This will be a short story but I thought it was too funny not to tell.
My grandfather had a most unusual first name for a boy, especially since he was the only boy with ten sisters. His name was Bloomer Edward Martin and for reasons I think anyone can understand he was called "Jack". He was the third child so maybe it helped a little that he wasn't also the baby. I was researching to find how he got such an unusual name when I found that he had a second cousin by the name of Holland Bloomer Tunnell. They were both born in 1902 in Van Zandt County, Texas but my grandfather was the oldest by six months, so it appears that Holland Bloomer may have been named after Bloomer Edward. Why would anyone give this name to their son unless it was a family surname? I still don't know how he got his name because I have been unable to find the name anywhere else in the family.
Bloomer Edward and Holland Bloomer both married in 1922, just four months apart. Holland Bloomer Tunnell married Rubye Higby in 1922 in Smith County, Texas. Rubye's parents were Charles H. Higby and Mary "Mollie" Killingsworth. Mollie Killingsworth was born in Gregg County, Texas and her grandfather was John Sweet Killingsworth, born in Bibb County, Alabama. He was married to Emmeline Abney, also from Bibb County, Alabama. I immediately recognized the Killingsworth and Abney surnames because I had researched them for my husband's ancestry! Needless to say, I couldn't wait to make the connection between these two East Texas families.
Emmeline Abney was the sister of my husband's 3rd great grandmother. The Abney and Killingsworth families migrated together, with a couple of other families, by wagon to East Texas around 1850. As it turns out Holland Bloomer Tunnell, my 2nd cousin, 2 times removed married my husband's 3rd cousin, 2 times removed. So....nothing to worry about as this makes us pretty far removed from each other.
I thought of the article "I Think I am My Own Cousin", by Lorine McGinnis Schulze on The Olive Tree Genealogy blog when I made this discovery. It's surprising how many times one finds in their research that two brothers from a family would marry two sisters in another and other unusual situations where a woman might marry her husband's brother after becoming widowed. It was a much smaller world way back when, and East Texas still is a small world. My mother once told me that there was a boy she wanted to date when she was in high school but my grandfather wouldn't allow it. Mama couldn't understand why her father wouldn't let her and argued that he was a very nice gentleman and from a good family. After a while and a bit of frustration, Granddaddy finally ended it by saying, "Because I'm afraid we might be related!"
