My Mama, Nellie Frances CANTY

NELLIE FRANCES CANTY THOMPSON

18 Apr 1912  --  20 Jul 1957

Mama was a Yankee.  Born and raised in New London, Connecticut.  If she remembered her Daddy at all, it wasn't any better than I knew her as he disappeared from her life when she was a small child.  I was just 5 when she died of cancer, leaving me a few memories and photos.  Fast forward to present and now I have my genealogy, a way to find out more about her and about her parents' families.  In any case, this blog isn't about her Yankee side.  Its about finding out about what it was to be a CANTY.

Her father lost his mother at a young age, had to live with relatives, ended up in the Army and that put him in Connecticut.  I've tried to ascertain what happened next.  Divorce?  The family says Fannie (my grandma)  was widowed 4 times so according to them, he must have died.  No one knows anything about the "first" husband.  But those records.... They say he was living down is Georgia with his brother around 1918.  My mother would have been 6 years old.  So why was Thomas Canty living with his brother in Clyo, Georgia when he had a wife and 3 children up in New London, Connecticut?  So far, I don't know.  I'll need to find marriage/divorce certificates and Thomas' death certificate.  Still searching...

Anyhow, back to my Mama.  Did she know she had Southern roots?  I think she would have liked to learn more about her Canty family.  So, next I'm going to see what I can find out about her Grandpa Canty.  Again, back we go, heading toward the era of the Civil War.

Beginning Steps

Nellie Frances Canty was born in New London, Connecticut in 1912.  The first step I took to find out more about my mother was actually the old fashioned way.  I wrote a letter to the clerk in New London and paid for my mother's birth certificate.  When it finally arrived, I not only learned where she was born, I learned for the first time about her parents.   This birth certificate was actually established not when she was born but 30 years later in 1942 by her mother via a sworn affidavit.  Because of this, the information about my grandfather was really based on grandma's memory and not on actual records. 

On this affidavit, my grandmother listed her name as Fannie Billings Enos Canty Saunders.  Fannie was born in 1890 in New London, Connecticut.  Grandfather's name was listed as Thomas Walter Canty.  His occupation was Bugler-U.S. Army - Fort H.G. Wright.  His birthplace was listed as Augusta, Georgia; however, later I found out that he was really born in Barnwell, South Carolina.

This was an exciting experience.  That first rush of adrenaline that comes with finding a new piece of information that previously was unknown.  Since I really didn't know my mother, this was the beginning of making her a real person in my mind.

Who Am I?

"What's your mother's maiden name?"  Now there is a question that I have been able to answer for years.  "My mother's  maiden name is Canty."  "How do you spell that?"  I knew the answer to that too.  "C-A-N-T-Y, Canty." 

My mother died when I was five years old.  I had just a few pictures and some information that my father shared with me.  But contact was lost with her family.  Today you can do research with the click of a finger.  In the 1950's, keeping track of each other when they moved away was much more difficult.  For those reasons and perhaps the challenge my father had in raising a five-year old, my mother's Canty family was lost in my life. 

The loss of my mother, Nellie Frances Canty, has affected my entire life.  It has affected the way I raised my children, the choices I have made in spiritual matters and how I view living on a daily basis.  Thankfully, due to the encouragement of a friend, I decided much later in life to to search out my mother's story.   I am finding out in this process  not only who she was and who her family was, but who I am.