Relay – A Family History Blog

Airy Swartz was born about 1815, in Clark County Indiana, to newly weds John Swartz and Nancy Prather.¹ Throughout her long life the census takers would have problems with her first name.  She is recorded  as Amy, Airey, Any, or Ary. Airy herself doesn’t appear to have recorded the spelling of her name, in fact it is highly likely she was not literate (The 1880 census records her as “unable to read or write.”) In his Recollections, her maternal uncle Hiram Prather recorded it as Ary ² and it seems likely he would be an authority since his sister Ary Prather was Nancy Prather’s half sister. Both women, Airy Swartz and Ary Prather, were named after Nancy’s mother Airy Gaither, who was William Prather’s first wife and who died shortly after Nancy’s birth.³

Airy Gaither, daughter of John Gaither and Ann Jacobs was born in 13 December 1770 in Anne Arundel County Maryland.⁴ She married William Prather about 1793 and died very shortly after the birth of her only child Nancy Prather Swartz in January 1794. A short and seemingly uneventful life.  And yet her unusual name was repeated in the Prather and Swartz families.

Ary Prather, born 1791, daughter of Rachel Gaither and Thomas Prather, would have been Ary Gaither Prather’s double niece. Her mother was another daughter of John Gaither and Ann Jacobs and her father was the brother of William Prather. This Ary Prather married James Bennett and apparently had only one daughter, Elizabeth E. Bennett, before James died in 1825 (there were at least 3 sons but we are thinking about women’s names here.)

Ary Prather born 1797, daughter of William Prather and Lettice McCarroll, was the half sister of Nancy Prather.  This Ary Prather married James Hilton. She seems to have struggled with her name, being called Ann and Mary as well as Ary in various records.  She did not name a daughter Ary Hilton as far as we know.

Ary Swartz never married and lived her entire life with nieces and cousins.  She had no descendants to carry her unusual first name.

And yet – the name persisted. In 1838, Ary Bennett was born to Benjamin Bennett, nephew of James Bennett. In 1889 an Ary Ann Gaither married in Tennessee. And in 1930 an Ary Gaither appears on the federal census in Florida. Outside of the Gaither/Prather/Bennett surname cluster there appear to be several woman named Ary married in Kentucky and Virginia during the late 1800s.

Where does the name come from?  Well there is family speculation that it is a shortening of Ariana/Arianna which is the name of the daughter of King Minos of Crete in mythology. Ariana is also seen in the early church as a woman’s name meaning “most holy.”  So take your pick – a Greek myth or early christian piety.  Either seems an unlikely name for post colonial Maryland. And yet, there was a craze for Greek mythology about this time in U.S. history so just perhaps. Whatever its derivation it clearly spoke to members of the Gaither family and their descendants.