I'm including this on my website, not because I think the world is going to be fascinated with my family history, but because genealogy buffs often rely on others that are researching the same families.
I often get asked about my last name, Bacquet. However, this is my married name; my husband's father's family was French. I was born Karen Dee Hayre in Stockton, CA, and now live in the region where my mother's family came from. Because of other activities I engage in on the web, I prefer to keep that location off my website, but I will answer private inquiries from others who are researching genealogies.
I will add more information as I discover it, and would welcome correspondence with others researching these families.
My father is Jack Avery "Jake" HAYRE, the eldest son of Jack Hayre, Jr. and Dorothy Kizer Hayre.
Jack HAYRE, Jr., my grandfather, was the only child of Jack Hayre and Mamie Duncan Hayre. He actually wasn't a "junior" in the legal sense, since "Jack" was actually a nickname for my great-grandpa Glen Hayre, who was born in Tennessee in 1882. He was the son of John HAIR and Ella RICE. I remember once hearing that the spelling change from HAIR to HAYRE was the idea of great-grandpa's schoolteacher. While I'd agree that it looks a bit more elegant, that schoolteacher doomed Jack's descendents to correcting spelling and/or pronunciation constantly. I swore, when I was young, that I'd marry a man with a simple name like Johnson or Williams, then I ended up with Bacquet, which is even worse. Anyway, great-grandpa Jack was the first of the Hayres to move to California. He died in 1962.
My paternal grandmother, Dorothy KIZER Hayre was the elder daughter of James LLoyd Kizer and Teresa Golden Kizer, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1892. James Kizer was born in 1894, in Oregon, which is where his father, Edward Hamilton Kizer was also born. I have no information on his mother's family, the CUNNINGHAMS, but his grandmother, Mary WIGLE, can be traced clear back to Jacob Wigle who came from Germany and settled in Pennsylvania sometime before 1780, when his eldest son, John, was born. Kizer is, likewise, a German name.
My great-grandmother, Mamie DUNCAN Hayre was born in Missouri in 1896, the daughter of John William Duncan and Mary Gruber Duncan. She died in 1988. The GRUBER side of the family has been quite well researched. Mary was the daughter of Swiss immigrants, Christian Gruber, and Katherina Christina MARGADANT Gruber, both of whom were born in 1828. Katherina's parents were Christian Margandant and Margeth WERLI Margandant.
My mother was born Sharon WOLCOTT, February 21, 1941. She died in 1978. She was the elder daughter of Donald Wolcott and Dorothy WYMAN Wolcott.
Donald WOLCOTT was born in 1919, and died in 1998. He was the eldest son of Ray Wolcott and Frances PAGE Wolcott. Their other children were Elywn, Bud, Joy, and Judy. I have no detail about the PAGE family, but there appear to have been in America since the 1700s. The first WOLCOTT ancestor here in California was Alva Frank, who bought land in Sacramento in 1872, through a military service grant, presumably from service in the Civil War. His son, Lorenzo, established the family sheep and cattle ranch, which at its peak had 3,000 acres and was in Wolcott hands for five generations before it was sold in the 1990s. Lorenzo, his wife Mary, and most of his children moved on to Oregon, but his oldest son Jesse stayed on the California ranch. Jesse's son, Ray was my great-grandfather.
The WOLCOTT family originated as landed gentry in Somerset, England. Henry Wolcott was a Puritan who emigrated with his family in 1630 to escape persecution, and he became a magistrate in Connecticut. All the Wolcotts, right down to my great-grandfather's generation were quite active in civic affairs. Henry's descendents established themselves in Wethersfield, Connecticut. For more details on the Wolcott family tree, click here.
Grandma was born Dorothy Marjorie WYMAN on May 23, 1921, the elder daughter of John Richard "Jack" Wyman and Mary TARRATT. Besides, Dorothy, they had another daughter, Norma.
Mary Tarratt was born in Nebraska in 1890, and died in 1991. She was the elder daughter of Henry "Harry" TARRATT and Sarah WHEELER. Both Henry and Sarah were born in England, immigrated to Canada, then Nebraska, New Zealand, and finally settled in California. Sarah's parents were killed in a carriage accident when she was young, and she took work as a maid, generally referring to herself as "an orphan" if asked about her background. According to Grandma, she spoke with a Cockney accent, calling her husband " 'Arry". Henry was a sailor who jumped ship in Canada, which is where the two met and married.
The WYMAN side of the family has been quite thoroughly researched by Grandma's half-sister, Marion Wyman Works. Jack Wyman's parents were William Henry Wyman and Petra Maria JosephaCIBRIAN. (Her name was frequently anglecized as Mary Josephine.)
William WYMAN was the second son of George Francis Wyman and America KELSEY Wyman. George Francis was born in Oswego, N.Y. and was a fur trapper in California in the 1840s, and family tradition says he was present when John Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill. It is not legend, but history, that he married America Kelsey, then a girl of 14, in 1846 at Sutter's Fort. America Kelsey was a famous figure in northern California history, and last I heard, her picture still adorns the San Joaquin County courthouse. Ironically, although she is an ancestor on my mother's side, she settled in the region where my father's family comes from, quite close to where I lived as a small child.
The KELSEY family emigrated to Oregon with the Hasting party, then later traveled to California in their own party. America's parents were David and Susan COZZART Kelsey, and they built the first home in San Joaquin County, near what is now French Camp. America was the youngest of their many children. David Kelsey died of smallpox, and Susan was left blinded by the disease. George Wyman helped America bury her father, then later married her. She died in 1916, reminiscing about the older, simpler days "when beef and beans alone made the bill of fare". America and George Francis Wyman had ten children: George, William, Frederick Benjamin, Charles, Theodore, Richard, Grover, Lizzie, and Emma.
From what I can tell the COZZART family descends from French Huguenots. There are several variants of the name, and there seems to be a lot of them in the southern U.S.
Petra Maria Josefa CIBRIAN married the William Henry Wyman. Their children: James Henry, William, David, Alice, Victor, Charles, John,James Blaine, Walter, Eugene, Francis, Henry. She was the daughter of Jose Gabriel Cibrian and Marina BUELNA. Her grandfather was Leocadio Cibrian, who came from Tepic, Mexico to California around 1790. He was a soldier stationed at Monterey Fort, and he married Petra Maria ARCHULETA y PACHECO.
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More information on the Gruber family.
More information on the Wyman family.
More information on the Wolcott family.