Joan, Wish I knew more about my Nickel line..... However, I have only been able to get back to my Great Grandmother, Ella Nickels (Nichols) .... she was Native American and her roots are deeper than I have been able to dig. Not 100%, but she was definitely Native American. Even though, on one side of her family were very well-to-do people. They owned a Plantation in Virginia and family history states that when the carpetbaggers came through on their way South (to steal land down South), one told her he'd be back to get her Plantation. I'm guessing words flew, but he left. When he returned to "steal" her Plantation, she shot him dead. Like so many other Plantations, it burned and the Elders of the family found info. on it in Winchester, Va...... We have yet to find the info. that they found. Elders are all gone now and we don't know any more than we did 8 years ago. Another history lesson from the "now" Elders was that the young children used to play in the attic of the Plantation ...dressing up in the ball gowns and playing with the Confederate money. Ohhhh....to have just one of those bills now...... Ella was found working in Front Royal for a wealthy family. She had two daughters, Mary Belle b. 1880 Sperryville and Josephine b. 1882. She later married John Frye (Frey) and had 5 boys....John Sr., William "Bud", Elmer, Charles and Edward. But which Nickels family she came from is a real mystery in our family. Sorry I don't have much else to go on. We started too late to catch all the info. from the Elders that could have told us so much. Later Karen