RootsChat.Com

Hi Jen,

Thanks for your response to my Sillick/Sparrow posting. Unfortunately, I can't make a connection to your Sillick. Mine are from Tavistock, Devon. I don't know much about the family.

I did have an interesting experience regarding the Sillick/Sparrow connection.

My father never spoke much about his dad's side of the family. Grandpa Sparrow died when my dad was about 12 years old, and, as a result, dad never had much interest in the Sparrow family. As I was growing up he only spoke of one Aunt: Flossie (Florence) Sparrow O'Neill who lived in Duluth, Minnesota. Richard Sparrow, my GGrandfather and dad's Grandfather, lived with the O'Neills after moving from Marquette, Michigan. I'm not sure when they moved to Minnesota. They are in Marquette in 1910 and in Duluth in 1920. Richard died in Duluth in 1924 in his 96th year.

When I began to do genealogy stuff, I learned from the 1900 Census that dad had at least three aunts in addition to Aunt Flossie. These aunts were listed with Richard's family in 1900 in Marquette. Strangely, some of them (Flossie and Mary) were also listed with their own families in other Michigan towns. I wonder how often that happened. I know of a number of incidences of "double listing."

One of my dad's "mystery" aunts was Mary Sparrow who had married a man named John Handford. Using the censuses and making some guesses, I traced Mary and John's children down into the 1930 census when their son, Harry, showed up married to a gal named Hattie Hanson.

The 1930 census is the last one to be opened and I came to a brick wall in my search for descendants of Richard Sparrow.

In the week before Memorial Day, 2003, I was surfing and I put the words Sillick + Tavistock into a Google search window. Sillick was the maiden name of Richard Sparrow's mother, Dinah. Richard was born and raised in Tavistock, Devon, England. I got about three hits. One of them led me to the Handford Genealogy Forum Archieve at RootsWeb. There, I found a note from a guy named Greg Schulte who was looking for anyone with information about Dinah Sillick and William Sparrow.

I e-mailed Greg and told him that Dinah and William were my GGGrandparents. He sent back a note and said that they were his wife Nancy's GGGrandparents, too. Nancy's mother is Sarah Marion Handford, the daughter of Harry and Hattie Handford. Nancy and I are second cousins.

A day or so later I got an e-mail from Greg with a picture of Richard Sparrow with two of his O'Neill grandchildren. It seems that Greg had been able to locate a Jack O'Neill, a grandson of Flossie O'Neill and another second cousin of mine. Jack gave Greg the picture of Richard.

A day or so later, maybe it was the same day, I got an e-mail from Jack with pictures of Richard and his wife. Jack said that he didn't know Richard's wife's name. I knew it was Hannah Tonkin Pike. Up until then I hadn't known what Richard or Hannah looked like. I had pictures of my other six GGrandparents, but not Richard and his wife. It was a real genealogical breakthrough.

There's an interesting twist to the story. In one of my e-mails to Greg I said something like,  "I'm guessing from your e-mail address that you live in the D.C. area." He wrote back and said, "We live in Great Falls, Virginia, just west of D.C.  We both work in the District, Nancy at the National Research Council and I at the White House."

I looked up Greg on the White House website the next day . He is the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council.

You never know what you're going to find.

Sorry for the long, rambling response. Thanks, again, for responding. Sorry I couldn't help.

Tom Sparrow
Allen Park, MI

Interested in corresponding with people who may be interested in the Sparrow and Sillick families from Tavistock.