Jesse Anderson

Two days ago I wrote that I was beginning a thorough review of my newly expanded website ... here's the first puzzle I uncovered:

Rachel J. Anderson married James Aston - they are my 2nd great-grandparents.  According to their marriage record, Rachel's parents were Jesse and Angeline Anderson.

The antique photo album I received from my grandmother includes a photo that is labeled as Maggie Allen with Rachel Aston.  There are also two photos on facing pages that are identified as Maggie Allen and John Allen.  Sure enough, I found a marriage record for Margaret E. Anderson and John P. Allen.  But here's the rub ... Maggie's parents are shown as Jesse and Anna Anderson.

The album also includes a photo of Dave Anderson in military uniform- if he's in the album, there must be a connection ... don't you think?

I have no proof yet, but my initial guess is that Rachel, Maggie & Dave are siblings.  I currently have two Jesse Anderson's in my database (#176 father of Rachel and #233 father of Maggie), but I suspect they're actually the same man.  Similarly, I won't be surprised to find that Anna and Angeline are the same person.

Can you shed any light on these folks?

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Read more about James and Rachel.

Flora R. Harris

In the John Harris family cemetery on Fork Ridge in Marshall County, West Virginia, there is a grave marker for Flora R. Harris:

As you can see, Flora was the daughter of J. A. and I. Harris - but when I took that photo in 2004 the initials didn't register. I recently searched through my Harris folks for a J. A. Harris married to an I. “Somebody” and realized I had John A. Harris married to Isabella/Isabell/Isabel Littleton. Aha!

Sounded like a good match, but was I really on the right track? I needed more to back up my theory. I have a typed copy of John's obituary that lists his children, obtained from a distant cousin. Per that obituary, John and Isabella had 13 children, 12 of whom were still living when John died. Could the one who died be Flora?

John and Isabella lived in Marshall County, (West) Virginia when they were married and for the birth of their earliest children. The obituary says that the family moved to Illinois in 1865 after John's Civil War service. Flora's gravestone is pretty worn, but it looks to me like she died 29 April 1865 only 22 days old. So it seems plausible that she could have died shortly before the family moved. If I'm right about John and Isabella being her parents, then her burial in the John Harris (Sr.) family cemetery means that she was buried on her great-grandfather's farm. John A. was a son of Benjamin Harris, who was a son of John (Sr.).

Unfortunately, I've run into issues with my theory. I just added the 1870 and 1880 federal census enumeration for the John A. Harris family living in Fairbury, Livingston County, Illinois, to my West Virginia Heritage website. I'm running into likely name errors and incorrect genders that don't entirely match up with the children's names listed in John's obituary … this is leaving me with more than 13 children.

I've lost touch with the distant cousin I mentioned earlier, but I think it's time to see if I can track her down again!

Okey Anise Church revisited

Not too long ago I wrote about official records containing errors … specifically regarding Okey Anise Church.  I made a good case why I believed that the Carl Church recorded in the Calhoun County, West Virginia, birth register was actually Anise – and I still believe it is.  HOWEVER … I've now found yet another wrinkle in this whole thing that really makes me scratch my head in wonder.

There is a birth record for Okey Anise Church born on 14 May 1897 to Eli Church and Nora Summers in Pennsboro, Ritchie County, West Virginia.  All of the info is correct – except for the county!

A note on the Ritchie County record which comes from an “Index and Register of Delayed Reports of Births” states:  "This record made from photostatic copy from Div. of Vital Stat., Charleston, W.Va. File No. 30942, recorded Aug. 24, 1943."  Yep, a 1943 recording of an 1897 birth counts as delayed in my mind.

As sources go, the document created closest to the actual event date is generally considered to be the best and most accurate source.  As we all know, the passage of time leads to failing memories – so the longer the time period between an event and the recording of that event … the more likely it is that errors will occur.  Using that criteria, one would put more credence on the Calhoun County birth record.

Let's take a look at all the pieces of this puzzle so far …

In support of Calhoun County:

• Register of Births – timely recording
• WWI draft registration – info per Anise himself
• Certificate of Death – informant was Anise's wife, Eula
• According to his sister (my grandmother), Nellie Church Kuhn.  Couple this with the fact that his parents were married in Calhoun County, Anise was the first child, and the next two (Vella and Nellie) were also born in Calhoun County.

In support of Ritchie County:

• Index and Register of Delayed Reports of Birth – delayed recording
• Marriage License – informant was Anise

The marriage license is the thing that really puzzles me.  Almost everything listed above points to Calhoun County and the delayed report of birth is questionable; but why would Anise say in 1918 (draft registration) that he was born in Calhoun County then say in 1926 (marriage license) that he was born in Ritchie County???

Even Official Records Contain Errors

Okey Anise Church

My paternal grandmother's oldest brother was Okey Anise Church, commonly known by his middle name.  He was born 14 May 1897 in Calhoun County, West Virginia.  These are the facts I had gathered from a variety of sources, including Grandma herself.  Finding his official birth record took a little extra research due to several inconsistencies:

I found a Carl Church born on 14 May 1897 in Calhoun County.  Hmmm … right date & place but wrong name.  But let's look at this a little more.

Father's place of birth = Marshall County per the birth register, but Anise's father, Eli Church, was born in Wetzel County.  Another strike against this being the right record.  But don't give up yet!

