When Michael Trautvetter came to Campbell County, Kentucky, he was in his mid-forties and married to a woman named Margaret. A woman with that name and consistent ages is the oldest female in his 1850 and 1860 census enumerations and appears with him on several land records.
It turned out something happened to Michael’s first Margaret and he married another woman with that name between the 1850 and 1860 census enumerations.
4 Responses
Michael,
I’m curious how you found out about the two wives with the same name. Could you enlighten us? It’s not something that I would have questioned unless in later census records her information changed. Even then I might not have thought to much about it…… because I might have thought the someone besides the wife was the informant and got it wrong.
Many thanks,
Terri
Terri-
We’ll have a future blog post with more details on the specific situation. In this case, the census was part of the equation.
I have the same happen on my Menne line. The 1860 census has Mary, the wife of John Bernard Menne, as 5 years old than him. On the 1870 census they were the same age. Then on the 1880 census Mary was 5 years younger than John Bernard. It wasn’t until I found the death record for the first Mary, in 1871, that I realized John Bernard had married a second time. Still haven’t found the death record for the second wife.
I have the same thing with Morrison BROWN of Loami, IL. The first wife was Julia WEBBER – don’t know what happened to her, when she died, where she is buried. I assume it happened before he married Julia BARGER. She is buried with him. Of course, I descend from the first, lost, wife, not the second, well-documented wife.