Yep, and surname Hicks just pops up out of nowhere in those same areas. That has got to be the most frustrating surname to try to research. I gave up, lol. They grew out of the ground for all I could tell.
Hicks comes up for me too, but I cannot pin that down for sure.
We have ancestors we can find no trace of. We decided they came from Mars! Very frustrating. I read the family changed the spelling but we have no proof of anything about that. What I find very interesting is my dad’s ancestors moved around the SE with my mom’s ancestors long before they got married. I got interested in a person who married a sibling of my ancestor. I started tracing her back and went to 406 and King Clovis the Riparian or something like that. It went further back but that was far enough. I do not know any descendants of that branch. Genealogy is an interesting hobby.
I grew up with some Hicks in southern MD.
Try Smith. . .