Violetta (Ricketts) Hicks (abt. 1720 - 1747)

I have consulted two different books about the Quaker painter Edward Hicks (both of which are located at the library of Evergreen State College in Olympia WA), and they have Hicks genealogies located in the back of them.

According to one of them, the "Edward Hicks" who was the son of Edward + Violetta Ricketts is the same one who later married Elizabeth Elvina Cornell. This would be my direct ancestor, Edward "The Loyalist" Hicks, the member of "Butler's Rangers" who was hung in 1779 after his participation in the Battle of Minisink. (His son, Edward "The Spy", barely escaped the same fate and took most of the Hicks clan to Canada for free Loyalist lands.) "The Loyalist" was born in Hempstead, where his parents (Edward + Violetta) lived at the time.

The genealogy in the other book claims that the "Loyalist" was the son of Charles Hicks + Charity Stevenson, but that doesn't hold up to research, as Charles died decades before the birth of the "Loyalist". The "Edward Hicks" that came from him was a totally different one. I often wonder how anybody managed to stand out from their family peers back then, when they all had the same names (lol). This tendency to name everybody "Edward" and "Elizabeth" and "John" (etc) is a major part of the reason why these mistakes have been made (and repeated in later genealogies) for so long.

I believe that the "Lt Colonel Edward Hicks" claimed elsewhere as the son of Edward / Violetta might have been the actual son of a "John Hicks" from Wales, who is incorrectly credited on some pages as having been the father of "the Loyalist". That would be absurd, as that "John Hicks" never left the UK, and "the Loyalist" never visited there. After discovering these books and the genealogies in them (which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else), I am nearly 100% convinced that this is the actual truth. The key to it all is Hempstead (Hicksville), which traces all the way back to the first land acquisitions there by John Hicks after he emigrated to the New World with Herodias Long.

I have made paper copies of the genealogies, but I plan to go back to the college soon and create JPGs of them that I can post online as "proof". I will post those here as soon as I can. (Don Hicks)

Ricketts-581 and Ricketts-998 appear to represent the same person because: Same name, same husband, same son. It looks as though work on the birth detail is required though.