I know it’s a bit late but… Happy New Year family! I pray that you are all doing well and staying safe. Praying for a great start and lots of positive growth and blessings for all of you this year.

Not a lot this month. I just wanted to say hi after my hiatus, give a shout out and highlight birthdays and anniversaries!

Family Shout Out!

We are taking time out this month to highlight the business of Lucrecia Woodside (Johnnie Mae’s daughter, Aunt Mable’s granddaughter) and her business Accurate Business Systems.

ABS is the only African-American Female-owned UNION Print Shop in South Florida. They are a great source of promotional items for your business or organization. Visit her website and YouTube channel and share her site with your friends! Let’s promote and patronize our family businesses and ventures!

ABS YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCrow7mOV_2FQoXKfUYtftoQ

ABS Website: http://www.accuratebizsys.com/

January Birthdays and Anniversaries

Let’s celebrate the January and February birthdays and anniversaries. We have one milestone birthday this month. My great niece Aubrei (Kimm’s daughter, Debbie’s granddaughter, Uncle Ike’s great-granddaughter turns 16! Happy Birthday to Aubrei and to everyone else celebrating their birthday in January and February!

January Birthdays

January Anniversaries

February Birthdays

February Anniversaries

As always, if I have missed a birthday or anniversary, please send me a note.

That’s All Folks!

Well family, that is it for now. As I always ask, if you have any family pictures, obituaries or vital documents (birth, death, marriage, etc) – please let me know so that we can scan those documents to preserve them and to learn from them.

That’s it for now, stay safe family! Love you all!

Happy October family!

I pray that you are all doing well and staying safe. Those that enjoy the fall weather, now is your time as we watch the temperatures drop and the leaves change colors!

Family Info Research

The picture at that top of the page is the cover pages of the 1984 Harrison/Hickson/Stevens Family Reunion Program. This branch of the family includes our cousins in New York City who are descendants of Ezekiel Hickson (John Wesley’s brother). I remember going to Jamaica Queens with my parents to visit cousins Dolphus, Sarah and Eloise at least once a year. They had a family member who researched our family history and had a lot of great information and they shared the information at the family reunions.

I received a copy of this program years ago, when Aunt Ruth died. She had a copy of the program but it was missing several pages. It has a lot of great information in it, including a family tree for Cyrus Wesley Hickson (John Wesley’s father) and all of his 13 children. Recently, I was able to get a complete copy of this program along with an insert with an additional family tree for Issac Dicks from our Stephens (Stevens) cousins here is Philly. It just so happens that the cousin that has a lot of family information and is our dentist.

Beyond the family tree, there is a lot of great information in here including some additional information about Cyrus Wesley and his half brother Isaac Dicks but also some information about their mother Catherine. We were also fortunate that at the 1984 reunion, there were adds placed in the program that honored family members. There were names of children, dates of births and deaths and business info. It is all very exciting to see and gives us some additional info to piece together our family history.

I have heard over the years that some of you have questions about why I ask all of you to share information, picture, programs and more. The reason is simple, we do not have a lot of documented proof about our ancestors. That makes the documented information that we have even more important. That documentation helps to put together a paper trail of information that can lead to additional information. But if the information is in book or a box and not shared, it risks being lost forever.

As always, I am asking that you bring any family pictures or documents that you have to the family online get togethers or for you to scan them in and send them to me if you know how. You would be surprised how much information can be found in a funeral family reunion or wedding program. We really need to make a point of saving this information for future generations

Website Update

The update is in! The changes to the website are active and ready to use. Check your email and you will see three emails from me. Please read the (somewhat long) family update email first. It explains the other two emails and what to do if you don’t see all three emails. And don’t worry, there are instructions in the first email to help you find the other email(s).

For right now, the website changes will only provide additional information to those that have logged into the site. In the future, we will limit what can be seen on the site without logging in. Take a look at the additions and let me know what you think and if you have any additional ideas of what you would like to see in the future.

Family Get Together

It has been a while since we have had an online family get together, so I am glad to say that we are going to meet up this Sunday, October 10th at 3 pm eastern! I am asking that you check with other family members and ask them to join. It is a great opportunity to say hi, share information and to meet family members! Details for joining will be sent later this week.

October Birthdays and Anniversaries

I think that I have most of the birthdays for the family but if I have missed a birthday, please send me a note. The same goes for anniversaries, please send them to me and I will include them in the announcements. We have one anniversary this month, congratulations to Shanette and Emmitt! Happy Birthday and Anniversary to all!

That’s it for now family. Have a safe and wonderful day!

