I was adding some people to my tree on ancestry from my master copy of my tree most names with birth and death years to flesh out later. One family is too unconventional for ancestry to understand and so unrelated people show up as half-siblings. Probably partly my fault for having the step-dad attached to all his step-kids from his four wives so step kids with no bio connection to each other are listed as half siblings.
It's a fun puzzle. I always try to include the step-families and adopted and similar in my trees as I feel that they are still part of the family even if not by blood. One of the main reasons is to honor the Nance family in my own way. And the other being that my grandmother's Culpepper line are actually the descendants of the step-son of a Culpepper (bio-father not known).
Edmun (also spelled as Edmund) Nance was born in St. Clair Missouri in 1845 and married Matilda Bradley.
They had three children : William Henry Nance, James Nance and Laura (Nance) Owens.
Matilda died and Edmun remarried.
His second(?) wife was Mary J.
Mary J. had two sons from a prior relationship: Greeley R "Horace" Graham b 1872 and William Henry Graham b 1875 - the brothers are recorded with the Nance surname in 1880 instead of Graham.
Edmun Mary J. and all the kids are in the 1880 census Arkansas.
1880 Census has Mary's sons with Edmun's surname but 1900 has it as Graham
- Greeley in Edmun's household as step-son and William Henry Graham next door in step-brother William Henry Nance's household as step-brother.
Edmun and Mary had one known child together: Elizabeth (Nance) Griffin b 1882.
Mary J. is assumed to have died sometime before 1900 as I have not found her in that census and Edmun is listed as a widower.
By 1900 Edmun is a widower with two 'new' step-children: Mary Elizabeth Ridgley and John H Christ.
John H Christ was a boy maybe a teenager when his older brother Greeley married in 1901 and the three Greeley, his bride Amanda Davis and his step-brother John are all in a wedding photo together, that was taken in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
Greeley R Graham married Amanda Delina Davis and his brother William Henry "Bill" Graham married Amanda's sister Norma Ellen "Nan" Davis.
Greeley and Amanda had 12 children together and all of them lived to adulthood married and had children. One of two families in my tree that can boast such a feat.
I had never heard of the Nance family before but when I brought them up in conversation with my grandmother's brother (a grandson of Greeley Graham) he recalled hearing his father Harper (Greeley's eldest) and his grandfather (Greeley) talk about "Old Man Nance" when he was young, but did not know who it was they were talking about.
