Doctor Grandma

From family stories, we believe it is very likely my husband’s GGGrandmother was Native American, or Indian. (Many Native peoples call themselves Indian). Her name was Julia Kenern. She had a first marriage because she had other children when she married AL’s GGGrandfather, Tom Haniford (Hannaford, Hanaford). He spelled it Hannaford. The confusing thing is, Tom’s first wife was ALSO named Julia but her name was Julia Corkery.

Julia Kenern and Tom Hannaford married on 8 Nov. 1869, in Warren County, Indiana. They then took up residence in Fountain County, Indiana. They both had children from first marriages in the household but had ONE daughter of their own, Johanna. Johanna was born 2 Jan. 1876. BOTH Thomas AND Julia Kenern Hannaford were dead within a year or two of her birth. I have NEVER managed to find death records or burial sites for either of them. Johanna was herself taken in by older half-siblings. We find her in a school picture when she was around age 14. Most of the 1890 census was lost in a fire. Johanna married John Morgan in 1897.

The story of Julia Kenern being Native is that there was a picture of them on their wedding day, or at least of her on her wedding day & she had a beautiful buckskin dress on. Aunt Lucille told us she saw the picture and HAD the picture, but made the unfortunate decision to leave it with JULIA (daughter of Johanna), Lucille’s mother. Julia Black tore the picture up and said, “Nobody needs to see that.” We have never found another COPY! FRUSTRATING.

Judging from where they married and where they lived, if she were Native, she probably was MIAMI. Here is a website that talks about the Miami tribe location: http://www.newsbug.info/wcinews/indian-reservations-in-warren-county/article_39506612-6343-11e7-92cc-b34f30849806.html

AL has a few DNA relatives that now show up on Ancestry which gave us the exact birth & death dates for Thomas Hannaford. I have messages out to them asking them where they found the dates.

Thomas named his first son Timothy. On ancestry, Tom Hannaford’s father’s name in Cork Ireland, was Timothy Honiford. (another spelling of last name)

This entry was posted on August 18, 2020 at 10:07 pm and is filed under family tree research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.