Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Which Ancestor Married the Most Times?

Extremes in our family are what we're looking for this week in Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Which ancestor of yours married the most times?  (This may be interesting for some geneabloggers!)

2.  Share about which ancestors married the most times in your own blog post or on your Facebook page.  Be sure to leave a link to your report in a comment on this post.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]

Well, Randy mentioned that there doesn't seem to be a way to easily determine this information from within Family Tree Maker, my family tree database of choice, so I'm going to believe him.  That means I will be working from memory.

I can immediately think of four men in my family tree who were married three times each:  my father, my stepfather, my paternal grandfather, and someone way back on the Sellers line (two of his wives were named Barbara).  My stepfather doesn't really count as an ancestor, and the Sellers man in question is on my informal adoptive line, so that kind of rules them both out.  I would count my grandfather as the most, because in addition to three marriages, for about 17 years he lived with my grandmother as though they were married.

So that means Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. (1903–1995) is probably the winner of this particular sweepstakes.  I don't believe that my aunts from his first marriage considered my grandmother as their stepmother, but they called her Mother Ann.  I know neither they nor my father thought of the second or third wives as stepmothers.  And I'm pretty sure my Aunt Carol did not think of the third and final wife as her stepmother (though I could be wrong about that).  So three marriages, one informal liaison (even though my grandmother used the surname Sellers for the rest of her life), and no stepmothers!

If, however, we were to investigate beyond ancestors and look at collateral relatives, there are additional contenders.  Three of my cousins on my father's side have each been married four times.  One aunt has been married four times.  One of my grandmother's younger brothers had four relationships that produced children (all daughters!); I'm not sure how many times he actually married, however.

But one cousin on my grandmother's long, storied, originally Quaker line was married four times that I have documented, plus he had a child by someone other than his wife while he was still married.  And based on what I have found about him so far, I would not be surprised if there were more marriages and more children.

Now, this is all on my father's side of the family.  On my mother's side, I know of only one cousin and one uncle who have been married three times.

And I'll also thank Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic.  This was fun!

Loving Day 2024

Yesterday, June 12, was Loving Day, when we commemorate and celebrate the 1967 United States Supreme Court decision that struck down the antimiscegenation laws in the United States, at that time still clung to in sixteen states in the South, which held that just because one person was black and another white that it was not legal for them to marry, no matter how much they loved each other.  And I am thrilled to add another happy couple's marriage to my family tree.

Ally and Adrien, May 25, 2024

The Mother-in-Law

Lynn and Mary Lou,
Thanksgiving 1957

It's October 16, the birth date of my half-sister's mother, Mary Lou Jocelyn (Bowen) Sellers James.  During the past few years I have been trying to document my memories of Mary Lou both for my sister and myself.

My family was unusual for its time.  My sister and her mother lived with us for a while when I was younger.  We were a relatively early "blended family."  So I actually knew Mary Lou.

I still haven't figured out if there's an existing term in English that accurately describes our relationship.  She wasn't my stepmother, because she was married to my father before his marriage to my mother.  A pre-stepmother?  Pre-mother?  Ante-mother?  I bet Yiddish has a word for it.  But still family, whatever the term.

One of the more interesting stories that Mary Lou told me was about when she and my father were first married.  They had been friends prior to that and skating partners, but apparently not really romantically involved.

I don't know what Nana, my maternal grandmother, thought of Mary Lou prior to the marriage, but — at least according to Mary Lou, who sometimes "embellished" her stories — she had specific misgivings about her new daughter-in-law that manifested right after they were married.

The wedding night must have been spent at Nana's home.  Mary Lou told me that the next morning, Nana went upstairs to inspect the bed sheets to ensure that her daughter-in-law hadn't been fooling around with anyone, I guess including my father, prior to marrying my father.

That sure can set a tone for a marriage.  I guess it's amazing that it lasted as long as it did (just under five years on paper, although it may have been less than that in person).  Coincidentally, the divorce was finalized on Mary Lou's birthday.

