This is the family of Thomas Richardson of Benjamin, Utah, about 1905. All of them were enthusiastic Hickmans,
but only the mother, seated on the right, ever had Hickman as a last name. For more information on them, click here.
Could I Be a Hickman?
To be a Hickman, you obviously must be born into the family, although some very good Hickmans got there by marrying into it, and some were even adopted. Likewise, there are thousands of wonderful Hickmans whose families have not had "Hickman" as a last name for several generations. To be one of us, you should be able to connect yourself to one of the Hickmans mentioned on these pages by tracing your parents and their parents on back until you find an ancestor who was a child of one of them. There is a family quirk that might give you a clue that your branch of the Hickman family could be related to ours. This is explained by Hope Hilton:
The first and second given names used by the Hickmans for several generations were repeated frequently. For example, every family had a William, and a Thomas, Nancy, Lettice, Susanne, Caroline, Phebe, and Edwin. Some of these names even carried out to Utah such as Nancy, Thomas, Caroline, Phebe, Edwin and William. Mrs. Leona Hickman Peck, great-granddaughter to Edwin Temple Hickman of Denver, Colorado told me in April, 1967 that she often heard her grandfather Easom Hickman speak of "Phebe Hickman" but she did not ever understand who this woman was, when in fact she was Easom's great-grandmother.
Less common but repeated frequently enough that they usually tie families together were names like Josiah, Easom, Grills, Isbell, Temple, Elizabeth, Ellender, Mary and Sarah. This practice of repeating names from generation to generation helps a researcher to spot families that are of the same surname who are related. Branches of families more often than not tend to perpetuate certain names distinctive to their branch of the family tree.
--Hope A. Hilton, Edwin and Elender Webber Chiles Hickman, Some Progenitors and Descendents, Early Pioneers
of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Utah, 3rd Ed., August 1978, p.60
But how do you get started? Obviously the best way is by finding your oldest living relative and asking that person a lot of questions. When were you born? Who were your parents? When were they born? Where did they live? When did they get married? When you were a kid, what relatives do you remember your parents taking you to visit? Think up additional questions, and work from a list. Write their answers down. Ask if they have any pictures, letters, scrapbooks, diaries. Frequently such things are hidden away in a box in the attic or somewhere. Sometimes they passed to another family member who either treasured them, discarded them, or stashed them in the attic. Remember that these family sources are not likely to be found in a library or a newspaper or in a tax record, and these things are likely to have important personal value for you. Such sources as these are likely to get harder to come by with the passage of time; and with the coming of family history disasters (floods, fires, antique or garage sales, house cleanings) more and more of them will vanish and once gone, they're gone for good. If you find something that could be displayed in this museum, please contact me. I don't want the artifact itself--just images of it.In the process of gathering information you may have to make some long distance calls or write some letters, but you can accomplish a lot on the internet. For a starter, try these links:FamilySearch (LDS Church Genealogy Library, includes billions of family names and free Personal Ancestral File software.)
** The LDS Church recently made available on the web the 1880 US Census and 1881 Canada Census! Click here.
Cyndi's List (links to thousands of family history sites)
Rootsweb (A commercial genealogy database with lots of free information)
Genealogy.com (another useful commerical site with free stuff); click here.
SuperSearch (searches 16 major sites at once)
GenealogySpot (all kinds of useful genealogy links)
State Genealogy Records (You never thought you could access stuff like this on the internet!)
Webroots is a fully-searchable library of US History, with genealogical applications.
Map of US Surname Distribution
All-In-One Genealogists's Search
Mark Hickman's Many Genealogy Web Pages. (Of course it includes Hickmans!) Click here.
Did your ancestors own land? Then you may easily find their General Land Office patents here! Try it!
You can discover when and in which pioneer company your Mormon ancestor came to Utah right here.
Thanks to BYU researchers, biographies of hundreds of early Mormons may be found here.
The Book of Abraham Project has autobiographies of many early Mormons: click here.
Mormons and Their Neighbors is a BYU index of over 100,000 references to individual early Mormons. click here.
Did you have relatives that in 1846-47 served in the Mormon Battalion? You're in for a treat! Click here.
If you have Mormon ancestors from the part of Britain known as Wales, click here.
To see an index to Brigham Young's office files, click here.
Scott Kenney has created a site devoted to early Mormon history, with biographies, click here.
The University of Utah has digitized old Utah newspapers, and their text can be searched! Click here.
**You can also study all kinds of old Utah maps, photographs, diaries, and rare books: click here.
A companion project at Brigham Young University includes the Deseret News and Millennial Star! Click here.
Your Mormon ancestor may have been mentioned in Andrew Jensen's Church Chronology, click here.
For more information on any phase of Utah's history, use the Utah History Encyclopedia.
Brigham Young University has an online genealogy tutorial; click here.
Most of these are links to external sites. If you find one that doesn't work, please let me know; click here.
To return to the Hickman Family index page, click here.
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