Mother's place of birth not given, so that's no help.

Full name of mother = Minora Summers.  Her maiden name = Church.  This was my aha moment – Anise's mother was Lenora (Summers) Church.  Lenora … Minora … maybe the clerk was just hard of hearing.  Summers was her maiden name, Church her married name.  They're reversed in the register.

Full name of father = Ely Church.  Wrong spelling, but that's a common occurrence.

So the baby's name is incorrect, the father's birthplace is wrong, the mother's name is all messed up, and the father's first name is misspelled.  Yet, the record I found has to be Anise. 

Where did the name Carl come from?  Was it clerical error?  Did Eli & Lenora change their mind about what they wanted their baby's name to be?  Who knows!

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UPDATE:  Check out "Okey Anise Church revisited" for more questions resulting from a second birth record in a different county!

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Matthews or Matthew or Mathews or ...

Seems like I've posted a lot lately about my 2nd great-grandparents, so I thought I'd stick with that but switch to the ancestors of my paternal grandmother, Nellie (Church) Kuhn.  Her mother was Lenora (Summers) Church, daughter of Joseph and Martha E. Summers.

Martha E. Summers

I originally thought Martha's maiden name was Martha Ellen Matthews according to a handwritten family document I was given years ago ... until I found the official register documenting her marriage in Taylor County, West Virginia, where her last name appears without the “s”:  Martha E. Matthew.

Now I know that spelling errors occur frequently, even in official records - so I still figured that the handwritten document would prove to be the correct spelling.  After all, it seemed more likely that a clerk would misspell the name than a family member.  But wait ...

On Martha's death certificate in Calhoun County, West Virginia, for which one of her sons was the informant, her maiden name is spelled with the “s” but with only one “t”:  Martha Mathews.  Again, you would think a son would know the correct spelling, yet this certificate lists her birthplace as Tyler County and her father as James Mathews ... as opposed to all the other sources I've found that indicate her parents were William K. and Nancy and that she was born in Barbour County.  Coupled with the fact that the son gave no birthplace for James and no info at all for Martha's mother, I'm not so sure he's an ideal source!!

On the other hand, Nancy died from diptheria at the young age of 39, and the informant son wasn't born until 15 years later.  So he would never have known his grandmother Nancy.  But who is James?  Was Tyler County written in error instead of Taylor County?  (Taylor and Barbour are neighboring counties, and Martha did live in Taylor County for several years.)  Those are questions for another day.

While I'm talking about Nancy, her two youngest children also died from diptheria a few months after she did – and all three of them appear in the death register on three consecutive lines written in the same hand, but with two different spellings:  Mathew and Mathews.

Federal census records don't help a whole lot as the surname spelling for the William K. household (including Martha) was Mathew in 1850 and Matthews in 1860.  By the time of the 1870 census, Martha was married to Joseph Summers so she finally had a surname with no question about the spelling!  Interestingly, the 1870 census does show several Summers and Matthew families living next to each other in Taylor County.

At this point in my research, I have no reason to doubt that Martha Ellen is correct for her given name, but was her maiden name Matthews or Matthew or Mathews or Mathew?  The answer appears to be that ... the answer is unclear!!

Great-grandma Hattie and the 1900 U.S. Federal Census

I've been doing a lot of clean-up of the way I had recorded census sources in my genealogy database. Trying to establish a sense of consistency in preparation of creating a website later this year.

Hattie (Clark) Kuhn

In the process, I ran across an case that had always amused me. My paternal great-grandmother was Hattie May Clark who married Adam Kuhn on 18 January 1898. Their first child and only son, Herbert Kuhn, was my grandfather and he was born on 05 November 1898.

Fast-forward to 1900 when the U.S. Federal Census recorded data for each household as of 01 June 1900. Sure enough, Adam and Hattie appear on the census living in a rented home at 1206 Fourth Street, Moundsville, WV. They had been married two years and Hattie was the mother of one child, still living. So far, so good.

However, Hattie also appears in another household next door at 1208 Fourth Street. She was recorded as a single daughter living with her parents, Samuel and Margaret Clark. Huh???

Both households show Hattie as being 21 years old, born in July 1878. Interestingly, older sister Della is also recorded as living with Samuel and Margaret - being 27 years old, born April 1873, and single. Is that true? Or is she also actually married and living somewhere else too?

A quick jaunt to one of my favorite websites, the Vital Research Records from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, and I found a marriage certificate for James Peters and Della V. Clark, married in Marshall County on 24 December 1889. Della was 18, which would equate to a birth circa 1872. And guess who the informant is ... Samuel Clark. So it's pretty safe to assume that this is the same Della.

Back to the census page, and just two households from Adam and Hattie I find James and Della Peters at 1202 Fourth Street. Here Della is recorded as 28 years old, born in April 1872, married for ten years, with two of three children still living.

So I think I've just figured out why my great-grandmother Hattie was listed in two households. It appears that Samuel and Margaret reported all of their children, regardless of whether they were single and living with them or married and living in another house. But why would they have reported Della and Hattie as single? My guess is that they just told the census enumerator names and birth dates – the enumerator probably assumed they were single.

Moral of this story … census records needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They contain a wealth of info - but it's good to find other sources that confirm it.  Names are frequently misspelled, and other info often contains mistakes, as in this story.  Be cautious!