I was poking about in my husband's family line the other day, filling in some siblings of his direct ancestors, and I came across an interesting marriage in southwest Florida, an apparently very high-society wedding. It was described in the elegant terms of the day when one closely minded one's p's and q's.
A famous surname popped up: Chiles. Here in Florida, among those of us who have interest in and some knowledge of the state's 20th century history, that name is quite recognizable as the surname of one of our best governors: Lawton Chiles.
So I dug around. In one lengthy newspaper coverage of this society wedding I had found, there was the groom, bearing that surname, and down about three-fourths of the way into the article, there was the name Lawton Chiles, identified as the brother of the groom. But this wedding took place in 1921, as published in the Lakeland Evening Telegram on 4 June of that year. It turns out that this Lawton Chiles was the father of the man who became governor.
So I dug further and I found the connection. It is a distant relationship, but it is always wonderful to find a famous person in your family's history, especially when that person is someone you admired. I gathered censuses from 1900 to 1950. I found World War 1 and World War II draft registrations. I found marriage records, birth and death information, and more.
My husband's grandaunt Annabelle married Robert L. Mayes, Jr. His sister, Annie C. Mayes, married Alfred B. Chiles. Alfred's brother was Lawton Chiles, Sr., the man mentioned in the article about the wedding of his brother and Miss Mayes. Lawton Chiles, Sr. married Margaret Patterson. And they were the parents of Governor Lawton Chiles.
Thus the relationship is: Lawton Chiles, former governor of Florida, was the nephew of the husband of the sister-in-law of my husband's grandaunt.
That's a fun find! Great job making the connection.
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