born in Indian Territory, date unknown
Fannie married George Brooks who was born in May, 1855.
George was the father of Fannie's children.
He died December 25, 1911, after which Fannie married a man the family knew only as "Mr. Russell". According to one of
Fannie's granddaughters, that marriage took place in 1913 but he was abusive and that marriage did not last very long. Fannie
then lived with her daughter Jenny until she married a man named Brazier, about 1928. Brazier was also abusive. Fannie died
at Madill, Oklahoma in 1931.
Where is the Mason family?
My great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Mason, died when my grandmother was a small child. She therefore had no memories of
him to pass on. We know that he was a red-headed Irishman but we do not know where he was born. A family legend says that
one woman of the Mason family, after she was widowed in Ireland, came to the United States with her four-year-old son. Was
that son Thomas Jefferson, his father Daniel, or someone further back in history? A family Bible entry gives the date of
T.J.'s marriage to Roselah Wright and his birthdate but does not give the place where the birth or the marriage occurred.
Another source gives a different birthdate but I think the Bible record is correct. After great success at finding other
ancestors online, I began a search for this particular great-grandfather. So far, I have not found him. I did find a Daniel
Mason who had a son named Thomas Jefferson, but that Daniel Mason was a close friend of George Washington. It doesn't seem
likely that he would be a member of my very ordinary family. Also, his wife was not named Cassandra Crockett. And the son,
Thomas Jefferson, was not married to my great-grandmother Roselah Wright. An online genealogist searched his Henry County,
Tennessee database for me but did not find my ancestors. He reported that there were many Wrights but few Masons in West
Tennessee in the 1800s. The ships' passenger lists I have looked at have so far not turned up one person named Mason.
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