I searched over and over for an Agnes Harper in various records. I could not find her in any United States record before 1900. I tried numerous reasonable spelling variations on the first and last name.
Then I located Agnes’ stone on FindAGrave. The stone listed her name as Nancy Agnes Harper–not just Agnes. That was why I could not find her.
Always consider the possibility that you have all the names a person used. That could be why you cannot find them.
6 Responses
Similar but not identical problem: the Iroquois County (Ill.) clerk wrote her name as Esther Pointo. Took a while to find out her name was Euxpere Parenteau!
Many people in my family were usually referred to by their middle name. Makes research more difficult.
So true! On my side of the family, the Van Meters from my great-g grandfather(and possibly farther back) went by their middle name instead of their given name. The trend continued with my Grandma and her siblings and ended at that generation. When you aren’t aware of that, and go by the names family members give you, it makes record searching difficult but not impossible!
While the information is not always complete or correct, FindAGrave is a great resource!
In this case it was a picture of the stone. Transcriptions and other text information on the site should be validated with other sources if possible.
So true Kat! It is awesome to be able to see the headstones. I found a great-aunt that died in infancy that I didn’t even know existed and the picture of the headstone is all we have to remember her by.