Cousins & Other Close Connections

Grace E. Yeager Hunt, and mother Maggie Wilson Yeager Find-A-Grave website (photo submitted by Dr. Jon Tyler Conner) Ref: Find A Grave - Grace E Hunt I ran across this photo recently on the Find-A-Grave website, and after at first thinking the names sounded familiar, I then realized why. Besides making for a striking photo, this pair help illustrate how closely interrelated our neighboring communities were in and around Sullivan & Vigo Counties. This mother-daughter photo is of Grace Ellen (Yeager) Hunt and Margaret ‘Maggie’ (Wilson) Yeager. (This photo would have been taken in the mid-1890s.) Maggie, the daughter of Henry Kouchman Wilson and Mary E (Mann) Wilson, was married to Warren Milton Yeager of Prairie Creek; second marriage for both.  Their daughter Grace would marry Arthur Hunt, also of Prairie Creek. Through the Wilson family tree, Maggie was a 1st cousin to Tacy Margaret (Cochran) Smith, the grandmother of our grandmother Mildred (Smith) Thompson. Maggie’s husband Milton Yeager was a 4th cousin to Clara (Yeager) Phillips, mother of Leo S Phillips. Therefore, Grace was a 2nd cousin to our ‘Great-Granddad’ Edgar Smith, of Cass Twp., and a 5th cousin to ‘Grandpa’ Leo Phillips, of Graysville. To round out our family connections, Grace’s husband Arthur Hunt was a 3rd cousin to ‘Grandpa’ Walter Thompson through their common ancestry (Hunt family from Guilford County, NC).  Arthur and Walter were also 4th cousins and 5th cousins through other lines of the Hunt family. Also, Maggie (Wilson) Yeager was a 1st cousin to Mary (Mann) Durham, the mother of Thomas Mann Durham who was married to Ruth (Eno) Durham, 1st cousin of 'Grandma' Helen (Cushman) Phillips. Got it all?