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My grandmother Katie was Mary's daughter, and I'm looking for further information on her, as well.
This is what I was told by Katie's daughter, my mother, Kathryn, and what I can piece together from documents I've found in various sources.
Mary was born in 1889 in what was then Austria-Hungary. Her surname at birth WAS Marish, confirmed by my aunt, Carol Jo. Carol Jo once asked Mary what her name was prior to adoption and was told, and I'm using the phonetic spelling here, 'Mary Sookmarsh'. I suspect what Mary was saying is Mary Sue Marish, as my mother's name was Kathryn Sue, and the family has a habit of drawing back a generation or two for middle names especially.
As to what happened to make Mary a Lovern? Mary was born in Austria-Hungary and, and I may be misremembering this, her mother died shortly thereafter. Her father decided to move them to the USA for work and a chance at a better life, and he, or he and his wife if she'd been alive then, died on the ship crossing over.
It's possible that John K Lovern and Catherine Hall Lovern were traveling aboard the same ship, because Mary was entrusted to their care when her parent(s) died. Mary was given the last name Lovern, in common usage, but may legally have been Marish under the US census records and was required to use it for her actual marriage certificate.
Beyond that, I can't offer up much except that my DNA admixture shows West Asian, East Asian and South African, and my father's family is Scandinavian-American. If anyone else with Mary as an ancestor wants to compare DNA profiles, let me know.
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