Hello family! Praying that you are all well and staying safe. This month, instead of a particular spotlight, I want to talk a little bit about preserving history.

Family History

The picture at the top is of the Hickson sisters. As you can see, the picture quality is poor. That is because this is a scan of a piece of paper that my parents printed, probably for a family reunion. There are 5 pages like this and each page has six pictures all of the same quality. Pictures like these are very special because they captured snapshots of our families over the years. We need to make a point of gathering these picture and preserving them. Since these pictures were taken before the digital age, they are the only copies of our history.

Similar to the pictures are family documents. The birth, marriage and death certificates, the newspaper clippings. the diplomas and the funeral programs all document the lives of our family members and are our history. Like the pictures, there are documents like these in all of our homes. Some of these documents can help to find new information and to gather additional information that may not be captured any place else.

Researching our family history can be difficult at times because of the lack of information available. Our family roots are in South Carolina but most vital records (birth, marriage & death certificates) were not required until around 1911 or 1915. And even then there are no records for a most of our ancestors, mostly because the state did not really have a way to enforce the law since a lot of people in rural areas were born at home. When I look at the brothers and sisters, I see that there is a birth certificate for Aunt Winnie and a delayed birth certificate for Aunt Willie Mae. Other than that, I do not see any others in the online index for South Carolina for the rest of the other brothers and sisters. We have searched online, in the libraries, courthouses and the state archives and we are not finding a lot. I have also talked to two of the church secretaries and the pastor of Fairbranch and they do not have any of this information.

So where does that leave us? Asking for your help. I am sure that most of you (especially our seasoned cousins), have some family documents, funeral programs and pictures in our homes or maybe even have scanned then onto your computer or phone. We need to capture this information and document who are in these pictures before the memory fades.

I am asking for everyone’s help in this mission. Please gather those family pictures and family documents and I will help you to either capture them digitally or get you help to capture this information. You will keep the originals but we will have a digital copy of the information for the future. I am looking at simple methods to capture this info and I plan on taking some time in our next Family Get Together to show you how to do this.

Family Get Together

Speaking of the next Family Get Together, let’s plan on a Zoom call on Sunday September 26th from 3pm – 6pm eastern time. As always, in addition to saying hi, I am going to ask again that you bring any family pictures or documents that you have, including funeral programs, family reunion programs, family bibles, etc. We will also discuss how to capture this information digitally. I will send out the details soon and reminders so that we can get as many as possible to join.

Reaching Out to Those Who Are Not Online

I want to get some of this information to those family members that are not online. I know that there are plenty of family members that are not online that would love to see this information. I have a volunteer that will put together a newsletter that we can mail to those family members that are not online. I need help from all of you to get these newsletters in the mail!

I have been asked several of you in the past to gather information for your branch of the family, and I thank you all for your help in getting that information. I want to ask again for your help and the help of others to document other family members and to gather their contact info so that we can send the newsletter to them in the mail. To keep the costs down, those of you that are reading this will have access to a file online that you can print if you want or your can download it. I have already sent something to a few of you and I will send out more requests soon. Please help to gather this info so that we can share and learn more about this family.

September Birthdays

Family, here are the family birthdays and anniversaries for August. As always family, please share any family news with me and I will send it out. I should have everyone’s birthday and some anniversaries and they should be correct. If I am missing anyone or have incorrect info, please let me know.

September

That’s it for this month. Take care of each other and please be safe!

Hello family! I pray that you are all well. We had a few family members join the get-together last week and I would like to plan another one for this month.

Let’s plan on a Zoom call on Sunday August 22nd from 3pm – 6pm eastern time. As always, in addition to saying hi, I am going to ask again that you bring any family pictures or documents that you have. Including funeral programs, family reunion programs, family bibles, etc. We really need to make a point of saving this information for future generations. I will send out the details soon and reminders so that we can get as many as possible to join.

Volunteers Needed!

I need some help from some of you. I have been sending family communications for a while but I am not sure that everyone is receiving them. There are 73 people from the family on the email list. Over the last 4-5 months I have received responses from 32% of the family. I am not sure if email is going to the spam folder, I have the wrong email address or people just are not interested. I think that there are people are receiving the emails that are not responding because I can see when they read the message in the Hickson Cousins Facebook group but will not respond to the emails.

Then we have the family members that I do not have an email address for or who do not use email or social media. My initial goal was to put the email list and Facebook group together so that those that do have email and/or social media will receive the information electronically and then I can send info through the mail to the others. This was a cost saving method because I didn’t want to send a letter to almost 100 households.

