Copyright © 2009 Frances Kirkland, used with permission
This marker is in the Entrekin Family Cemetery in Forrest County, Mississippi. I couldn’t find Katie in my file which surprised me because I know every Simmons in a several county area. I assume she married a Simmons but which one? It took me about 30 minutes of frantic mouse clicking on the internet cross referenced with the information I already have my file to figure out that she was the daughter of George Hickman and Mary Catherine Elizabeth Entrekin. I was now able to place her in the family. Katie’s mother Mary was the sister to my great-aunt’s husband. My great-aunt also happens to be a Simmons. There are a lot of Simmons – Entrekin marriages so I am pretty familiar with the Entrekins too. I couldn’t find an obit for Katie which of course was the first place I looked. I then expanded my search a bit. I found her in a very unexpected index, the California Death Index on Ancestry.com. California? Really? Here is the entry, it is definitely her.

I just have to know who she was married to. Two of my great-uncles are buried in this cemetery but I can rule out that she was married to either one of them. They were the only two of the brothers that lived in this area along with one of their sisters (the one that married the Entrekin). Knowing this family so well makes this really frustrating. There were more brothers but they didn’t live in this area. All but one would have been quite a bit younger than Katie. I am keeping this one other brother of the right age on my radar for now but this would have meant that he and Katie were divorced and that she never remarried which is a less likely scenario than if it was a different Simmons altogether. There are plenty of Simmons cousins out there but not in this community.
So what is my next move? I have a request for Katie’s California death certificate in the envelope which will be mailed today.
I did try searching on Ancestry.com’s tree for a Hickman with a father named George and a mother with the maiden name of Entrekin that married a Simmons to no avail. Even if I had found it, I would have still ordered the death certificate. Stay tuned!
Copyright © 2015 Michèle Simmons Lewis