Will the circle be unbroken

I kiddingly tell my husband his family tree is a wreath not a tree since it seems to keep going back to the same people over and over.  Take for instance the McCoy's (Yes those McCoy's from the Hatfield and McCoy's.)  A few years ago I had started pulling info for his family tree and we found William McCoy and Cordelia Campbell.  He is related to these people 3 times once on his mothers side and 2 times on his fathers side. We have the Clines on both sides, and he is also related to the Praters once on each side.
 I had never experienced the same people being in a family tree more than once.  I guess it is my Midwestern sensibilities that made me wonder how in the world this could be.  As I have gotten further in researching I am learning this is actually quite common. 
When you are in a remote area and the people back then didn't travel outside of their own "neighborhood".  I know a lot of people outside of Appalachia do not understand, these people marrying their cousins or someone related.  I admit I was also one of those people who didn't understand.  Over the course of the last 5 years I have begun to grasp and even understand how this happened so much. 
The funny thing is it makes trying to keep the relatives straight a bit easier but can also make it much more difficult.  You get to someone in the family tree and suddenly they pop up again but under someone else.  You feel like a dog chasing its tail sometimes, but then you just go back and figure out how they are related. 
I have always loved history and even had a passing interest in the people of Appalachia and the feud.  Little did I know I would marry a person who has many ties to the area but is also related to many of the key people.  Sometimes, I just wish I knew these people in the time they lived so I could ask them questions.  My first question would be: what was life really like back then, day to day?  Yes, there are many accounts of the events of the feud and some seem to be total fiction.  I know in my head I have the fictional way I think some of these peoples lives were. Then again as the years and generations have been born the stories handed down can also get changed, added on to, details forgotten.   One of the greatest gifts of this area is story telling.  Yes, things may get forgotten or embellished but the basis of the story is there.
I had heard years ago that my husbands great grandmother on his mothers side helped pull out her father from a fire after he had been shot by Devil Anse Hatfield.  Actually the story is her mother Elizabeth helped pull her father Charlie out of the fire.  Even though the person was wrong the story was right,  When I heard this story I thought there is no way this is even remotely true.  Well, it is and makes my husbands family story even more interesting.  You see Charlie Mounts the man shot by Devil Anse his daughter Elizabeth we believe had at least 2 children out of wedlock with Devil Anse.  Also Elizabeth and also her children worked for Devil Anse.  In my mind how can you work for and even sleep with someone who killed your father?  What I have come to learn is times were very hard and for a single woman with several children you did what you had to do, no matter what to survive.
Yes, to someone that has not been to this area or have family who lived there it is hard to know what is real and what is not.   Even someone who was in that area may have parts of the story but not all of it.  Unfortunately, the truth died with the actual persons involved died. 

Finding Sarah part 2

Sarah’s mother worked for Devil Anse Hatfield for many years.  There has been a family story of Sarah and her mother Elizabeth and her older brother Moses Mounts witnessing Elizabeth’s father Charlie Mounts being shot in the chest, by Devil Anse and him falling into the fire, as Devil Anse said: “Let him burn!”  They pulled him out of the fire but his feet were burned.  We may never know why Devil Anse shot Charlie but what we do know is Elizabeth, Sarah and Moses all worked for Devil Anse, for many years after that incident.   

You may wonder why would a woman and her young children continue working for someone who shot their father?  Well there are a few theories one is she was not married and had several small children to take care of, also there is one I tend to think is possible and that is she was more than just an employee to Devil Anse. 

For years in some parts of the family there was a rumor that Devil Anse was in fact the father of both Moses and Sarah.  In our part of the family we had never heard that because Sarah’s youngest child was my husband’s grandmother and she was only 13 when her mother passed away.  Also things like out of wedlock children were not discussed in his family. 

It has taken many hours and a dna test to finally unravel this whole story.  Betty Howard and Andrea Coleman who are amazing genealogists and a distant cousin who had heard the rumor from her grandfather who was one of Sarah’s oldest children, that took the dna test, we know for sure that my husband’s great, great grandfather is Devil Anse Hatfield. It has taken a lot of time and thought to finally come to terms with the results. 

I know a lot of people would be excited to be related to someone who was infamous in history.  Honestly, we have had many emotions most are disbelief and worry.  Why would we be worried?  Well, for one Devil Anse was not the one known in the family to have out of wedlock children that would be his older brother Wall and his son Johnse.  Also a lot of people hold Devil Anse up on a bit of a pedestal, and was thought to be the ultimate family man and leader of his family and community.  As we have gone down this road we have found out that Moses and Sarah may not be the only out of wedlock children that Devil Anse had. 

A little background

My husbands family is deeply rooted in the Tug River Valley.  Some of the names that are his ancestors are: Prater, Daugherty, York, Gooslin, Looney, May, Mounts, Scott.  Further out in the family are: Wilson, Whitehead, Smith, McCoy, Cline and Hatfield. 

I can remember when we started this journey in 2008, the story his mother told us about her parents telling her she better not be getting married to one of those black Daugherty's.  Well looks like she actually did marry one of those black Daugherty's.  In the family we have Cherokee on at least 2 sides and some of them even spoke Cherokee and also one on the Daugherty side was half Cherokee and half black.  Hence the black Daugherty comment. 



This is my Hubby Keith Daugherty

When I look at pictures of my husbands family I see how strong of a family resemblance there is to the Daugherty side, but also to the side that Sarah came from.  Sometimes pictures tell the story and you can figure out just by seeing. 

Keith's Father Billy Bruce Daugherty

Keith's half brother Jason

Jack's father Jefferson Prater

Shirley's mother Sarah and Farther T.N. York

Keith's Grandfather Aaron Daugherty

Keith's Grandfather Jack Prater

Keith's Grandmother and Jacks wife Shirley York

Finding Sarah

When you start a journey that takes over 5 years, you know there is going to be some twists and turns and even some bumps.  This is the journey that my husband Keith and I took to find out about his family.  It all started when we were doing his family tree, since his aunts and his mother had some great stories of growing up in rural Appalachia, along the Tug River that separates Kentucky and West Virginia.  The stories they told just sounded too wild to be totally true.  What we have found out in the process is it was only the tip of the iceberg!  The stories were very true but not the whole story.  This is our journey into the wilds of a land that most would not be able to survive on.  A story of love, greed, and the most famous of American feuds the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s.

With this blog I will try to recreate the life of Sarah Belle Mounts.  My husband’s great grandmother on his mothers, mother’s side.  She only lived a few short decades but in that time she was married 4 times had 7 children by three of those husbands.  She was the product of an out of wedlock relationship, as were all of her brothers and sisters.  

When we first started doing the family tree we hit a dead end with Sarah, but I also had her as Sarah Johnson.  She was not a Johnson but it is rumored some of her siblings were from a married man named Peyton Johnson.  Sarah’s mother Elizabeth supposedly was helping take care of Mr. and Mrs. Peyton Johnsons children and had a couple of children by him but we do not know for sure.  Mrs. Johnson was Elizabeth’s cousin.   Only a dna test can unravel that mystery.

What we do know is from a dna test that was done on one of Sarah’s descendants is that she is not a Johnson.  Keep reading to find out who is her father.  When we found out we (the family) were shocked and but also had a feeling it might be who it turned out to be. For several generations there was the rumor in parts of the family.  Other parts of the family were completely shocked.  In those days you didn’t talk about being an out of wedlock child.  It happened quite frequently, especially in rural Appalachia.