Dear Hillsboro Researchers... Please accept my apologies in advance for the length of this, but having so little to go on, I have to give you everything I know. My grandmother always claimed her father was a close relation to the president yet I have never been able to locate any info on him at all. I am hoping that someone might recognize the family names. FRANK(LIN) PIERCE b ca 1850 to the best of my reckoning and was a cabinetmaker by trade. He married (1) Unknown, and had sons FRANKLIN, ARTHUR and CLEVELAND, birth order unknown, tho' it is believed that son Franklin was born 1882 and died in Vermont in the early 1960's. (Apparently the vitals I have on this younger Franklin are improper as a request Vermont VRs came back as unknown). (2) MARY (aka Mae) LAURETTA McDERMOTT, a 16 / 17 yr old still living at home in New Haven, CN with her parents PATRICK and ANNE GORMLEY McDERMOTT. (One source shows Mary's maiden name as GRAHAM and an elderly cousin recalls his father saying she was married under the name of GORHAM. We believe a false name was used to conceal family embarassment). Frank(lin) and Mary were "indiscrete" - Frank(lin) was literally chased to Petersburg, Isle of Wight, Virginia and a marriage forced. The result of this indiscretion was my grandmother, DOROTHY MAE PIERCE, who was born there March 24, 1888. (Town records destroyed in a fire, of course, since this is the only hard fact that I have!). Her only sibling, LEWIS WESLEY PIERCE, was born in the early 1890's in Norwich, CN. Later family residences were in the greater Boston area, mostly to the north. It is believed that Franklin died considerably sooner than Mary Lauretta, who passed away in Lawrence, MA in 1941 and is buried in New Bedford, MA. This is our family's longest standing brickwall....please, can anyone help? Thanks so much, Barbara Stuart