So that brings us to where we are now, asking for volunteers. I need some help from some of you to make some phone calls. I want to reach out to all of those who have not responded and find out if they are receiving the emails and if they are not, do they want to receive them. And for those family members who are not electronic savvy, make sure that we have updated information.

I will be honest, when I started typing this, I was writing to say that this was the last update and I was not going to continue with the emails or the website. But I am not going to give up. We have a large family and I think that it is important that we gather and share information and – most importantly – get to know each other. There are a lot of younger cousins that I have not met and I am sure some that many of you don’t even know exist!

If any are you are willing to pick up the phone and call some cousins, siblings, nieces, nephews, parents and grandparents, please fill in your name, email address, click Send Response. This will send an email to me and will not post anything on this page.

August Birthdays

Family, here are the family birthdays and anniversaries for August. As always family, please share any family news with me and I will send it out. I should have everyone’s birthday and some anniversaries and they should be correct. If I am missing anyone or have incorrect info, please let me know.

August

That’s it for this month. Look out for an email or two from me! Take care of each other and please be safe!

Just a reminder that we are having the family Get Together on Zoom, next Sunday July 18th from 3pm – 6pm eastern time!

Details will be sent this week!

Hello family! I pray that you are all well. Just when I thought that the challenges that have prevented me from posting had slowed down, work gets in the way.

July Spotlight

This month I want to highlight the patriarch of this branch of the Hickson family, John Wesley Hickson. If you don’t know who John Wesley Hickson is, he was the husband of Parcillian and the father of the Kate, Cora, Cyrus, etc. He has been the recent focus of my research since we do not know much about him. One of the biggest unknowns is when he died. What we have been told is that it was 1929, but confirming that with evidence has been a challenge. I will go into more about what we know in a later post.

Website Update

I know that a lot of you have wondered about the login prompts on the website. What is it for? Why is it there? That login opens the door to the next phase of the site, semi-private content. It will provide an opportunity to share more family info, showcase family member’s projects and more. There will be an email that explains how to log in coming to your inbox soon. I have finished the updates and I have a few people testing now and will expand it to a few more people before I open it to the entire family.

Family Interviews

I really want to capture the stories from those of you that know and have lived the family history. Since we are still in a pandemic and I cannot travel to you, we can perform the interviews through Zoom, FaceTime, Google Meet, telephone or whatever way that you feel comfortable. If you have challenges with using the technology, I will work with you to get you connected. I have a few people in mind, but if you want to volunteer, please let me know.

Save the Date! Family Get Together #6

Our May get-together was postponed, so I would like to have one this month. Let’s plan on a Zoom call on Sunday July 18th from 3pm – 6pm eastern time. In addition to saying hi, I am going to ask again that you bring any family pictures or documents that you have. Including funeral programs, family reunion programs, family bibles, etc. We really need to make a point of saving this information for future generations. I am also going to give a little family history lesson and share some of the info that I have! I will send out the details soon and reminders so that we can get as many as possible to join.

Family News

We want to congratulate two family members on their graduations this year. Sisters Chloe & Courtney Livingston (Michael’s daughters, Sandy’s granddaughters, Uncle Ike’s great-granddaughters) both graduated this year. Chloe has graduated from high school and Courtney has graduated from kindergarten! Congratulations to both of my great-nieces!

If you have any additional milestones that you would like to share, please send them to me!

June and July Birthdays

Family, here are the family birthdays and anniversaries for June and July. As always family, please share any family news with me and I will send it out. I should have everyone’s birthday and some anniversaries and they should be correct. If I am missing anyone or have incorrect info, please let me know.

June

July

That’s it for this month. Look out for an email or two from me! Take care of each other and please be safe!

Hello family! I pray that you are all well. I have had some challenges over the last few months that have prevented me from posting but I am back. Thank you all for your kind words, calls and texts. It is truly appreciated.

I can’t believe that we are have been dealing with this pandemic for over a year. I hope that you have all been vaccinated if you have the opportunity. If you are still on the fence about getting it or think that you won’t, I hope that you do some more research and reconsider.

May Spotlight

This month I wanted to highlight Uncle Thurman Hickson. Who doesn’t have a story about TE Hickson? First, do you know where what the “E” stands for in “TE”? Elijah, his middle name. TE was the 6th child and 3rd son of John Wesley and Parcillian. When we would go to Augusta in the summer, we would always make our rounds and make it to Perry Ave. I always remember how very intelligent he was and always pushed me to continue my education. My brother Derrick said it the best, “if he was born today, Thurman Hickson would be an engineer”. I remember every time I would see him, he would quiz me on the state capitals, give me math problems or puzzles to solve. And none of this was done on paper!

