My mother's great-grandfather, MARION WASHINGTON DENNIS, remains a mystery to us today as do his parents. Even after 5 years of Y-DNA testing and learning that he is descended from a FREEMAN male as far as my uncles' Y-DNA, we still cannot pinpoint where or when the name change came about.
Here's some of what we know about Marion and his younger life as written by his daughter Hallie DENNIS NUGENT to her half-sister, Mary Washington DENNIS GARDNER. Be warned, she was not real literate and it has been transcribed as she wrote it with little punctuation:
"The Dennis family ar Grandfather Marion Washington married
Mary Bell had 2 sons Joseph Marion (spaces
left between these words) William their father did in the Civil War
their mother died when Papa was 7 and Uncle 9.
I don’t know what part of Fla it was where they grew wheat and
apples. 2 of the farmers each taken the
boys, they were 30 miles apart got to see each other twice a year. Uncle left home to come to Texas when he was
16 came to see Papa wanted him to come with him that was the last they saw each other When Papa was 16 he came to Texas taken
a week to come by boat, no train or telephone them days. When they got Galveston men came to haul the
freight. One man let Papa work on his
wagon to Prairie Lea. Man by name of
Mooney gave him a home and he went to
school stayed with them 7 years Then married my mother.
Grandpaw gave them some land, Papa built a house and dug a well after I
(end of page).
Hallie went on to speak about the SMITH FAMILY (Grandpa
Willie – William C. SMITH), Grandma Edna Pinglim (Edna Pendley) and
others.
And she also mentions that Marion Washington DENNIS had been married 3 times. The only marriages we know of for him are that of my great-great-grandmother, his first wife - Elizabeth Della WRIGHT, daughter of Isophena MIEARS and Geo. Washington S. WRIGHT; and 2nd wife - Laura SMITH, daughter of Edna PENDLEY and William C. SMITH.
I grew up not too far from my DENNIS family at San Angelo, TX. All I ever heard was that they were "Irish". Imagine my surprise when Y-DNA testing revealed that we were FREEMAN'S in surname and that our haplogroup was Q1a3a, which is a Native American Indian Haplogroup.
Here is the only picture I have of Marion Washington DENNIS,
born ca. 1855-FL or AL. He may be the 14 year old Marion Dennis
living in the household of Benjamin ASHELEY (ASHLEY) in
1870-Elmore County, Alabama. This Marion Dennis I cannot disprove being our Marion! By 1880 he is married to Elizabeth
and my gr-grandfather, Oran Marion Dennis is born in
Guadalupe County, Texas.
Marion Washington Dennis,
would you please show up somewhere
ca. 1854 to 1870, please?
Your loving gr-gr-grand-daughter,
Revis
