Headstone Fun

 Part of the fun of genealogy is walking cemeteries and seeing all the unique headstones.  The most recent cemetery walked had headstones with sayings like 'best wife ever' and 'superstar' on them.  It gives me ideas for my own headstone.

Why is your last name different?

Why did one child have a different last name?  Foster child?  Let's say his last name was Craft.

Found the legal notice where one daughter of Craft changed her last name to Smith.  Interesting.  Why did she change it?

After lots of searching I find Craft's biological mother was married to the biological father Smith when Craft was born.  She deserted him and he had to go to court to get visitation for the Craft child.  She gave the child her maiden name for a middle name and at some point his last name became her new husband's name of Craft.  He raised the son like his own, but the child must have had some connection to the bio father as all of the children claimed him as a brother in their obits and he (Craft) claimed them, but his name was always Craft.

I wonder if the two daughters/granddaughters changed their name after finding out how the grandma treated the bio father Smith, their bio grandfather?  Maybe there was no 'treatment.'  Maybe this was all amicable. 

There's a story or two here.  I don't necessarily need to know the details.  I know enough and have enough documentation to figure out the child is biologically a cousin.  It took hours to untangle this  That's enough for me. 

By the way, the names Craft and Smith have nothing to do with this family.  I made the names up because I thought having names helped clarify the issues.

My Three Sons

 My great-grandmother on my dad's side has a sister with three sons. I could find information on two of the three. The third was a huge mystery. Today I tried a different search for him in the death certificates and bingo! He has a different last name than his brothers even though his mother would put him down in the census as the same last name as one of the brothers. All three boys have different last names. One born in the 1860's, one in the 1870's and the last in the 1880s. I don't know if she married any of the dads as I always find her with her maiden name. I know she wasn't married to the dad of the son I found today. She took him to court for fortification and bastardization.

Detective Work

 I have been working my way through a book on the Lichtenwalner Family.  For the most part the book has been accurate minus spelling errors and little things here and there.  

Then I found five children who were actually grandchildren.  That put me in a loop until I worked on the family outside of the genealogy program.  Once that was fixed I started humming along again.  I like being able to stop and put a spouse's parents in the database because this family is so interconnected with other branches of our family.

Then I found a William with three children.  The girls were listed as Mrs. Husband's Name.  I stopped to figure out their names and I spent all day on them.  Why did it take so long?  Because they don't belong to the family listed.  Their father's first name and middle initial are the same.  The surname is different.  The birth/death dates are close.  It took me a long time to realize I was looking at two different possible fathers.  

The last problem I spent a full day on was a man I had in the database three times.  His name showed up five times because one man named his son after himself and then the grandson carried the name.  Now that I've cleared the mess up, I have three men with that name.  Three generations.  Solving the problem required realizing the father was married twice.  That's not unusual.  The first wife's name was misspelled badly enough the genealogy program didn't throw her name up as a possible duplicate. Slough is actually Schlaugh.  In this case anyway.  There were just enough misspellings to send me different directions.  Finally I had the proof I needed in some obituaries naming first husband/second husband and half-brothers by name.  

This is probably clear as mud and when I reread it someday that is what I'll think too.  I am happy I figured out the problems and feel comfortable my database is right  Yes, I sourced my information and included copies of the obituaries and any other documents I could find to support my inferences. 

What? You are in the database already?

 It is so satisfying to see results from entering grandparents/great grandparents on those who marry into the family. Today I found two connections between my dad's side of the family and my father-in-law's side of the family. When I first started going back two/three generations (I always enter the parents of those who marry into the family if I have the information) I worried I was creating extra work for myself and taking up space in my database. It always creates a wow moment for me when I put a name in and find out I already have that person in the database. Now running a relationship report to get everyone up to date on their status in the family as to their relationship with my boys.

Small World

 In 1900, the last representative of the 4th generation of one of my husband's branches lived in the village named for/founded by my 5th great grandfather. Small world.

Marriage one....marriage two

So, it's not unusual for someone to be married more than once.  Even back in the days when divorce was taboo.  Heck, my grandparents were divorced and I didn't realize it until I was in high school.  They divorced before I was born (dinosaur days).  Both remarried which meant Grandma had a different last name than Grandpa.  Still didn't put it together.  So I wasn't the brightest grandchild.  It is what it is.

Ernest married my 5th cousin.  This twig on the family tree interests me as (1) they are my family and (2) the geographic locations fascinate me.  

Helena was born in New York.  This is an unusual location for this branch of the family.  She died in California. One coast to the other.  This is from a mid-westerner who traveled to California several times as a child, but never east until her oldest was in the Navy.  My motto became have your child join the Navy to see the US.  I went to New York, Virginia, and Florida thanks to this child.  Sorry, off topic.

Yesterday, Ernest and Helena were the lucky recipients of my research to locate more details about them and their lives.  Ernest was born in Alabama and died in Hawaii.  Helena, well, I already told you about her.  I still haven't figured out how and when she met Ernest and why she went to Hawaii and married him.  I'll probably never know.  Maybe I am being too nosy.  

I know Helena and Ernest have a daughter. 

A newspaper article mentioned a girl child for Ernest.  But, the mother's name was different.  So a little more research and  Ernest was married twice.  He had two children with the first wife and one with the second.  It doesn't appear the three children were either aware or had contact with each other.  There is no proof so far either way.  The first two children are not mentioned in Ernest's obituary.

I am fascinated the first wife at the young age of 18 traveled by ship with a four month old by herself.  What courage. 

The two children from the first marriage are important in my research because they are related to the daughter of the second marriage who is related to me. 

Seven Cousins...One Yearbook Page

 Between my husband and I we have several family lines in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania and the area.  I stumbled across a page from Northern Lehigh High School and thought it would be fun to run the names through my genealogy database.  Seven from that page are related.  One is related to my husband, three related to me, and the final three are related to both of us.  That was fun.  If I didn't have a list of things to accomplish today, I would check another page!

Fifth Cousins and World Wars

A fifth cousin was killed in Germany in 1945 at the young age of 22.  This young man was recognized for his ability to shoot Nazi tanks in the dark with his sharp-shooting skills.  Another fifth cousin died at the young age of 25 in France on November 10, 1918...the day before the armistice was signed.  

It makes me sad to see a life gone as a result of war.  I'm working hard to keep my fingers from getting political.