Sarah Fox Hickey

My great-great-grandmother, Sarah Fox Hickey, was the daughter of John Fox and Mary Livezey. Most of the documents I have which refer to Sarah give her name as Sarah N. Fox (or Hickey). One of my third cousins had theorized that Sarah's middle name was Nice, after her mother's sister (Sarah Livezey Nice). This seemed like a good theory, since it was a common practice in Mary Livezey's family to name daughters after married sisters. For instance, Sarah's youngest sister was named Tacy Hallowell Fox after her mother's sister (Tacy Livezey Hallowell).

Although I thought my cousin was probably right about Sarah's middle name, I had never come across any documents to confirm or refute this theory; that is, of course, until yesterday. My husband and I made a trip to the Maryland State Archives yesterday to do some genealogy research. We spent most of the time looking at microfilmed copies of death certificates. One of the death certificates I looked at was for James and Sarah Hickey's youngest daughter, Agnes Matilda ("Tillie"), who died in 1965.

I was mostly trying to fill in some gaps in my research, such as where and how Tillie died. I did find that information, but Tillie's death certificate also provided me with an unexpected bonus.

Later death certificates list the names of the deceased's parents. There is a place on the certificate for the mother's maiden name. However, sometimes the person supplying the information about the deceased did not know the maiden name and would just give the mother's first name or her first name and married name. At first glance I thought this was the case with Tillie's death certificate. The name on the certificate was pretty faint, and when I first looked at it I thought the name was Sarah Hickey.

When I took a closer look at the name, though, I realized that the last name was not Hickey at all. Tillie's son had given her mother's name as Sarah Nice Fox. So I finally had confirmation for Sarah's middle name, when I wasn't even looking for it.