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Native Texan |
Stephanie "Steff" Ward Mandarino, daughter of Johnny Ward and Willa "Pete" Hanks, grew up in New Orleans, but was born in Texas to a Louisiana Cajun mother and a dad who was a Georgia peach.[1][2] Speaking of Johnny Ward, long story, but only recently, thanks to DNA and WikiTree, it came to light that HIS father was NOT the mysterious and elusive brick wall named "Frank Ward" found only on Johnny's birth certificate.
As for Willa "Pete" Hanks, another long story, but her Alsatian ancestors first arrived in Louisiana in 1721, and her Acadian ones in 1765. A hundred years before that, the patriarch of one Acadian line had left Lyon, France, to settle Port-Royal, Acadie (now-Nova Scotia), only to be dérangé by the English in 1755. Others arrived from France in 1785 via the Amitie, which sailed from France to the New World then-Spanish colony of Louisiana.
They married into other Acadian, and already-established German and French families, as well as newly-arriving Spanish, Irish and American settlers in southwest Louisiana. My mother's first language was French, but in school she was required to speak only English. She grew up in the time before Cajun cooking was considered cuisine and her Acadian heritage was embraced and celebrated by American Louisiana. By the time her children came along, she had assimilated so well (thanks to her WW2 service in Washington D.C. with the Marine Corps) that she had no trace of an accent and claimed she couldn't speak it when asked for help with her child's high school French (to be fair, Cajun French is quite a leap from the modern standard now taught). Met Joe Mandarino at Loyola Law School in New Orleans; married in 1991. Two children. Nothing before that matters.
PIP Guide, 11 March 2021
Participated in the USBH Connecting Challenge, adding 15 profiles, Feb 2021
Completed the Profile Improvements Project's Profile Improvement Voyage 18 Feb 2021
Challenge participant, winning team
Co-captain, Gulf Coast Hurricanes, 4th annual Source-a-Thon, Oct 4-7, 2019
Active Member, Categorization Project liason w/Acadian and Louisiana Projects, August, 2019, current
Co-captain, Gulf Coast Hurricanes, 1st annual Connect-a-Thon, Jul 12-14, 2019
Active Member, Rangers Project, May, 2019, current
Co-captain, new team Gulf Coast Hurricanes, 2nd Spring Clean-a-Thon, Mar 2019
Captain, Team Acadia, 1st annual Scan-a-Thon, 11-14 Jan 2019
Louisiana Families Project Coordinator, Oct 2018. Most of my time spent improving Louisiana profiles: adding sources; cleaning gedcoms; formatting and outlining biographies; merging duplicates; monitoring the project watch list; working with new members; clearing Louisiana errors; handling some communication. current
Co-leader, Team Acadia, 3rd annual Source-a-Thon, 2-4 Sep 2018
Active member, Profile Improvement Project, 20 Aug 2018
Participant, 1st annual Spring Clean-a-Thon, 5 Apr 2018
Participant, 2nd annual Source-a-Thon, 15 Sep 2017
Active member of the Data Doctors Project, 28 Aug 2017
Participant, 1st annual Source-a-Thon, 30 Aug 2016
Active member of the United States History Project, 23 May 2016
Active member of the Acadians Project, 13 May 2016
Active member of the Louisiana Families Project, 5 May 2016
Paternal and maternal relationships confirmed by a 23andMe test match between Stephanie Ward and John-Christopher Ward, siblings. Their most-recent common ancestors are Johnny Ward and Willa Hanks, their parents. Predicted relationship from 23andMe: Sibling, based on sharing 48.17 cM across 44 segments.
Have you taken a DNA test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.
Stephanie is 17 degrees from June Cash, 18 degrees from Patsy Cline, 26 degrees from Mickey Guyton, 18 degrees from Naomi Judd, 18 degrees from Loretta Lynn, 37 degrees from Rita MacNeil, 18 degrees from Reba McEntire, 26 degrees from Joy Kirkpatrick, 19 degrees from Dolly Parton, 16 degrees from Minnie Pearl, 20 degrees from Kitty Wells and 29 degrees from Andrew Turvey on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
Thank you for all the thank yous! It's always encouraging when someone notices my efforts here. Hope you have a wonderful day!
