Some Questionable Family History for my Cousin

This is info I had put together for a cousin back in 2013, based on my father's remembrances --

Our "Grandma Brown" is, of course, Eunice J. Price ... as to her given name, when my father called her "Eunice 'jay' Price", I don't know whether the 'jay' is an initial "J.", or just the letter "J" itself (in the manner of your father, L B Miller), or whether it's the surname "Jay", or just the word or sound "Jay" because her parent's liked the sound of it.  I've tended to think of her as "Eunice Jay Price", but I'm not aware of any "Jay" family in her ancestry.

Grandma Brown was born on January 27, 1892 (or 1891), near Lutts (on Horse Creek), in Hardin County, Tennessee.  She died on February 5 (or 6), 1981, in South Bend, Indiana (where she is buried).  Her first husband was Westley Scott, who died in 1918 (their children were Earl Scott, who died young, aunt Clura Scott Brown, and uncle Brownloe (or Brownlow) Scott); her second husband was your grandfather, ?? Miller (their son was your father, L B Miller); her third husband was my grandfather, Joseph Haley/Hailey, who died in 1936 (their sons were Jackson William B Haley, who died young, and my father, Samuel Jefferson Richard Joseph Hailey); her fourth husband was (Charles) Benton Brown.

Grandma was 1/4 Jewish by ancestry (by way of her grandmother, Caroline Franks), and according to your father, she was part Indian.  When I was a kid, I asked her if she was part Indian, because to me she looked exactly like an old Indian woman.  She denied it -- but the *way* she denied it, I didn't believe her.  At my mother's funeral, I asked my uncle, L B Miller, her son, whether Grandma was part Indian, and he said that "her people" were ... his manner indicating that *everyone* knew that.  I've read that at one time, if you were "white", it was more socially embarrassing to have Indian ancestors than to have black ancestors (which may explain why my mother didn't know until after her father died that his mother was Indian). 

Grandma's parents were William Price (per the information added below, apparently born in 1870) and Drusilla ("Drew") Frazier (per the information added below, apparently born in 1873, and her name actually being 'Drucella J Frazier').  I don't know which spelling of "Frazier/Frazer/Fraser" they used.  I've read that "Frazier" is an American spelling, with "Frazer" and "Fraser" being the spellings used in Scotland.  The name/spelling "Frazier" *is* associated with Hardin County, so I think that's the one to use.  My father thought that William died in 1910, in Wayne County, Tennessee, and is buried at Lutts, in Hardin County.  My father thought that 'Drew', as he always called her, died in 1911, in Hardin County, Tennessee, at White Hollow.

William Price's father was Edward Price (the family were probably originally Welsh) and his mother was Caroline Franks (who *may* have been born in 1844 ... I found a Caroline Franks in Hardin Co in the 1850 Census, but I don't yet know that she is our Caroline) (her first husband was a Harris).  The Franks family were Jewish, part of a small small clan of inter-related Jewish families who are among "our people" -- so, Grandma was 1/4 Jewish by ancestry.  My father thought they were originally from Germany (though, I've read years ago, that the Jewish surname 'Frank' originated as being what the Ashkenazi, Northern and Eastern European Jews, called the Sephardic Jews who had been expelled from Spain and Portugal ... I suppose because they arrived in German by way of France).  Caroline Franks's family lived along Horse Creek, in Hardin County, Tennessee.  

Drusilla Frazier's father was Edward Frazier (he may have been known as 'Jim'; the family was Scots-Irish, which means they were Scots/English who had migrated to Ireland in the 17th century, before migrating to America in the 18th or 19th century; the family name may have been O'Frayer at one time), my father thought he died about 1950, at the age of 104 (though the information below says he died in 1933); her mother was a Murphy (My father didn't know her Christian name, according to the information below, she was Mary A. Murphy).  

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When I was a kid, my father told me about an old family joke: when you heard that So-and-So Franks was getting married, you were supposed to ask, "Who is the other one?"  The joke being that as there weren't that many Jews in Hardin County, the Franks would tend to marry cousins.  

