Leetonia woman chronicles all things Stanley in newsletter

An interest in ancestry drew Nelda Stanley
Hawkins into a national family organization.

By LINDA M. LINONIS

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

LEETONIA — Nelda Stanley Hawkins often finds herself immersed in old photographs, birth, marriage and death certificates and letters from long ago.

The link to the past makes the present more interesting to Hawkins, who puts her history buff personality to work as production editor of the Stanley News.

The newsletter, published three times a year, is the official publication of the National Stanley Family Association.

Never heard of it? The organization is on the same lines as family associations based on the common surnames of Smith and Jones.

An interest in family history led Hawkins to the first meeting of the National Stanley Family Association held Sept. 25, 1989, in Damascus, Ohio. Kenneth L. Stanley, now deceased, was elected as first president.

“There was quite a group of families with the name Stanley,” Hawkins said, referring to families in Ohio with the name. “We put out the word. Many of us had been interested in genealogy.”

Researching your genealogy can lead to surprises, disappointment, pride, embarrassment and myriad other emotions. The researcher never knows what will be uncovered. One quirky tidbit that Hawkins uncovered was that her now ex-husband is her eighth cousin.

“We’re all interrelated somehow,” Hawkins said, posing the idea that every person is just “five degrees” away from a relative.

Hawkins came by her information while researching her family.

“The Stanley family can be traced to 1066 to England,” Hawkins said. Stanley descendants in the United States go back to the Stanleys of Hanover County, Va.

The first known ancestor, according to the Stanley family Web site, was Thomas Stanley. His three known sons, James Stanley, Thomas Stanley Jr. and John Stanley, are recognized as the forefathers of the Stanley family in America. They originally settled in Virginia, and records are preserved at St. Paul Church in Hanover, Va. Records show James was baptized in 1688, Thomas in 1689 and John in 1691.

Eventually, members of the family, who were Quakers and could not abide slavery, moved North. That’s how Stanleys came to settle in Indiana and Ohio.

In the most recent Stanley newsletter, Hawkins wrote about a postcard collection she had as a girl. When looking through the cards, Hawkins came across cards from her aunt, Peggy Thelma Stanley Holloway, including one of the slave auction building in Florida. She discovered information on Joshua and Abigail Stanley of North Carolina. Their home was a stop on the Underground Railroad, a series of secret stops for runaway slaves making their way to freedom.

Hawkins is a member of the James Stanley family through her paternal line, her father, the late Clifford Stanley.

“He was an orphan,” Hawkins said of her father, who lost his parents at a young age when they lived in Indiana. Relatives sent him to a Quaker boarding school in Ohio, and that’s where he met his future wife, Velma Hall. They settled in the Salem area. Her father’s aunt, Edna Stanley of Indiana, wrote a book on the lineage.

The association also is using modern technology to establish profiles of Stanley family groups through the Stanley Surname DNA Project, which is one of 200 such efforts in the United States. This profiling, done on male family members, can determine which family groups are related and have common ancestors.

Family members also get together at reunions; one is planned in June in North Carolina.

“It’s really neat to go. You don’t realize you have so many relatives ...,” she said about the reunions she has attended.

Hawkins said her three sisters are members of the Stanley association but her three children aren’t members. “It takes young people to keep it going,” Hawkins said, and noted they liked to read the newsletter articles she writes.

Hawkins not only assembles Stanley News, but has three other newsletters to her credit. She puts together a newsletter for southern Mahoning County and northern Columbiana County Lutheran churches and as secretary at Jerusalem Lutheran Church in Columbiana she does its monthly newsletter. Her newest project is Crossing the Threshold, a newsletter for Threshold, an assisted living service for people who are handicapped.