Mazie's Cannon Family Tree: Imperfect and Helpful

In my prior post, I introduced an incomplete scan of a hand-drawn family tree. The detailed representation was penned by Rosemary and was based on confident recollections passed on by Mary Zerelda Cannon her father's sister, known as Aunt Mazie. This post digs into one section of the larger tree to illustrate the combination of various imperfections and helpful opportunities this tree offers to my research on my father's Cannon side.

Undocumented

In Mazie's tree, Ellis Cannon married once to Barbra Huffman. Ellis left behind two substantial first-hand accounts, his will and a Revolutionary War Pension Application. In both of those, his wife is Elizabeth. So far there is no record of "Barbra Huffman."

Unlikely

It may later be shown that Barbara Huffman was a first wife to Ellis Cannon, yet this seems very unlikely. Ellis had more than seventy grandchildren. So far there is not one descendant carrying on any variation of the name "Barbra." A second marriage almost always followed from the death of a spouse and  it was common to give the either the first name or maiden name of the deceased spouse to one of the children. Yet the Huffman surname does not appear among Ellis's children's or grandchildren's names.  ​As a very lengthy project, I hope to search for nearby Huffman families in the available documents with the idea that someone named Barbara Huffman must have actually existed among the family's connections.

Certainly False

In this tree, the first branching off point is "John Cannon" who is listed with two marriages, first to Nancy Wyatt and then to Elizabeth Templeman. However, a published family bible has since shown definitively that Lewis Cannon married Nancy Wyatt and Elizabeth Templeman. The list of children from each marriage match this tree closely.   Mazie included "Louis" among the six children of Ellis. Other documents tell us that Lewis had a brother John who married Martha Moore. Mazie's tree needs a simple switch of names as shown by the hashed # annotation.

Simply Omitted

I assume for now that his wife's name was Elizabeth and other researchers say that her maiden name was likely Coleman. Six children branch off of the Ellis and Elizabeth trunk yet records and reports suggest that they had ten children. Lewis's younger siblings Winnifred and Susannah are omitted. A sibling named Jesse is named here but not documented and thus marked as NR for "No Record."

Open Full Tree

Likely Truths

As shown by a check mark in the image above, records have been found for William and Phoeby. From the pension application we know that Phoeby was severely afflicted and living at home with her widowed mother. She had no known children. Other than common variations in the spelling of her name, there is really nothing to add or alter about her small branch.

Loose Ends

With the breadth of records that are now readily accessible in digital formats, this tree begs to be expanded by many new branches. As noted already, John Cannon would replace Louis in Mazie's tree. His wife Martha Moore and their six children were not known well enough to be part of this tree. William is shown correctly above but without his wife, Lucy Ward, and their nine additions to the grandchildren of Ellis and Elizabeth.  His sister Susanna also married a Ward and they added seven more grandchildren. Winnifred is also among these missing siblings; she and her husband John Vandiver would add nine more branches. The most valuable among the added branches would show Elijah Cannon (b. 1782) who married Darcus (Dorcas) Bowen and had eleven children. Adding their branch would help distinguish his records from those of his nephew, Elijah Cannon (b. 1796) born only 15 years later to Elijah's older brother Lewis Cannon (b. 1775).

Rich Inheritance

Ellis Cannon is the starting point for a very helpful tree of his descendants. At each generation of descendants of Reverend Ellis Cannon, there continue to be both accurate, inaccurate, and omitted names. As with any family history that has been passed on from oral retellings, it remains an extraordinary inheritance especially with its imperfections.

Leaping Forward

This hand-drawn tree is a family research treasure map. I've already mined it repeatedly to initiate record searches that confirm and expand on the many household nodes it suggests. It has led the way to primary source documents such as US Census records. Recently I've returned to the tree for a closer look. This time, it promises to offer far more than confirmation of existing records. It may help me bridge from a dead end  in our Rainwater branch to a dead end another researcher's Rainwater branch to help reunite names from the original household. More about that in the next post, Leaping Into Rainwaters.