Nancy l hopkins
irish & german roots
irish & german roots

in nancy's tree are 2 surnames that also appear in mine: Hopkins and kelly. are we related? if so, how closely?
we will begin with the hopkins line
her parents: philip lynn hopkins & matilda rose vormwald
her parents: philip lynn hopkins & matilda rose vormwald
Okay, So we know that nancy's parents were married in 1947. Since the marriage index doesn't show who their parents were, how do we find out? Knowing that Nancy's parents had both passed away from this physical plane, i did an internet search and found their obituaries which gave me further information that I will not place here. However, on ancestry.com, i found the following: (other family members have been edited out, for privacy reasons)
Now we know that according to information given to the funeral home, Philip's parents were lynn t. hopkins and Alta m. ivory! But, knowing that for various reasons, records are sometimes not correct, i went searching for verification and found a 1930 census record listing philip l hopkins, son of lynn t and alta m & sister janice m.

to find out alta's maiden name, i searched NY marriage records and found that lynn t hopkins married alta m ivory 9 sept, 1924 in moravia, ny!
living In moravia town, cayuga county, ny on april 22, 1930 are lynn t. hopkins, age 28 born in ny,; his wife alta m., age 26, ny; daugter, janice m., 2 yrs 10 mos.; and son philip l., 4 yrs and 7 mos. this census gives us addition information, too. Lynn owns a trucking business, he and alta have been married about 5 years and both of Lynn and alta's parents were also born in New York. Since Lynn is 28 and has been married 5 years, I go searching for a 1920 census record to see if he is still living at home with his parents and find lynn t, son of william w and ada hopkins living in homer, cortland co., NY!
cool! we find that lynn's parents are william w. and ada hopkins and that he has siblings. now let's take a closer and more detailed look at the record!
now that we've enlarged the image a bit, we can see that lynn t, age 18, born ny, is the son of william w. (53 NY) and ada (51 NY) hopkins. lynn has siblings, floyd c (28 NY) and eva s(20 ny), and is an uncle to 7 yr old, leah a hulbert. Both william w and ada's parents were born in ny. william is a farmer.
as you can see, the 1900 census gives us a bit more info than most other census records such as birth months, how long married and how many children the mother has given birth to and how many are still living. oN THE ABOVE us FEDERAL CENSUS RECORD TAKEN 21ST DAY OF jUNE 1900, WE FIND wILLIAM AND ADA HOPKINS AND THEIR CHILDREN, MAUDE, FLOYD, FAY AND EVA. ACCORDING TO WHOMEVER SPOKE WITH THE CENSUS TAKER, WILLIAM WAS BORN IN NOVEMBER OF 1866, IS 33 AND HAS BEEN MARRIED 11 YEARS. ADA IS 32, BORN IN APRIL 1868 AND HAS GIVEN BIRTH TO 4 CHILDREN WITH ALL 4 LIVING. BOTH THEIR PARENTS WERE BORN IN NEW YORK AND WILLIAM IS A CARPENTER. THEIR SON, LYNN T HOPKINS IN NOT YET BORN. THE IMAGE BELOW GIVES US MORE INFO. (note: ages, birthdates and places of birth may not be remembered correctly, if even known. use records as clues.)

https://findagrave.com
whomever created William's findagrave page was kind enough to include his obituary. But, it doesn't say who his parents are. however, we learn that William was born 1866 in Cortlandville, Cortland Co., NY. So, searching for william Hopkins born about 1866 in cortland, ny, we find the following census record for cortlandville, cortland co., ny:
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Patrick O'Connor married Mary Ellen Kelly
10 January 1839
Donneraile, County Cork, Ireland
10 January 1839
Donneraile, County Cork, Ireland