Kindly, LK
That was me on my ranger shift, watching the merge activity feed. Thanks for all your good work! Steff
The Profile Improvement Project (PIP) is performing its first annual check-in with our project members. We are in the process of transitioning to a team structure. There will be three participant PIP Teams to start -- The Maintenance Category Team, the Unknowns Team, and the Biography Team. There is also the Voyage Team who guide new Voyagers. See the Profile Improvement Project Teams for a brief outline of each team. Please let us know which team(s) you would like to participate in.
We would also like to invite you to join the email GoogleGroup and text chat Discord channel for our project. (When you request to join our GoogleGroup, please be sure to include your Wiki ID). You will find more information on the GoogleGroup.
We thank you for all you do to help the Profile Improvement Project and WikiTree. The Project’s mission is to:
We know you’re working on profiles *smile* We would like to hear about successes you’ve had toward the Project’s goals. We would also appreciate any feedback you might have to help us improve the Project. Please share your thoughts in a reply to this comment or privately via private message to either of us.
Sincerely,
Debi Hoag and Robin Shaules Co-Leaders, Profile Improvement Project
Love the new team structure! I'd like to switch from Voyage guide to Biography Team, preferably on level 3, but level 2 would also be fine, if you need more help there.
mary
Thanks for recognising my small contributions, nice to meet you.
David
Welcome to WikiTree! I'm glad you were pleased by what you found. I'm actually not a member of the family, although your name gave me a double take and reason to check via the connection finder app on both your profile page and that of your ancestors! I just happened to be correcting data errors when I came upon your 3x great grandparents. I think what I added was just the tip of the iceberg, but I do try to at least organize what I find into a readable narrative. Your message yesterday drew me back to the profile, so I'm going to see what else I can add. Some of the family have no profile managers, so as their direct descendant you should definitely adopt them. You can use the edit pages of the ones I work on to help you understand how to use WT markup to achieve your visual style. Good luck on your WT journey and let me know if I can help!
Congratulations to you. I look forward to working with you, and learning together with you, Todd and Barry, what being a Leader here is all about. Have a great rest of your day. Sharon
Congrats S. on that shiny new blue badge!
best regards,
SJ
Bobbie
Thank you for joining our first ever Connecting Challenge and helping us create 2729 profiles!
You can add the participation sticker to your profile if you’d like. Connecting Challenge Stickers
We’ve started the March challenge here: March Connecting Challenge
Emma
Marie Louise Rosette Rochon ... Ultimately, free persons of color from both the Barbeau dit Boisdore and Rochon families connected the families by placée and marriage during the Nouvelle France, France, Santa Domingo, La Louisiane, Nouvelle-France, Luisiana, Nueva España and United States transitions. C'est Bon Magnifique !
edited by Gerald Baraboo
Thanks so very much for your participation in the spring Clean-a-thon! Every suggestion you cleared (over 100!) made our Tree that much better. The WikiTree community appreciates YOU!
Pip Sheppard WikiTree’s Appreciation Team
https://s3.glo.texas.gov/glo/history/archives/land-grants/index.cfm
Mary
Congrats on the Super Star Badge!
Can I make you profile manager of Suzanne Plante?
Thank you for your time and energy in creating over 1000 (actually, over 1800!) contributions to WikiTree for the month of July 2019. Your efforts are appreciated!
Pip Sheppard
WikiTree Appreciation Team
Cheers, Liz
However, I appreciate the edit so I could add the explanation as to why on the profile.
I had found John's daughter Phoebe Abshire's death certificate record listing him as the father of the deceased and Martha B. Blancherd as her mother. This information was furnished to the county clerk by Calvin Aker, Phoebe's second child, so I thought that he was more likely to know his grandmother's proper name than some census taker as they regularly misspelled the common names of the time, some could hardly write legibly and I assumed this to be so, but I just ran down that marriage record listing her and John Abshiean (?) , 27 Dec 1812, citing Patrick, Va., Ref#562-82; FHL microfilm 33,351. So now I'm not sure either way or both after all. Sorry bout that ! The Abshire's ran Liberty Land and Abstract
Thank you for your feedback. Much appreciated. I am just getting started and plan to post some old family photos as well.