An Unexpected Twist~
When I first started out on this 'decade-long-and-then-some' journey, I never realized the path it would take me down.
Footpaths of all descriptions not to mention the boggling 'mind' trips.
I have went through mud bogs, scrambled over ditches, waded through briar patches and been hopelessly lost on a lonely country road, trampled through plowed fields and mulled over countless emails to countless new “cousins“ along the way. Searched through ancestry files by the hundreds and hunched over musty smelling records at libraries and museums.
It has definitely not been what you would call “easy“.
So, would I do it all over again?
Oh, you bet I would! In a heart beat.
I wouldn’t trade a moment of this ride back through time for anything.
It has been such a gratifying , satisfying experience. Seeking the lost family and placing them back to their rightful place, alongside the others. It is just the right thing to do. They deserve recognition.
It has been a soul searching, self reckoning, and more often than not, deeply thought provoking experience.
It has brought me to tears of joy and to tears of exasperation, all in the course of one crazy afternoon.
Okay, am I overdoing that a little here?
NO. Not at all!
But this latest path was not one that I really never expected to take.
What a twist!
Untangling tangled lines will always be a ‘mystery’ just waiting to be discovered.
That is part of it all, the mystery and the unknowns.
But this??
I think I am my own third cousin-five times removed..giggle.
Seriously. They say that the more you search, the more you are searching for the same people everyone else is searching for.
We all descend from the few pioneers that made it over to these shores, and hacked out a life in the wilderness , unless your people were already here, of course.
There were only so many “Pioneers”. So instead of your tree multiplying at an alarming rate with each generation you trace back, the numbers seem to go down instead of up.
My 5th Great Grand Aunt Catherina Margaretha Dellinger, is just that..on my father's side..but she is ALSO my 5th Great Grandmother on my Mother's side. Now how did that happen??
I expected two very distinctly different trees that eventually would meld down to one. Then down to me.
A nice sturdy trunk, with lots and lots of leaves, with a few nuts, of course, added in for good measure. You just about have to have the nuts, you know.
A happy little tree... giggle...in a small town of North Carolina. Now doesn't that just sound nice?
That was just not what I found at all. Grin.
Das glaube ich nicht! (I don't think so! in German)
The Dellinger family that migrated here from Germany is more than a ‘simple’ ancestor to me and my family. They ARE our family , for the most part.
We have more than a little German blood flowing in our veins.
I found Catherina Margaretha Dellinger Hoyle in a patch of newly plowed field that serves as a growing ground for soybeans during the growing season.
She is buried there amongst her family in a tiny family plot.
She is barely three miles from where I live, so I just had to go find her.
I wanted to pay my respects, and I did just that..
Never realizing just who she was to me and what her place was in the family.
Hang on and stay with me, folks. This is something else!
On my grandmother Arrowood’s side, the Dellinger name comes into the line with Johannes Philipp (Pioneer) Dellinger, Sr.
He had a son named John Phillip Dellinger, in 1743. He married Barbara Weidner, daughter of Henry Weidner and Catherine Mull. Henry was the Catawba County pioneer. John Phillip was a signer of the Tryon County Declaration of Independence and a Captain in the Revolutionary War, he fought at the Battle of Kings Mountain. He was a brother to Heinrich Dellinger , born in 1740,of Magnolia Grove.
The Pioneer Dellinger also had a daughter named Catherina Margaretha Dellinger ,in 1773.
She married Michael Hoyle, son of Peter Hoyle and Susanna Catherina Dales.
This is where it all gets interesting.
Peter Hoyle was a German pioneer to the Gaston County, North Carolina area. He built the oldest house still here, located in Dallas, North Carolina.
This is the Memorial for Peter Hoyle and Catherine Dales Hoyle.
My Sixth Great Grandparents. The spelling of the name was changed several times down through the generations and is commonly spelled Hoyle now.
When his son Michael married Catherina Margaretha Dellinger they had at least 11 children. (5th)
One of these was Catherine Hoyle, born in 1773, she married George Huffstetler.
Catherine Hoyle and George Huffstetler (4th) had at least eight children, one of which was Mary Anne Huffstetler.
Mary Ann married Minor McCarter.
Minor McCarter was buried at Bethany ARP Church Cemetery, in York County, South Carolina.Minor McCarter and Mary Ann Huffstetler (3rd) were the parents of five children.
One of these was daughter Margaret Ann McCarter, born September 01, 1843.
Margaret Ann McCarter grew up and married William M. Barber on January 10, 1867.
This is the couple below, my second great grandparents.
This couple had at least seven children.
One of them was a daughter named Nancy “Nannie” Ann Barber.
Nannie Barber married Robert Samuel Parrott and had my grandfather, Wilburn Larry Parrott.
So, to re-cap and get this all straight..
Catherina Margaretha Dellinger ~(my 5th great grand Aunt on my Dad’s side).
Catherina Margaretha’s grand daughter, Mary Anne Huffstetler McCarter became my Grandfather’s (Mother's side) Great Grandmother. And also the 4th Great Grand Aunt of my father. Shaking my head over this one folks. Was that all clear now?? Giggle…
But we still have opposing thumbs, folks, amazingly.
What an eye opener that was.
Never saw it coming, not in a million years.