This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Hurst, Fagan, Gifford (maternal) Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/3g.2ADI/4239.1 Message Board Post: My great-grandfather was Nichlos H. Hurst, who claimed in the 1910 US. census that his father came from the German part of Switzerland. He married my great-grandmother about 1873. I do not know her maiden name. My mother, who knew her before the age of 6, claims she spoke mostly "German." I doubt that. Her name, according to several censuses, was Tennessee Alabama (no known maiden name). I believe those are the states from which her parents came. Nichlos died in Concho, TX, between 1910 and 1920. Tennessee (who called herself "Alabama") died sometime in the 1930s. She lived with my grandparents. However, their marriage broke up and she disappears from view around 1931, when my grandmother, Nora Fagan Gifford, moved her children west, finally settling in Casa Grande, Arizona. I would like to know more about the Hurst part of my family, if anyone knows. My mother claims they were Jewish. (She told me this years ago when I was 45. She said she had kept it a secret because of! the anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe--as well as in the US--when she was growing up. She claims she didn't mention it later because "I never asked." I didn't meet her until I was about 13 and we lived together only 5 years, when I left for college). Mom also claims Alabama spoke mostly German, but she really wouldn't have known what language Alabama spoke--at the age of 5, she would have known only that she did not understand her. I met my maternal grandmother, Nora Gifford, only a half dozen times and we never discussed "family." I never met my grandfather, even though he died (I believe) about 1988. So I don't have a lot of clues. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who knows about them. Thank you.