Family Highlights

I want to highlight and promote the businesses and passion projects of the family. It is an opportunity for all of us to share with the family and potentially gain additional exposure through social media and word of mouth. If you have a page that you want to share, send me an email with a quick summary of what you are doing and I will share it with the family.

First, we will highlight Bella Bing (Tamarah’s daughter, Dennis’ granddaughter, Tommie’s great-granddaughter, Aunt Laura’s great-great-granddaughter) and her YouTube channel Learning with Bella. Bella is 5 years old and this is her learning channel for kids. It is so cute and I can’t wait to see more episodes from her! Congratulations Bella!

Family Interviews

I have not had an opportunity to reach out to schedule family interviews, but I am going to start my calls this week. I really want to capture the stories from those of you that know and have lived the family history. Since we are still in a pandemic and I cannot travel to you, we can perform the interviews through Zoom, FaceTime, Google Meet, telephone or whatever way that you feel comfortable. If you have challenges with using the technology, I will work with you to get you connected.

Save the Date! Family Get Together #6

Alright family, we have not gotten together for a while so let’s plan on a Zoom call on Sunday May 23rd from 3pm – 5pm eastern time. In addition to saying hi, I am going to ask again that you bring any family pictures or documents that you have. Including funeral programs, family reunion programs, family bibles, etc. We really need to make a point of saving this information for future generations. I am also going to give a little family history lesson and share some of the info that I have! I will send out the details soon and reminders so that we can get as many as possible to join.

March, April and May Birthdays

Since I have not posted for a while, I am going to list the birthdays for March, April and May. Here are this month’s family birthdays and anniversaries.

March

April

May

As always family, please share any family news with me and I will send it out. I should have everyone’s birthday and some anniversaries and they should be correct. If I am missing anyone or have wrong info, please let me know.

Take care of each other and please be safe!

Hello family! I pray that you are all well. I can’t believe that we are coming up on a year of lockdown. I will be so glad to get a vaccine and begin to bring this plague to an end!

February Spotlight

This month I wanted to highlight Aunt Kate Holman. Unfortunately, I really don’t know a lot about her. I know that she passed a few years before I was born, that she had a son named Kendrick who moved to NYC and that she raised Uncle Leroy’s daughter Betty Jean after he passed. Beyond that, I don’t know a lot. That is a reason why I do the genealogy research, to gather information, stories, pictures and video of family so that they are not forgotten.

I have spent a lot of time online, in the library, courthouse, churches & cemeteries looking for documentation and clues to piece together our history. What I have not done enough of is interview those of you that know and have lived the family history. I am going to reach out to some of you very soon to see if I can interview you through Zoom, FaceTime, Google Meet or whatever way that you feel comfortable.

Family Research

Speaking of family history, it’s been a while since I have given an update on the family research. I am still trying to find a date of death for John Wesley Hickson who is the family patriarch. He was the father of Ike, Cyrus, Mabel, Kate and the other brothers and sisters. I have been told that he passed in 1929 and all of the evidence that I have found points to that but I have not been able to find documentation. South Carolina began to require death certificates in 1915 but I have not seen his in the archives.

I am pursuing other ways to get the information, but I have not had any success yet. I have spoken with 2 of the last three church secretaries (and the son of the third) of Fairbranch Baptist Church in White Pond, where most of our family attended. They have not seen where the church documented births, deaths and marriages in the records that they have seen but I am hoping that we can come across older records.

My next path is with the funeral homes since they usually keep detailed records. I have been in touch with one in Barnwell and I am going to contact one in Williston this week or next. Hopefully I will be able to convince one of them to take a look and send me a picture, otherwise it will have to wait until we can travel there again.

I have another update, Thurman Jr’s daughter put me in touch with a cousin who is a descendant of Enoch Hickson, who was John Wesley’s brother. She has information on Cyrus Wesley Hickson who was John Wesley & Enoch’s father. Cyrus Wesley was a slave who was born in Africa and it has been told that he landed in Richmond, VA. Uncle Enoch’s great-granddaughter has the bill of sale of Cyrus to the Dick plantation (he was later sold to the Hickson plantation) and the name of the boat that he came over on from Africa! She also has a Hickson family crest that she will share! And finally, she told me that there is a historian council where they share research. Thanks Kim L. Kim Holman-Stancil, I will be in touch!

