John Hicks
John Hicks married Jerusha J. Rightnowar in Jefferson County, Illinois, in September 1842. He kept a farming household in the county through the middle of the century. In 1853 and 1855 he bought two forty-acre pieces of government land in section 29 of McClellan Township. Five children can be read off the censuses: Nancy I. about 1844, George M. D. in November 1845, Talitha A. about 1849, Jerusha N. about 1857 and Stephen D. about 1860.
The enumerators were careless with this family in the way they often were with names they had only heard spoken. Talitha is written Tabitha in one year and Talitha in another, Nancy is Nancy I. once and Nancy J. the next time, and two of the youngest are set down as Timpa and Betsa, which are not names anyone was christened. What holds across every version is the shape of the household and the unusual middle initials of the second child.
His wife's family was tied to his twice. Henry Rightnowar, very probably her brother, had married Jane Hicks in 1840. Jane was born in January 1824 and is the right age to be John's sister, though no record says so.
Sources
If John Hicks is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "John Hicks (b. 1820)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-hicks-1820-3be2fd.