From Five Georges to a Hugh, With Someone Named Johnny in the Middle

Family history is a pursuit which requires us to ask questions, then warns us to beware when we chase after the answers.

In my case, the chase may have been ill-advised, but so worth the effort. It all started when, following the line of descent from my Tison ancestor in Georgia, I traced one of his great-granddaughters who married a man from Savannah named George Anderson Mercer. As is my custom, I pulled up all the census records to confirm the family constellation when I noticed something unusual: this George Mercer must have loved his own name so much that he named both of his sons by that same first name.

As it turned out, this father was not the first in the family to have been named George Anderson Mercer. He was named after his father, who bore the exact same name. That man, in turn, got his middle name from his mother's maiden name; she was an Anderson. And her father? His name was George.

This Anderson woman was wife to the Hugh Mercer whom we mentioned last week as the man who commissioned the building of the residence in Savannah now known as the Mercer House. From this couple came their eldest son George Anderson Mercer, whose son—also George Anderson Mercer—married my Tison relative. And their oldest son, also named George Anderson Mercer—as opposed to his younger brother George, who was named after his mother's father—became the father of a son with the same exact name, who in turn fathered yet another son bestowed with that repeated name.

If we count that unbroken line from the first George Anderson Mercer, son of Hugh, forward all the way to the unfortunate young George Mercer whose kidnapping was reported in the Georgia newspaper clipping I found, we discover that the slain George Anderson Mercer was not George IV, as reported, but George Anderson Mercer V. 

Shortly after the 1900 census, my Tison relative—Mary Ellis Walter, daughter of Frances Tison—disappeared from records. In the 1910 census—where I had first noticed the irregularity of two sons being named the same—I realized two things. First was that indeed, Mary Mercer had given birth to a son right before her death, whom the couple named Hugh after two of George's well-respected Mercer ancestors. The second discovery was that by 1910, widower George had already remarried—to a woman named Lillian.

We've recently found confirmation of that second marriage when we took a look at that George Anderson Mercer's own death certificate. His wife, according to the record, was named Lillian. As it turns out, that same Lillian, showing in the 1910 census, had a son, born only months before. George and Lillian named him John.

When we put that together with all the other news clippings subsequently found, plus the biographical sketch of the songwriter known as Johnny Mercer, we realize that his mother's name was indeed the same as what we had found in those two other documents. John, the son named in George Mercer's household in the 1910 census—yes, the Johnny Mercer—was half-brother to my Tison descendant's two sons named George, by virtue of descent from a man who was the in-law to my Tison-linked family.

Since that original Tison ancestor—Job Tison—was my fourth great-grandfather, you can imagine how distant a relative this ultimate George Anderson Mercer would have been to me (my fifth cousin, hardly anyone I would have known personally).

I would never have stumbled upon his story, but for two triggering incidents. First is that I make a habit of doing descendancy research as part of my quest to identify significant DNA matches to my family. But second—and this is most important—I make sure to look at all the documents I affix as confirmation to the relatives in my tree, and learn to ask questions when I see unexplained irregularities. Especially if both sons in the family are given the same name.

Uncle Chris

Perhaps the friendly-sounding reference to someone called "Uncle Chris" might remind you of the type of relative that anyone could have—a name far more common than the multiple George Mercers I've been chasing for the past week. However, this particular Uncle Chris I'm referring to today isn't mine, you understand, but a man named as the Mercer family's spokesperson on account of a tragic incident which eventually involved not only local law enforcement, but the F.B.I. as well. I imagine this was the type of occurrence which would be any family's worst nightmare, but it was also a time when someone had to step up to represent them.

While Chris Hammond—mentioned in news reports like the February 21, 1980, Marietta Daily Journal as uncle of the kidnapped George Mercer IV—may never have hoped to step into such a spotlight, he certainly was a reasonable selection to serve as the family's representative. As the man who married George Mercer III's sister, he was both close enough to know the immediate family intimately, yet removed enough to hopefully serve dispassionately in any role as the episode unfolded.

There was, of course, more to this man's story. Born in South Carolina and spending his early school years attending a one-room schoolhouse, he finished his formal schooling with a degree in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech. After service in the U.S. Navy, he then found his way as most college graduates do, from one job to another, until he took a position as a salesman for a company in Savannah known as The Steel Products Company.

