This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Hayes, Pierce, Hockenberry, Guess/Gess, Colkitt Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/UaB.2ACE/909.1304.1.1 Message Board Post: Joyce, Are you related to Harrison Hayes, son of Thompson and Marabey Pierce Hayes. Or you related to another Harrison Hayes with a definite middle name of Harmon. Thompson and Marabey were my 3rd great grandparents through son Harrison and Harrison's daughter Rebecca Marby Hayes. If you are researching the same family, do you know who Elizabeth Colkitt's Hayes (Harrison's first wife) parents were? And, do you know who Harrison's second wife was? I have heard that Elizabeth also had a daughter named Addah who may have been born in early 1864. Since Harrison was away on Civil War duty in Virginia, was this child Harrison's or child of someone else? In my mother's family there were many strange tales about this family having "problems" and the grandparents taking on the care of their children. Never got anything near what the truth might have been until very recently when I was able to get a copy of Harrison's 2 letters from a military camp in VA to one of his sisters. In these letters he indicates trouble at home and staying in the service even though suffering a slight disability would be equal to going home at this time. He also mentions that he probably would not receive more mail from "Betsy". Can you shed any light on this family. Would like to communicate with people researching this family. I am particularly fascinated with the Hayes' family's tendency to give the males family/surnames as middle names. Looking at some of these surnames, one can find many of these families in New Jersey and Baltimore areas. Makes one wonder if they might not have come down through the female lines! Hope we can communicte on this line. Ginny