Both sides of my father's family are related to the Franks family. On the Price side, with Grandma being a granddaughter of Caroline Franks. On the Haley/Hailey side, my father's uncle and aunt (half-siblings of my grandfather Joseph Haley), both married grandchildren, via her first marriage, of Caroline Franks, children of her daughter Mary Harris and Saul Shuburte/Shuburts (both of whom I understand to have been Jewish) -- my great-uncle Byron (or Byrum) Ward ("Uncle Barn") married Mary Jane Shuburte and my great-aunt Zubie Sesile Ward married J Walter Shuburte.  Another two daughters of Mary Harris and Saul Shuburte, married brothers named Brown -- Henry Brown married Lizzy Shuburte, and William Brown married Cass (Catherine?) Shuburte.  Henry Brown and Lizzy Shuburte were the parents of our aunt Clura Scott Brown's husband, Carl Brown.

These Browns, related to both of my father's parents, are also related to the Bensons.  But, I know next to nothing about your mother's people, so I don't know just how the relationships work out.  For instance Edward Brown, a brother of the Henry and William mentioned above, married Nancy Benson, but I don't know how she may be related to your mother -- Nancy Benson's mother was Lizzy Hatley, whom I take to be a 1/2 sister to Arthur Hatley, married to Rosey Esther (Ethel?) Price (Grandma had a sister, whose name I have written as Rosey Ethel Price; I found an obituary for a Will Price, who is definitely Grandma's brother, which lists his surviving sister as Mrs Ethel Hatley), and "Tude" Hatley, who married another Franks woman, and "Queeny" Hatley, who married "Jap" Copeland, 1/2 brother of Henry Brown, William Brown, and the Edward Brown who married Nancy Benson.  Someone my father called "Icey Dora" Benson (I suppose that's Isadora) married James Brown, a brother of Grandma's fourth husband, Charles Benton Brown.  Idella Brown (a sister of James Brown and Charles Benton Brown) married a John Scott (whom I suspect is related to Grandma's first husband).  Their sister, Louella Brown, had a son named Jack Horton, who married a Della Benson.

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I did find a webpage [back in 2013, but which no longer exists in 2026] about an "Ed Frazier", who was married to a "Mary A. Murphy"  -- they had a daughter named "Drucella J Frazier", born in April 1873 ... making her old enough to be Grandma's mother.  Ah-ha! "Drucella J Frazier" married William Price on April 23, 1891 in Wayne County, Tennessee (which is next to Hardin).  So, she is our great-grandmother, and I've been misspelling her first name all these years; and perhaps the "J" in Grandma's name stands for the same middle name as hers (Grandma would have been their first-born).  

According to these linked pages:

1) William Price was born in Tennessee in 1870. Drucella J Frazier was  in April 1873 in Manteca, San Joaquin, California.  They married in Wayne County, Tennessee, on April 23, 1891. (My father thought that William died in 1910, which would have made him about 40 at death, and "Drew" in 1911, which would have made her about 38 at death.)

2) Edward Frazier was born in April 1848, in Tishomingo County, Mississippi (which I believe is where our aunt Clura lived; it's adjacent to Hardin County, Tennessee, and Lauderdale County, Alabama), and died on October 1, 1933, in Lilbourn, New Madrid County, Missouri. Mary A. Murphy was born in 1846 in Martin Mills, Wayne County, Tennessee, and died in April 1890, in Martin Mills, Wayne County, Tennessee.  They married June 18, 1867, at Martin Mills, Wayne County, Tennessee; they had 14 children, with Drucella being the youngest (and he had another seven with his second wife, Mary Emma Brown ... who appears to be related to some of the other Browns in our family, and to the Franks, and to the Murphys -- pioneer families tended to be interrelated, for example: James Sylvester Frazier, son of Edward Frazier and Mary A. Murphy, and brother of our "Drew" Frazier, married Emma Tilley, daughter of Catherine E Brown, who was the sister of Mary Emma Brown, his father's second wife).

3) Edward Frazier was a son of "J Peter Williams" (born in 1811 in Lauderdale County, Alabama ... my father was also born in that county ... and died in 1859 in Martin Mills, Wayne County, Tennessee) and "Catherine" (born in 1818 in Lauderdale County, Alabama and died in Wayne County, Tennessee); they married in 1835.  Of their seven children, the first (William, though he's also listed as 'William Williams') and fifth (Edward) have the surname 'Frazier', the others have the surname 'Williams' ... I don't know that that's about.

[Note added in 2026: -- A Ward second-cousin once told me that my grandfather, Joseph Haley/Hailey lived most of his life as "Joseph Ward" ('Ward' being the surname of his step-father, his father having died before he was born), and was in fact buried under that name.]

4) Mary A. Murphy was the daughter of "Murphy" (born in 1820, in South Carolina) and "Elizabeth Lizzie" (born in 1826, in Newberry County, South Carolina).