Week 33: Troublemaker (does Coronavirus count?) #52 ancestors

Oh my gosh.  I ended up taking a test for COVID-19 last night after a day of headache, runny nose, and sore throat.  Miraculously, the results showed up in my patient portal this morning, negative!  But I spent the night mentally figuring out who I would have to contact and how many people this would be if the test came back positive and resolving that I was going to up my isolation game this week if the test came back negative.  Six months in, it is hard to maintain diligence but it's still important.

I'm sure there are actual troublemakers in my family tree (I've talked about a couple of them, Thomas Prewitt, annoying neighbor, and Welthian Loring who complained loudly about being cheated at business by a neighbor in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts and was accused of being a witch for her trouble.  Fortunately, it came to nothing).   However, I am going to talk about this week's struggle with a troublemaking question about my paternal grandfather's mother.  The following is my theory about who all of these people are and how we ended up with this very messy narrative.  I think it is a plausible explanation of the confusion over names and relationships.

About the only thing I'm sure about is that her name was Lucy Elizabeth and she was married to Joseph William Prewitt.  Here is where it gets messy.  Or maybe it gets messy well before that.  In the 1860 census, someone named Lucy C Prewitt, age 7, (and let us allow that the middle initial may be wrong) was living with her father R.C. Prewitt, age 38,  and her grandmother Elizabeth Prewitt, age 67.  Actually, I am assuming the relationships based on likelihood and also on what little I know of these people.  Her birthdate and place match those of someone known as Lucy Elizabeth Kettion who is listed in numerous places as my grandfather's mother.  In the census of 1910, someone who appears to be recorded as "Jane Kettion" is listed as a stepdaughter to the head of household, Joseph Prewitt.  Suddenly Lucy becomes Kettion, even though she's been married to Joseph for 39 years at that point.  

OK, who is Jane Kettion?  When I finally looked at the census online and zoomed in on the names, I realized that this was actually Ione Kettion.  "Kettion" turns out to be one of the creative ways to spell Keaton or Keeton.  Ione was my father's half sister, so not the stepdaughter of the head of household Joseph, but his step-granddaughter.  Holy moley.  Ione was the product of the first marriage of my grandmother Olive (Ollie) Howdeshell to Charles Keeton.  I am convinced that the census taker just did not understand the relationship, not that anyone was trying to conceal Ione's origins which were perfectly respectable, even if the end of her parents' marriage was not (divorce, hopefully).

This leaves us with the problem of Ione's step-grandma Lucy's origins.  Since her surname was already Prewitt, it looks like Lucy was the first cousin of her husband Joseph.  It's a little more distant than that:  they only shared a grandfather, with different grandmothers.  Robert C. Prewitt had two wives:  Susan Garth who had only one child, Vaul Allen; and Elizabeth Elgin who had many children including another Robert C.   Joseph was the child of Vaul Allen and Lucy was the child of the second Robert C.  It's kind of creepy if you ask me but I assume matrimonial prospects were limited in the backwoods of Missouri at the end of the 19th century.

So to recap:  Lucy Prewitt married her half first cousin Joseph William Prewitt.  Their son Claud married Olive Howdeshell Keeton who came to the marriage with a daughter Ione Keeton (Kettion).  The census of 1910 describes Ione as a stepdaughter to Joseph which led someone to think that Lucy's name was Kettion.  

Thanks to a contact on Ancestry, Tom, I learned that Lucy Elizabeth was generally known as Lizzy.  No one in that family could hold on to their first name (Claud was actually George Claud):  either they used their middle names or had some sort of diminutive.  Lucy/Lizzy's husband Joseph was apparently known as Jody.  Ione's mother Olive was always known as Ollie, even on her death certificate.  All of that ended in Ione's generation, as her three half-brothers including my father were all known by their given names (mostly), but that is a different rabbit hole to be saved for another day


(George) Claud Prewitt, my paternal grandfather.  I talked about him a bit in week 31, "Large"

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