Chris Hammond's new employer had a fledgling product line which they were developing in Florida, and he became that line's sales rep. Organizing three dealerships in Florida before the beginning of World War II, that was enough to gain attention of the U.S. Army, which contracted with his company for several units of the product line Chris Hammond was representing. The product, by then, was called Great Dane Trailers.

Great Dane is, of course, now a nationally-recognized name. If you have driven on any highway anytime between then and now, you have likely spotted their iconic logo and know exactly what company I mean. The Army contracts were apparently among the first to propel the business further along its path toward greatness as a company, but nationwide expansion over the decades has made the company's name so well known.

The company has since undergone several changes, including of names and ownership. Up until his retirement in 1984, Chris Hammond served as president (since 1953) and chairman (since the late 1960s) of the board of Great Dane Trailers, Inc., overseeing his part of a long history of product development and business expansion. His years of involvement with the business brought accolades to the company, as well as to himself, personally, for his leadership in the industry.

Nobody, however, would ever wish to add such a detail to their resume as the incident which called Chris Hammond's name out in the newspaper clipping I stumbled across in searching for the unfortunate George Mercer IV. And yet, by finding the juxtaposition of his name with that of the Mercer family in Savannah, it provides the added confirmation to inform us that yes, this tragedy did indeed involve a descendant of the George Anderson Mercer which had started me down this diversionary research pursuit in the first place.

Since this long and winding pursuit all started with a question about three men named George Mercer, we need to go back to that beginning, confirm a tally of all the Georges and just who each one was—as well as tie up a few other loose strands in this episode. There is, after all, that stray mention of one other Mercer and his many memorable musical hits to link to this family equation, as well.

One thing, however, is sure: next time you see a truck trailer with the Great Dane insignia affixed to its sturdy frame, it will now also remind you of the spokesman for the Mercer family of Savannah and a tragedy the sort of which they surely never hoped to endure. 

Counting Georges

As we begin circling the drain on yet another rabbit hole in our attempt to delineate the identities of several men who all claimed the name George Mercer, I realize that the George Mercer IV named in a 1980 news report as a kidnapping victim was likely related to these other George Mercers. It all comes down to the detail in the news clipping naming that George's uncle.

The uncle's name, as given in the news report, was short and easily remembered: Chris Hammond. Yet, as it turned out, his actual given name was one of the longest I had encountered in all my years of family history explorations. Truth be told, when I saw that name mentioned in the kidnapping article, I didn't even recognize the connection. It took a search through my database to realize who it might have been—and to realize that, yes, this unfortunate George Mercer might well have been related to this same Tison descendancy I've been researching.

Let me note here, by the way, that all the names mentioned so far belong to individuals who have long passed away. As we move closer to dates in the present, though, I will leave some details out, in case those individuals are still alive (which I have no way of knowing currently).

So who could this Chris Hammond have been? We first need to keep in mind that numbering names—such as John Smith III—does not automatically imply that the "III" indicates the son of someone with the same name who descended from yet another man with the same name. Sometimes, those numbers do not follow a correlating count of generations, nor do they always imply direct descent.

But for the sake of argument—and to test out a hypothesis—let's just say that our unfortunate George Mercer IV was indeed the son of someone named George Mercer III. In my family tree, I have run into documentation which shows that very detail: a World War II registration card for someone who listed himself as "George Anderson Mercer 3rd."

The card was completed on June 30, 1942, in Savannah, Georgia, in which this George III also declared that his date of birth was in 1924. Note, in this example, his address: "333 East 44th St."  Below that, on the original form, was added the name of the "person who will always know your address." For that answer, George III entered "G. A. Mercer, Jr." I'll let you guess what that "G. A." might have stood for.

I found another document linked to someone in Savannah named George Mercer. In this case, it was a death certificate for a George A. Mercer who died in Savannah toward the end of 1940. The certificate gives the usual particulars about the deceased, including the information that this George A. Mercer was son of—you knew this was coming—yet another man named George A. Mercer of Savannah.

Take a moment to check out the details from this certificate.

Notice, for one thing, the details provided about the informant on this certificate. The informant was named "George A. Mercer, Jr." But wait! If the George A. Mercer who died was son of George A. Mercer—um, a.k.a. "junior"—does that mean our George completed his own death certificate?

I doubt it.

Furthermore, take a look at the informant's address: 333 East 44th Street. Where have we seen that address before? If I've kept my Georges straight, it looks like the informant George would by necessity be George Mercer III.