A Delayed Marriage

As I mentioned in an earlier post, writing up the daily "family events" for my blog has sometimes encouraged me to look for more complete information on some of those events, when I discover that I have only a date but no year, only a state for a location, or sometimes no location at all.

This time I started with just a date — February 12, 1903 — and no location for the marriage of Elmer Gaunt and Edna Wright.  So I went hunting around for the location.

I discovered a marriage index for Tulare County, California that showed they married on February 14, 1903, not February 12.

Wonderful!  I had a location, but now I had conflicting information.

So I continued to search for other records about the marriage, hoping to resolve the discrepancy.

I then found five short newspaper squibs.

Kings County Sentinel (Hanford, California), Thursday, February 12, 1903, page 5

Hanford [California] Semi Weekly Journal, Friday, February 13, 1903, page 3

Visalia [California] Times Delta, Wednesday, February 18, 1903, page 2

Kings County Sentinel (Hanford, California), Thursday, February 19, 1903, page 5

We now have a short timeline:

Monday, February 9:  Elmer B. Gaunt and Edna L. Wright obtain a marriage license.

Monday, February 9:  Elmer's mother, Naomi (not Nanoma) Gaunt, dies.

Tuesday, February 10:  Both the death and the marriage license are reported in the newspaper.

Wednesday, February 11:  A funeral is held for Naomi Gaunt, on the day Elmer and Edna originally planned to marry.

Saturday, February 14:  Elmer Gaunt and Edna Wright have their delayed wedding.

Wednesday, February 18:  The Visalia Times Delta reports that the marriage took place near Tipton.

Thursday, February 19:  The Kings County Sentinel reports that the marriage took place at Tipton (which I interpret to mean in Tipton).

So I still have some conflicting information, but I think I can live with that discrepancy.

Some Things Never Change

As I have been writing my "family events" posts for the blog, I sometimes pause to do some quick research to see if I can quickly find a full birth location, wedding date, or something similar for which I currently have incomplete information.  And sometimes the records I find yield the desired information plus a little extra.

If you're having trouble reading the handwriting, it says:

Do Not Publish
Pregnancy Quite Noticeable
only on gal of course

This marriage took place in October 1939 in Indiana.

The marriage license application did provide the information I was seeking, along with this tidbit.  I don't know if I have a record of the child, because no one fits the timeframe of the pregnancy, as the family is constructed so far.  It's possible the child didn't survive, or was given a future-dated birthdate for public consumption.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Create a Fact List in Your Genealogy Software

Almost every time Randy Seaver asks us to do something with our genealogy database software for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, I end up leanring something new.  Tonight was no exception.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  Does your genealogy management software (e.g., Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, Reunion, Heredis, Family Historian, etc.) create a "Fact List" report (or something similar):  a list of the profiles in your family tree that have (or don't have) a specific Fact (e.g., birth, death, burial, immigration, etc.)?

2.  If so, run a Fact List to determine which people have a specific Fact (or don't have a specific Fact) and share it with us. 

3.  Share your results with us in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Leave a comment on this post with a link to your results.

I still have not resolved my problem with reinstalling Family Tree Maker (FTM) since my laptop hard drive died, so I'm still using Reunion.  But because I intend to go back to FTM, I haven't really learned the ins and outs of Reunion.

While working on tonight's challenge, I learned that in addition to being able to search for lots of basic facts (e.g., name, birth date, marriage date, etc.) Reunion has a selection of preset searches.  One of them is "With Multiple Spouses."  I decided that would be a fun search to run.

Running the Find request automatically created a list.  I discovered that 291 people in my database are listed with multiple spouses.  Technically, that's actually multiple partners, as I know that several of them don't have marriage dates but were noted in FTM as having met, not having been married.  Apparently when I imported the GEDCOM file into Reunion, that distinction was not retained, or at least Reunion doesn't distinguish between the two for the purpose of this search.

The list gives me an option at the bottom to create a report.  When I clicked on that, it took about 8 seconds for the report to be generated and opened in Word.

