Spouses die, spouses leave, and people get divorced. The details of your ancestor’s marital status can aggravate your research, particularly in those times and places where a woman takes her husband’s name.
I’ve been searching for a passenger list for a female ancestor whose first husband died in Germany in the 1840s. By 1870 she is in the United States with a different last name. But there is always the possibility that there was a husband after the one who died in the 1840s and before the one she was married to in 1870.
And that would be her last name on the manifest.
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I have a couple of women ancestors who were divorced ‘back in the day’ when no one got divorced!
Me too. I have have one ancestor and one aunt who were both married and divorced from one of their husbands twice.
And sometimes German widowed or divorced women use their maiden name. Do you know her maiden name?
That’s a good point. I do have her maiden name (Trautvetter). I have searched for so many Trautvetter immigrants that it probably would have come up, but it may be worth a specific look.
And….. this becomes very important in DNA research. I have two instances where Y-DNA tests result in NO ONE with the surname of my tested person. One is a perfect match to five people from his Y-67 test. I’m ignoring the fact that there could be an affair involved, because I’d probably never find that, but am instead looking for a ggggggrandmother who married prior to our wanted surname person, had children and then married a man with the surname for which I am looking, and with that second husband “adopting” or having the children of her first husband take the second husband’s last name. I’m back to 1805 and trying to make the transition from TN/KY to NC and find the original marriage. My paper trail looks terrific, but obviously missing something!!! Hopefully all this DNA research is keeping those brain cells working!!!