There are other details which you may have caught in this excerpt from the Mercer death certificate, but we'll save those for another day. For now, we need to move on to that other name—Chris Hammond—and how he connects to the Mercers.

As it turns out, Informant George was indeed a son of a man named George Anderson Mercer who died in 1940. To complicate matters, Informant George, as you may already have suspected, also had a son to whom he not unsurprisingly gave the name George Anderson Mercer.

Informant George also had a daughter who was a few years older than that youngest George. She, in turn, married a man by the name of Christopher Cashel Fitzsimmons...wait for it...Hammond.

Thus, Uncle Chris—because you know that this youngest George, brother of the woman who married Chris, had to eventually name a son of his own by that same obligatory name: George Anderson Mercer.

This Uncle Chris was apparently a well-respected man in his own right. When I was first documenting his place as an in-law in this Mercer branch of my Tison/Tyson line, I found some fascinating details regarding his life. Sometimes, a person's path through life leads to pivot points of opportunity, and if someone has the personal fortitude blended with the right skills, that combination can become a springboard upward to success.

That was Chris Hammond's story, judging by the glowing words posted everywhere about him—a tale which I had once considered posting on A Family Tapestry. Introduced at a juncture such as this, how could we not move on to share his story?

We'll save it for tomorrow.

;)


Documents above are excerpts from 1) the U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men Collection and 2) the Georgia Deaths Index 1914-1940, both courtesy of Ancestry.com.

This is Not the Triangulation You Were Looking For

We may have three stabilizing research points with which to steady ourselves in our quest to sort out the many George Mercers in my family tree, but that doesn't necessarily mean they will, together, direct us to the right answer. This is not the type of "triangulation" you may have been hoping for—not as I'm about to add a fourth clue to the mess. But we can try...

Our original question, back at the start of this research tangle, caused us to seek the reason why a man named George Mercer would choose to name two of his own sons the same name: George Mercer. Both sons did live to adulthood, so why such duplication?

In the process of searching through newspaper articles in their hometown of Savannah, Georgia, instead of turning up an obituary—or even a wedding announcement—for one of those Georges, I found a much more recent report of a kidnapping and demand for ransom for yet another George Mercer who, as it turned out, was already murdered by that point. This George Mercer was apparently also from a long line of men named George Mercer—he was listed as George Mercer IV—which led to a clue that he was related to someone famous named Johnny Mercer. At least it wasn't a lead to yet another George Mercer.

From that point, we found ourselves ensnared with another connection—this time to a house built by someone named Hugh Mercer, whose property eventually became the scene of another murder.

This is too much excitement for a genealogist.

While I do confess I got ensnared by each of those rabbit holes, we are no more enlightened by the experience than before getting sucked into the pursuit. If these were hints, they were breadcrumbs on a trail which seemed to lead nowhere.

Even so, there are a few strands which have yet to be tied together, so there may be an answer found in our future.

First, we need to remember, where there is a "IV," there must also have been a "III." Ergo, George Mercer IV must have had a father—or other progenitor—who was named George Mercer III.

The only problem is that the Mercer family I've been researching—descendants of my Tison line, living in Savannah, Georgia, for generations—were prone to bestowing the same given name repeatedly through the generations. And then, lose track. "Junior" tags gave way to "senior" men who actually should have had the designation of "junior," themselves. If I had pursued the line further back, there might have been even more generations with the same given name. These people had a hard time keeping track of their own generations.

But I didn't pursue those; they were in-laws to my Tison line. This, of course, now leaves me wondering whether I should regroup and trace that line back even farther than I have. Something needs to help untangle these Georges and Hughs.

On the other hand, take a city directory—any city directory—open it up and observe how many men have the same exact name. Any city could have had multiple listings for men named George Mercer—none of whom are related.

Of course, in our case, two of those George Mercers were related: they were brothers. And both of them were sons of another man named George Mercer. Fortunately for us, each of them was given a different middle name. Thus, we can avoid confusion in the future by calling one of the brothers Anderson, and the other Walter, based on their middle names. We'll save that for another day's exploration.

There is, however, one more clue enabling us to work our way back toward those George Mercers of the past: the additional name provided in the brief news clipping about the Mercer kidnapping. If you remember, the Marietta, Georgia, Journal article reported,

Chris Hammond, uncle of George Mercer IV who has been missing since Jan. 29, said a demand for ransom was received about a week after Mercer disappeared.

