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My middle name is "Ellsworth" and I am "7th cousin twice removed" of
Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth, the first publicized casualty of the U. S. Civil
War.
Because my middle name is Ellsworth, I have received questions
by e-mail
and U. S. mail, asking if Ellsworth is one of my ancestral
surnames.
This question is even more demanding of attention since
Ellsworth is also
the middle name of my father, my grand-uncle and my first-cousin
removed-one-time.
Genealogists researching that surname hope that I have
information on
the Ellsworth family.
This has made me become curious about the origin of
Ellsworth as a middle name in my family tree, so I have studied
this question
and made this page for those who are curious.
I was first curious, because my grand-uncle, and his son,
are both named "Elmer Ellsworth Hickman," which means they
have as their first and middle names the first and last names
of Col. Elmer Ellsworth.
Then my curiosity was really piqued when I discovered that Col.
Elmer Ellsworth's mother was a "Denton," and the mother of
my grand-uncle, Elmer Ellsworth Hickman, was also a "Denton."
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As you will note below, my family tree (Denton line) does
have a connection
to the Ellsworth family.
But, Ellsworth is not one of my direct ancestral
surnames.
Instead, the answer is found both in a collateral family relationship
between my ancestral Denton family and the Ellsworth family,
and in American History.
The first identified Hickman family member with the Ellsworth middle
name was my
grand-uncle, Elmer Ellsworth Hickman.
His son (Elmer Ellsworth Hickman, Jr.), and also my father
(Harold Ellsworth Hickman), were given that name after Elmer.
I, in turn, got the Ellsworth middle name from my father.
- During the U. S. Civil War there was a Colonel in the Union
Army named,
Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth.
Our Col. Elmer Ellsworth was killed by Confederate forces when he
crossed into Virginia and tried to remove a rebel flag.
In fact, he was the first publicized casualty of the U. S. Civil War.
Our Col. Elmer Ellsworth was also a personal friend of President Abraham Lincoln,
having helped on Lincoln's campaign in Illinois.
Reporters who saw President Abraham Lincoln immediately after he learned
of Col. Elmer Ellsworth's death wrote that the President broke
down into heavy sobbing when he learned of Col. Ellsworth's death.
President Lincoln arranged for Col. Elmer Ellsworth's funeral
to be held in the East Room of the White House.
Using search engines on the Internet, I have found many people
whose
first name is "Elmer" and whose middle name is "Ellsworth."
Like my grand-uncle, Each of the Elmer Ellsworth's probably
carry the name down the line from the
Elmer Ellsworth in the Civil War.
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So, people whose surname is Ellsworth, may actually be related
to this
Elmer Ellsworth in the Civil War.
Or, people who carry the Ellsworth middle name,
especially when someone in the family background
was given "Elmer Ellsworth" as first and middle names,
may unknowingly carry on the tradition
of naming boys for the Civil War figure.
- HOWEVER ... Our Hickman/Denton family does turn out to be related
to Col. Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth. Colonel Elmer Ellsworth's mother's maiden name was
Phoebe
Denton.
My great-grandmother was born a
Denton, and
she's the one who started the tradition of giving Ellsworth as
a middle name to Hickman men, a few years after Col. Elmer Ellsworth
became a hero and martyr as the first Union Soldier killed in the
U. S. Civil War.
In Fact, Col. Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth was my "7th cousin twice removed,"
because he was a "7th cousin" of my grandfather, Charles Ambrose Hickman.
"Ellsworth" in the Hickman/Denton Family
- Ellsworth as a middle name applies to at least four members of
my Hickman family line:
- Mark Ellsworth Hickman (me)
- Harold Ellsworth Hickman (my father)
- Elmer Ellsworth Hickman (my grand-uncle)
- Elmer Ellsworth Hickman, Jr. (my first-cousin once-removed)
The chart below will illustrate how we are related to
Col. Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth.
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