by: Bearzfacts
In 1918 when my father was 6 months old his family moved from Arkansas to California. My grandfather's brother and "sisters" all moved here also. I put sisters in quotes because they were married when I met them as I grew up and thought nothing of it. As it turns out they were half sisters.
I asked my father about his grandfather and he said he had NEVER known who his grandfather was. So, during a meeting in Texas I jumped over to Little Rock and drove to dad's home town of Lamar. In the cemetery I searched for and finally found the headstone for Phillip Henson in the Barger plot.
Poor Phillip had a tough life. He and sister Nancy were orphaned before or during the Civil War. After being raised by the Rollinson family in eastern Arkansas he ended up in Johnson county and married Julia Barger in 1881. The second son, my grandfather Howard Carl Henson, was born in 1886 5 months after Phillip died! Julia remarried 2 years later to a Simpson and had the 3 girls that became my grandfather's sisters.
After a quarter century of research including DNA tests I have gotten nowhere with the Henson line past Phillip. Luckily while bashing my head against the brick wall of Henson research I have done well with my 100% Cornish mother's family.