A Hammond uncle to George Mercer IV would, by necessity, need to be a brother-in-law of George Mercer III. This lays out a simple research challenge for us: can we find any records connected to this George Mercer III which include a marriage to someone by the name of Hammond.

As it turns out, thanks to my years-long descendancy-charting project, I already know a possible answer to that question.

About that Fourth George

Research pop quiz: if "A" equals "B" and "B" equals "C" then...how does that mean I can connect the many Hugh Mercers of Savannah's Mercer House and Moon River's Johnny Mercer with the two Georges who were both sons of yet another George Mercer?

Perhaps you were wondering that very thing, yourself.

Not that I want to guarantee that any three trips down the rabbit hole will result in a trifecta of answers, but I feel as if it would be worth our while to consider yet another Mercer before we proceed to our genealogy puzzle's answer.

I'm talking about George Mercer IV, the unfortunate young Savannah resident who turned up missing in early 1980. We already know he somehow was related to songwriter Johnny Mercer because the newspaper report of his kidnapping included that assertion—and we all know how accurate such reports can be.

As horrified as I am over what became of young George Mercer IV, I really wasn't looking for him when I stumbled upon that news clipping; I was looking for a different George Mercer. Well, make that two George Mercers. No, three. One was the dad who named both of his sons George Mercer. And both of them were still living, best I could tell, during the time period in which their names showed up in government records.

So...was one of those George Mercers related to this new man by the same name?

Despite the tragedy occurring forty years ago, it wasn't—and still isn't—a hidden event. Just googling that name plus the city of Savannah brought up multiple hits for my search. Besides newspaper reports, the crime was revisited by Calvin Trillin, then a journalist for The New Yorker, who later expanded his notes on the episode into a chapter for his 1984 book, Killings. As the situation dragged on from kidnapping to report of ransom notes to discovery of a dead body, summaries of the 1982 court case trying the man accused of George Mercer IV's murder can also be accessed online, providing a clear, if extended, explanation of what happened to the man.

Published commentary on what befell the young George Mercer can still be found, even as recently as four years ago. A childhood classmate of the young George recalled in 2016 that Mercer was "always pleasant, smiling and ready for a laugh or to tell an amusing tale, with his very relaxed and easy-going demeanor," and that it still seemed a shock to realize what had befallen someone like that.

Delving into far more detail than I ever intended to review, however, still doesn't answer my research question. Despite how horrible the outcome was for one young man in Savannah who possessed the same name—without the "IV," of course—as two of my grandmother's third cousins, I still can't say if the unfortunate demise of this new George was a tragedy which befell someone in my George Mercer's family.

Which means, of course, that it's time to crawl back out of yet another rabbit hole, dust ourselves off and get back to the business of piecing together a paper trail from both ends of the multiple George Mercers question. Let's see whether we can actually find any connection, beginning with yet another clue: the other uncle mentioned in that initial news report, Chris Hammond.  

Where No Mercer Ever Lived

It might seem counter-intuitive to discover that a residence called The Mercer House would be a home where no one named Mercer ever lived. In learning more about Savannah's Mercer House, though, we do discover not only some details about the Mercer family, but also far more than we bargained for.

From its start, the Mercer House seemed destined as host of a series of unfortunate events. The man who built it—unsurprisingly named Mercer—secured the architectural guidance of a New York City mason and builder, John S. Norris, whose recent completion of the Savannah Customs House had led to numerous contracts in this Georgia city. His task in this contract was to create a residence in the Italianate architectural style.

The man who had commissioned the building was a Savannah resident by the name of Hugh Mercer. Like the instances we have already seen with the Mercers I've been trying to trace for my Tison family history, this Hugh Mercer came from a long line of Mercers who chose to repeatedly bestow upon their descendants that same given name. His father—the senior Hugh Mercer—had been born in Virginia and had married well, connecting him to Cyrus Griffin, who figured prominently in the early years following the Revolutionary War. His grandfather, yet another Hugh Mercer, once served as a general in George Washington's army and is listed as one of the D.A.R. Patriots.

