This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Hicks/Smith Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/Cei.2ACEB/2907.2925.1 Message Board Post: Very interesting about your information on the possibility of a DEAF gene in the Hicks family. My GGG Grandmother was Elisabeth Hicks of Monroe County TN and NC, married to Augustus Smith in 1851 in Monroe County Tn. My Mothers sister was basically deaf (could hear some) from birth, and the physicians told her it was a deafness passed down in families, and she was the first. Dennis Doughty