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A relative was married twice in the 1856-1880 time frame in the US Midwest. Her first husband’s last name was Williamson and the second husband’s last name was Willingham. The relative was probably divorced from the Williamson and the Willingham husband died a few years into their marriage. There were clearly two distinct husbands. The relative subsequently married a man whose last name was Graves. I keep getting the Williamson husband and the Willingham husbands confused because the names start with the same five letters. While working on the relative had her family, I had a post-it note on my computer with the first two husband’s names written down with a “1” next to Williamson and a “2” next to Willingham. Apparently others got confused as well. Various […]
Do you notice who is not listed in records where other family members are? In going through a series of “gossip columns” for a family in the early 20th century, I noticed that one individual’s husband rarely attended anything. I’ve made a notation about his frequent absence in my compilation of the columns. There are other records where sometimes people who “should be listed” are not. This happens in more than the gossip columns of local newspapers. Are you making a notation of this in your analysis of the record? Some absences mean more than others. Missing family functions may just mean there’s been some sort of disagreement, that someone is a loner, is not able to get away from work, or needs time away from their spouse. […]
Joseph Daby had four deeds recorded in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in 1738–some of which had been executed nearly ten years earlier. Not everyone always had their land record recorded immediately. Some people just waited and others waited until they had more than one to record. For these reasons, always look for land records after you “think they should be recorded” and for multiple deeds to the same person recorded at the same time. Joseph Daby may have dabbled getting his deeds recorded but he was not the only one. Deeds were recorded in the order in which they were brought to the local recorder’s office, not the order in which they were executed. Sometimes it may take decades for a deed to be recorded and that delayed recording […]
The use of the “in-law” did not always just indicate the relationship that it does today. In most modern uses of “in-law” a “father-in-law” is the father of someone’s spouse. In the same way a “mother-in-law” is currently generally interpreted as the mother of one’s spouse. In earlier uses, particularly the early 19th century and before, a “father-in-law” could be indicating that the “father-in-law” was actually a subsequent husband of the person’s mother. Today that person is generally referred to as a step-father. Similarly a “mother-in-law” reference could mean that the “mother-in-law” was a subsequent wife of the individual’s father. Today that person is generally referred to as a step-mother. The “in-law” portion of the term stems from the marriage contract signed between the two individuals marrying.
There are several genealogy reminders from this 1962 funeral notice from a newspaper in Quincy, Illinois. It never hurts to search digital images of newspapers for people even when “you know everything about them.” That’s how I originally located this item when searching for my great uncle Alvin Ufkes in a database of newspaper clippings on Ancestry.com. I had not seen the item until I performed that search. My uncle had been a pallbearer at the funeral for his great aunt Anna Buhrmeister. Four of the other pallbearers were names I recognized as members of the same family. The original database of newspaper clippings where I found the funeral notice did not include the precise date of publication. I wanted that and decided to search for the item […]
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