The Mercer House Hugh, however, did not boast quite so illustrious a military career. It took a presidential pardon to restore this Hugh Mercer to good graces after his indiscretions during the West Point Military Academy "Eggnog Riot" leading up to the Christmas of 1826. He did graduate in 1828, resulting in a commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Artillery, and eventually a first lieutenant. Serving mostly in Georgia, he later resigned his commission, gained employment at a Savannah bank while concurrently serving in the Georgia militia, married, and in 1860, began oversight of construction of the house where he presumably would settle after its completion.

A little something in 1861 interrupted progress of his building project. With the beginning of the Civil War, Hugh Mercer enlisted in the Confederate Army, eventually being promoted to brigadier general. Following the Battle of Atlanta in 1864, Mercer became ill, was briefly imprisoned at the close of the war, and though he was able to resume banking following the war, never did regain his health.

Presumably in the course of these misfortunes, Mercer saw the necessity of giving up his vision for the construction of the house that bore his name. The house was completed around 1868 by a new owner, and no Mercer family member ever lived in that residence.

The house had a lingering history of its own, though. Still standing in the subsequent century, it was no longer used as a residence. It served for a time as a Shriners' temple, then lay vacant until 1969.

In that year, two things happened involving the Mercer House. One was the unfortunate occurrence of a dreadful—and fatal—fall of an eleven year old boy from the roof of the building onto the prongs of the iron fence outlining the southern side of the property. The other was the purchase of the property by a man known in Savannah circles as an antique dealer and historic preservationist.

That man, James Arthur Williams, eventually provided inspiration for the "nonfiction novel" which has become the longest-standing New York Times best seller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. Mr. Williams also attained the dubious distinction in Georgia jurisprudence of having undergone an unprecedented four trials for murder, after which he was acquitted in May, 1989—eight months before "unexpectedly" dropping dead in the home which he had so painstakingly restored.

The Mercer House still stands in Savannah—as does the iconic Bonaventure Cemetery "Bird Girl" statue featured so prominently on the cover of Berendt's best seller. While I can catalog the many Mercer family members who have been buried at that cemetery and the same names who once lived in that southern city, I am still stuck on those numerous George Mercers and have not quite tied them in to the many Hugh Mercers of this bereft building's history.

Most important, however, is my need to remember the rabbit chase that brought me to this end of a tangled trail in the first place: the newspaper clipping about another murder involving a Mercer—the story of the kidnapped George Mercer IV. If that unfortunate Mercer was somehow connected to the songwriter Johnny Mercer, who was, in turn, connected to the Hugh Mercer of Mercer House, am I chasing a rabbit trail that will eventually lead me to an answer? Or am I just orbiting a giant family history hairball? 

 

A Moon River Mercer

Like a meandering river, the route of family history research can sometimes feature swirling eddies and beguiling detours. Discovering, in the process of sorting out the many George Mercers in my family's history, that one of them might have been related to someone famous named Johnny Mercer was a clue I couldn't resist following.

Granted, I shouldn't have followed that research bait. The chance of anyone being related to the line I was researching, merely by possessing the same surname, is slim. After all, Mercer is among the top one thousand surnames in the United States, and is a family name which has been here for a couple centuries. Of the more than forty five thousand Americans bearing that surname, quite a few of them became known well enough to, at least, merit their own Wikipedia entry.

It was to that very online resource I went when I stumbled upon that newspaper clipping I mentioned yesterday. Never mind the fact that it concerned a ransom demand on behalf of someone with the same name as a man on my ancestral Tison line. What I really wanted to know now was just who that "songwriter Johnny Mercer" was.

Don't we always perk up when there's a possibility our family history may brush tangentially with the rich or famous? So excuse me while I scurry down this rabbit trail. Today, we'll take a peek at what can be found about that Johnny Mercer.

As you may have suspected, Johnny Mercer was a man known for his musical talent. If his heyday was before your time, as it was for mine, it may not help to learn that he was a shining star of the Tin Pan Alley era. His, however, was a musical influence which reached far beyond the lyrics he wrote for the music which grew out of that collective of music publishing houses.

Fortunately, Wikipedia is not only a great resource for a quick rundown on biographies, but it often provides a brief genealogical sketch, as well. Thankfully, the Wikipedia entry for Johnny Mercer went far beyond the litany of all the songs he was famous for—and yes, "Moon River" lyrics go to his credit—and gave a brief sketch of his early years and family life.