Save the Date! Family Get Together #6

Alright family, we have not gotten together for a while so let’s plan on a Zoom call on Sunday February 21st from 3pm – 5pm eastern time. In addition to saying hi, I am going to ask again that you bring any family pictures or documents that you have. Including funeral programs. We really need to make a point of saving this information for future generations. I am also going to give a little family history lesson and share some of the info that I have! I will send out the details this week and reminders so that we can get as many as possible to join.

February Birthdays

Here are this month’s family birthdays and anniversaries. I should have everyone’s birthday and some anniversaries and they should be correct. If I am missing anyone or have wrong info, please let me know.

February Anniversaries

As always family, please share any family news with me and I will send it out. Take care of each other and please be safe!

Happy New Year family! I pray that you are all doing well and staying safe. A new year is here and hopefully we will move on from the year that will not be named. Praying for a great start and lots of positive growth and blessings for all of you this year.

This month’s birthday spotlight is for Charisse Johnson, Diane’s daughter and Aunt Becky’s Granddaughter. I congratulate her on obtaining her MBA and for starting a business, but I really want to show appreciation for what she does for her family. I remember in 2011 when Aunt Willie Mae died, she drove her mother the entire 1580 mile trip from Detroit to Augusta and back. Most recently, she has been a rock for her mother, helping her in so many ways while working through her own grief after the loss of her brother. Charisse, may God continue to keep and bless you!

January Birthdays and Anniversaries

Let’s begin to celebrate the birthdays and anniversaries this month. No milestone birthdays or anniversaries for the month. Happy Birthday to all!

Birthdays

Anniversaries

As always, if I have missed a birthday or anniversary, please send me a note. That’s it for now, stay safe family! Love you all!

I pray that you are all doing well and staying safe. Hopefully we are seeing some light at the end of this tunnel with vaccine approvals and a new administration coming in next month. While I am happy that this year is almost over and change is coming, I am saddened that we lost two family members last week. Life is very precious and we have to cherish our loved ones.

This month’s birthday spotlight is for Aunt Ruth Brown. Growing up, I felt closer to Aunt Ruth because I got to see her a lot more since she lived here in Philly. It was always nice to see her an Uncle HB and I can still see their apartment like I was just there yesterday. Oh how I wish that I asked her more questions and had her tell me more stories! I did have the opportunity to interview her, Aunt Willie Mae and Uncle Thurman at the 1999 reunion and get a lot of information but I know that there is so much more that I could have learned. I also can’t believe that none of us got her recipe for that peach cobbler!

Why do I do this?

I have been asked a lot a questions over the years about our family genealogy. Why do you do family research? Why do you gather family information? Why do you ask for information? What is the end result? I will be honest, I ask myself these questions a lot. Especially when it seems that very few family members are interested in the family history and even fewer are interested in communicating and sharing information.

I have been working with Kim (Vicky’s daughter, Betty Jean’s granddaughter, Uncle Leroy’s great-granddaughter) to gather family information. I can’t speak for Kim on this, but I am sure that she will agree. I do it because we are a family and knowing your family history is important. If it is just for curiosity, medical history or just knowing your roots; I believe that knowing your history is empowering and satisfying. Because the Hickson family roots (like lots of other black families in America) are rooted in slavery, it think that it is incredibly important that we gather whatever information that we can, whenever we can. Gathering family information, no matter how small, can help to piece together information that was lost because there were no written records and the oral stories were not passed from generation to generation. Without those sources, we have to piece together information from marriage certificates, death certificates, funeral programs, newspapers, etc. It is not easy so any additional documents that we gather helps to complete the story.

How many of you knew that none of the 14 (yes, 14!) brothers and sisters (Kate, Cora, Cyrus, etc) had birth certificates? Aunt Willie Mae has a delayed birth certificate but we have not found one for any of the others, including my dad. Most have death certificates but we do not have them all. Who knew that there were two sets of twins? Who knew that John Wesley (the father of the brothers and sisters) was one of 14 or 15 siblings? There is a lot of information that is known and a lot that is unknown. That is why we have been on this quest for so long and why I ask for funeral programs, wedding programs, family bible information, pictures. We are just asking for help that may save hours to months of research.

I will get off of my soap-box now, but I hope that you all have a better understanding of the reason why I do this.

December Birthdays and Anniversaries

Let’s begin to celebrate the birthdays and anniversaries this month. No milestone birthdays or anniversaries for the month. Happy Birthday to all and and Happy Anniversary Eddie and Emily!

As always, if I have missed a birthday or anniversary, please send me a note. That’s it for now, stay safe family! Love you all!