It’s easy to get an assumption in our head and not realize it was an assumption.
Wilhelmina Kraft was listed as an heir when her brother died in Illinois in 1869. I found her in a few census records after that, but could not find out anything about her before the estate settlement. No children are listed with her in the census and I assumed she had none. I searched various records for her with her married name of Kraft and with her maiden name of Trautvetter.
Nothing.
Then it dawned on me. Her marriage to Kraft could have been a later-in-life marriage as she would have been in her sixties when her brother died. She could easily have had a husband (and been married to him for decades) before marrying Mr. Kraft. She could be easily be listed in a variety of United States records under another surname.
That could explain why I was not finding anything, including a marriage between Wilhelmina Trautvetter and a Mr. Kraft.
2 Responses
That makes sense because I couldn’t believe that some of my relatives would be married to some one older. Thanks to u and others 4 this kind of information I now know it’s not impossible.
I was married a second time and my two names are used one way or the other depending on when people knew me. Then someone will come up with my maiden name.