Whether that sketch helps me connect this well-known musician with the several men named George Mercer in my Tison line may be another issue, but I did learn that Johnny Mercer was born in Savannah—a promising start—and that his father was a well-known attorney and real estate developer. Intriguingly, that father's name happened to be George Mercer.

I didn't have enough time to light on that fact in the Wikipedia article before succumbing to another beguiling rabbit trail: juxtaposed with the "Early Years" portion of the Mercer article was a photograph of a stately Georgia manor with the caption, "The historic Mercer House in Savannah Georgia."

With that, I was off to see whether there were any connection between this home and my multiple George Mercers—any of them.

Expect the Unexpected

Forget reserving that warning—"expect the unexpected"—only for those about to submit to a DNA test. Yes, anyone who decides to follow the trail laid out in their own genetic genealogy does need to understand that path may lead to unexpected discoveries. But anyone researching her family history may be in for a surprise. The unexpected lurks in all of our family histories.

All families have stories. Of all people, I should have remembered that when I got back to work on my fourth great-grandfather Job Tison's descendants. When dealing with an ancestor born in 1770, though, the antiquity persuades us to gloss over such a stern warning. After all, what could be buried in the genes of folks gone for nearly two hundred years?

My research routine is to follow all lines of descent for each of my ancestors. Job Tison's oldest daughter, Sidnah, was the one who married George Edmund McClellan, of whom I've written so much over the years. But Sidnah had many siblings, so I had much work still to complete on Job's family.

Last week, I was working on the line of Sidnah's younger brother, William H. Tison. Born in 1812 in Glynn County, Georgia, William was eventually married twice. While that was not particularly difficult to document, it was the next generation which brought me problems.

It was William's eldest daughter's oldest child—his granddaughter named Mary Ellis Walter—who had stumped me in my research, and I was digging deeper to untangle a mess of names.

You see, this particular granddaughter of William H. Tison had married a man by the name of George Mercer. To complicate matters, Mary Ellis Walter had a father whose name was also George. Mary died young, right before Christmas of 1900. I suspected it was after giving birth, a common cause of premature death for so many women, so I was looking at the census enumeration immediately following her death to confirm my hunch.

Sure enough, the 1910 census did show her husband George's household. By that time, George Mercer had remarried and I could see from the census that George had a son by this second marriage, as well—but it contained a detail which puzzled me. It took a while to sort out the sons, as Hugh Mercer—the one who did indeed arrive just a week preceding his mother's death back in 1900—was listed as being only eight years of age in 1910. But there was another puzzle to sort out.

George Mercer must have really loved his own name, for in his 1910 household, along with his second wife Lillian and their infant son John plus the motherless son Hugh, there were two other sons, both named George. There was seventeen year old son George A. And there was second son George W., four years younger than his brother with the same given name. Two sons named George. What was up with that?

It took some additional digging through records to discover that son number one had the full name George Anderson Mercer—like his father and his father before him. The second son, apparently, was named after his mother's father's full name: George Walter Mercer.

I tried to find some explanation for such an odd choice for naming two brothers. I thought perhaps Mary had named her second son this because his birth coincided with her father's passing. But nope, the original George Walter died in 1888, while Mary's son George Walter Mercer was born nearly ten years later.

Determined to strike out in the wild nether regions of the Internet to find an answer to this puzzle, I turned first to the newspaper archival services I use. I started with a general search and looked for the name George Mercer. I left the parameters wide open—after all, I wasn't just looking for a birth announcement or obituary—and set the only delimiters as the state where they lived (Georgia).

Imagine my surprise when one of the first results that turned up in my search was an article headlined, "Ransom Delivered for Mercer Kin."

The 1980 article was about someone named George Mercer IV. Datelined Savannah, Georgia, the report continued,

A ransom has been paid for the missing 22-year-old grand-nephew of songwriter Johnny Mercer, a family member revealed Wednesday. Chris Hammond, uncle of George Mercer IV who has been missing since Jan. 29, said a demand for a ransom was received about a week after Mercer disappeared.

Who was George Mercer IV? And did he have anything to do with the multiple Tison descendants by that same name?

There was more than that, though. In finding that newspaper clipping, I discovered it was already too late: I had already fallen down the rabbit hole. Forget all those confusing George Mercers. Now what I wanted most to know was: who was songwriter Johnny Mercer?


Above: 1910 census for the Savannah, Georgia, household of George Mercer; courtesy FamilySearch.org.