Thursday, November 17, 2016

Howerton or Laird?

O'Laird. Irish. Potato famine?  Dad fondly remembered his grandma Paralee, but other than recalling she came from Arkansas... he was a blank about her origins. " Oh, I think she might have been from around Mina, Arkansas", Dad said.  (Later I learned the town was spelled Mena, though the Search Sisters have yet to find any evidence of her presence there.)

Searching Paralee's origins was hampered not only by her myriad ways of spelling Armenta Paralee... her surname shifted.  Cannaday was her married name. Paralee grew up in the Laird household, with her mother and grandparents we discovered. Digging deeper we found something puzzling in the census records. Paralee's childhood surname was Homerton or Hameston.


1870 census War Eagle Township, Madison County, Arkansas

Paralee’s mother Susan Laird (spelled Leard here) in the 1870 census of War Eagle Township, Madison County, Arkansas lists her children as Arminta Homerton 8 and her sister Martha Homerton 5.  Susan 30, is living in her father and mother’s Laird household along with her sister Arfita Angalina 23 and two more boys Hugh cc Lard 3, and John F Lard 3.


1880 census War Eagle Township, Madison County, Arkansas

In the next War Eagle Census of 1880 the Laird household (spelled Lard here) includes the parents Jacob and Temperance, Susan E Hameston 40, Parilee Hameston 18, Martha J. Hameston 14 and a brother James Hameston 9.  Arlita has married and moved on taking the boys Hugh and John F into Issac Causeys household. (In this census the Hameston name looks like a mistranscription of Howerton.)

Paralee marries and becomes Armenta P Cannaday of the 1910 census, Hagansport Texas. Martha disappears from the record.  The son James Riley reverts back to the Laird surname for the rest of his life. In the 1900 War Eagle census he is married with a wife and four kids… all Lairds. 

Who was the father of Susan Laird's kids?  Where did the name Homerton, Hameston come from? We searched the records. Was Susan Laird married? No records show this. Was she widowed after the civil war?  No Homertons or Hamestons appear in the records in Madison County.  

Who was Paralees papa? Another mystery for the Search Sisters to solve.

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