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Physical wooden portrait pieces shaped like a human silhouette linked together by lines on a gray background, image by Freepik
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My Lafayette County, Mississippi Web of Connections

Abbeville, Lafayette County, Mississippi is a very small rural town. The population (as of 2020) is only 372 people. It was originally founded by people who migrated there from Abbeville, South Carolina in the 1830s. I’m interested in Abbeville because my father and majority of his ancestors (at least back to 1870) were born either there or in larger Lafayette County. Because it’s a low population area, I’ve run across interesting connections between families there as I work on creating profiles for Abbeville’s citizens on WikiTree. I was encouraged by a friend to write about one such experience.

A little over a week ago I was checking for errors on WikiTree profiles I’d created when I ended up working on the profile of Eddie Frank Gordon who married my paternal grandmother’s younger sister Clemmie Thompson. I saw that another user had connected him to his parents and some siblings so I figured I might as well finish adding his siblings and their descendants, especially since it would increase my CC7 count (which is the number of profiles connected to you through either DNA or marriage within seven degrees). As I started working on the new profiles I realized that one of Eddie’s nephews (Robert Andrew Gordon) married my 1st cousin 2x removed Alma Austin (who was also the 1st cousin of Clemmie Thompson). I’d added him to WikiTree when I created the profile for Alma. I went, “Huh!” It wasn’t exactly surprising since Abbeville has always been small, and this kind of connection had happened to me before. I kept going.

Soon, I realized that one of Robert Gordon’s siblings (Mattie Ree Gordon) had also been previously added to WikiTree because she married K. Austin, my 2nd cousin 1x removed (first name removed because he may be alive). K. was the nephew of Alma. I figured this had to be it. Three connections from a single extended family to my extended family was a fairly high number. I wasn’t done adding everyone in the extended Gordon family, but I was sure I wouldn’t run across more.

Then I went back up to Eddie’s father Wiley and started working on his parents and siblings. They are all also within seven degrees of me. It turns out that the granddaughter of Wiley’s sister Sarah, Sarah Certain, married the older brother of Clemmie Thompson, John Littleton Thompson. So, a fourth connection. By now I wasn’t discounting more connections as unlikely as they seemed to be.

A fifth connection eludes me right now, but I have a feeling that it exists. My CC7 count increased from 796 to 881 largely because of my Gordon family research. It’s interesting to see the connections between people. I’m considering creating a One-Place Study for Abbeville to have a place to share interesting observations about how everyone relates.

Below is a diagram of the intermarriages between the Gordon extended family and my own extended family. Dashed lines indicate marriages. Click on the image to view it larger.

A diagram of marriages between the Gordon extended family and the extended family of Miyako Jones.
Miyako

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