An SS-5 Form Points the Way

I've been doing some family history research for a friend and sent off for her grandmother's 1937 Social Security application, her SS-5 Form. My friend did not know much about her grandmother's family so I was hoping for some leads from the SS application. I wasn't disappointed; the form listed the applicant's parents' names.

Armed with this information, I was able to discover a good deal about her family, who have farmed in Gibson County, Tennessee for many generations. I was struck by the fact that one ancestor, Samuel Hughes, was born in 1805 in North Carolina. I wonder when his parents arrived in America? Differently from my own ancestors, my friend's ancestors have deep, even pre-revolutionary war, roots in America.

One interesting discovery was that David (Davy) Crockett, himself a descendent of pre-revolutionary war ancestors, was an early settler of Gibson County, Tennessee. At first, when I saw "David Crocketts" on 19th century US census records in the same civil district as my friend's ancestors, I smiled, not yet knowing that these Crocketts were actually relatives of the famous man himself! Nice.