I think it is safe to say that my father and his two brothers did not grow up with much knowledge of their family history — even though they grew up in the same household as their grandmother – who was certainly a major player in some interesting stories. But many of her stories were of the kind that weren’t talked about in those days. In hers and previous generations, tales of great heroism or glory were eagerly passed down, but accounts of hardship, tragedy, or anything with an element of scandal or stigma were silenced or even completely changed to fit a more “socially acceptable” narrative.
Things started changing in our generation and people began seeking the unvarnished truth about their ancestors. What might have been socially unacceptable in 1880 wasn’t so unseemly and shameful in the mid-twentieth century. In 1968, William M Land, a Hamilton cousin sent out a document summarizing everything he had heard and believed about the Hamilton family1For more about William and Selina Hamilton check out this post. It was a tragic tale, to be sure — but, as we have now discovered, it was a tale with some critical dates and details “finessed” and adjusted and these had been passed down as fact2Read WM Land’s Bio of the Hamiltons here.. Adjusted dates and details hid what were considered scandalous circumstances for that time, and were probably very necessary to keep their family together. These stories involve sacrifices and experiences that made our ancestors who they were and gave them a strength and resilience that they passed down to their children. Understanding the truth of those experiences allows us to appreciate our ancestors for what they went through to survive so that we could be here.
In 1975, a Hickson cousin, Doris Bundy Loomis, wrote my Uncle Bill Mannon asking for any information on the Hickson line. She sent a very sketchy, vague family tree as well as a transcribed letter that Frances Hickson wrote from the ship carrying her family to Canada from England3For more about the Hickson’s voyage to Canada, check out this post. In 1850!! What a treasure that was! And even our own grandfather’s ground-breaking career in motion picture production had been downplayed and kept under the radar because there seemingly was some discomfiture there.
Just after Christmas in 1980, the three brothers (my dad and uncles) got most of us Mannon cousins together in Santa Barbara to go through a mountain of photos and documents that had been in storage for years. As you can see below, we were all pretty intrigued! We did a similar, smaller Reunion in 1984 in Shell Beach. More photos, diaries, and documents — even a treasured family bible –came to light.
This all planted a seed in my sister, Shirley, and she got started researching the family history and preserving documents and photos. This was back in the mid-1980’s when there was no Ancestry.com or other genealogy websites. In fact, there was NO web!! A “website” would have had an ugly black spider involved. For Shirley, it was all pencil & paper, letters and phone calls to relatives (often whom she’d never met), trips to the library and cemeteries, and the collecting of lots and lots of papers. And she plugged away, not only on the Mannon side, but on our mom’s side as well.
It wasn’t until the internet came along and genealogy exploded “online” that Shirley started really connecting the dots. And what she found out about the Mannons, Hicksons, Hamiltons, and Williamsons was pretty astounding. A great-grandfather on trial for murder! When he was only 18!! (I’ll never forget the phone call from Shirley after she stumbled on that story!) A distraught mother’s tragic suicide that left a young family being parented by the older siblings. Another mother dying of sickness while shepherding her young children to life in a new world. The death of a grand-uncle that was featured on the front page of every newspaper in America. So much fascinating information to share.
Unfortunately, our father passed away before much of this came to light. How we would have loved to have shared with him that he was really Alfred Thomas Mannon the FOURTH rather than the Alfred Thomas Mannon JUNIOR that he always believed he was!! But, fortunately, we were able to question our surviving uncles to fill in some blanks. Our cousin, Carolyn Mannon Haber, did a huge amount of research on our movie producer grandfather’s life and his contributions to that industry. And, thank heavens for Uncle Bob’s amazing memory and penchant for story telling!! And we were so lucky to have him sharing those stories with so much detail — up to the age of 92!
I got involved later in the game when genealogy was mostly a computer endeavor. In addition to the research, I have become very interested in DNA and found many cousins who were previously unknown. We have 9 members of our family who have tested and close to 100 new “cousins” identified and put into our tree. I have made trips to Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York researching relatives. Boughs and Branches in its present form is just the tip of the iceberg and much more is coming. I have found many, many stories and most of them are still bouncing around in my head. This website is just a way to get the stories out of our heads and into the heads of any relatives, close or distant, who might be interested — whether now or in the years to come — for my generation or those who are younger.
They say that “Genealogy is All About ‘the Dash‘”. A cemetery stone typically has a birth year and a death year. In between those two numbers is “the Dash” – or the lifetime lived in between the two dates. Finding out the stories and adventures, triumphs and tragedies that make up “the Dash” is what makes genealogy such an fascinating and rewarding endeavor — and obsession, some would say! We hope you value these stories and realize what strong, amazing individuals our ancestors were! Or most of them, at least!
Photo by Shirley Mannon McDonald 2011
Leslie Susan Mannon, 2023
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