And I 100% agree with Randy's comment that being able to run searches and create reports such as these are advantages of using a family tree database program versus having an online tree.

Loving Day

Hugh Stone and Robin Dane were married on November 5, 1978.

June 12 is Loving Day, when we celebrate the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down antimiscegenation laws in the sixteen (Southern) states that still had those laws on their books.

Wordless Wednesday for Loving Day

Read about Loving Day.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Longest Ancestral Marriage

It's Saturday, which means another interesting genealogy challenge from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music!), is:

(1) Marcia Philbrick wrote Celebrating 50 Years today on her Heartland Genealogy blog and suggested it for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge, so here it is:

(2) How many of your ancestors were married for FIFTY years?  What is the longest marriage of your ancestors in your tree (from marriage to first death of a spouse, or divorce)?  Consider, say, the last six generations to make it manageable!

(3) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a comment on this blog post to lead us to your answers.

I saw this challenge and thought I was going to have only one pair of ancestors who made it to 50 years.  I was wrong about that!  On the other hand, Randy had 52 couples, while I have a total of only 18, and I had to go all the way back to 6th-great-grandparents to get that many.

Parents

• Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. and Myra Roslyn Meckler:  16 years (1961–1977)

Grandparents

• Abraham Meckler and Lillyan E. Gordon:  50 years (1939–1989)
• Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. and Anna Gauntt:  0 years (They were never married.)

Great-grandparents

• Cornelius Elmer Sellers and Laura May Armstrong:  15 years (1903–1918)
• Thomas Kirkland Gauntt and Jane Dunstan:  59 years (1891–1951)
• Morris Meckler and Minne Zelda Nowicki:  36 years (1900–1936)
• Joe Gordon and Sarah Libby Brainin:  41 years (1914–1955)

Great-great-grandparents

• James Gauntt and Amelia Gibson:  38 years (1851–1889)
• Frederick Cleworth Dunstan and Martha Winn:  15 years (1858–1873)
• Joel Armstrong and Sarah Ann Lippincott:  about 22 years (1878–about 1900)
• Gershon Itzhak Nowicki and Dora Yelsky:  60 years (1876–1936)
• Avigdor Gorodetsky and Esther Leah Schneiderman:  about 19 years (about 1889–1908)
• Morris Brainin and Rose Dorothy Jaffe:  about 39 years (about 1881–1930)

Great-great-great-grandparents

• Hananiah Selah Gaunt and Abigail Atkinson:  about 23 years (about 1829–1852)
• Richard Dunstan and Jane Coleclough:   21 years (1833–1865)

Great-great-great-great-grandparents

• Hananiah Gaunt and Rebecca Mulliner:  about 14 years (about 1785–1799)
• Joel Armstrong and Catherine Stackhouse:  30 years (1823–1854)

Great-great-great-great-great-grandparents

• Joseph Gaunt and Elizabeth Borton:  44 years (1762–1806)

Great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents

• Hananiah Gaunt and Ann Ridgway:  61 years (1730–1792)

The longest marriage I have recorded is 61 years, for my 6th-great-grandparents Hananiah Gaunt and Ann Ridgway.

The lengths of the marriages range from 14 to 61 years.  Two of the marriages were ended by divorce; the others ended with the death of one spouse.

The average length of the 18 marriages is 33.5 years.

Four marriages of the marriages lasted 50 years or longer.  That's 22.2% of the marriages.  Randy had 15 of 52 marriages last 50 or more years, which is 28.9%.

Loving Day

Floyd Richard Williams and Elizabeth Jean McStroul were married on October 5, 1968 in Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio.

Today, June 12, is Loving Day, and time to celebrate and remember the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia that struck down antimiscegenation laws in the sixteen (Southern) states that still had refused to let them go.

Treasure Chest Thursday: Fraudulent Conveyance!

This piece of paper is 5" x 6 1/2".  It's a dark cream in color, with one section on the back that's orangish, where something, probably a business card based on the size, was pinned previously.  It has no watermark but seems to be of decent quality.  It might be writing paper, such as people used to use when letter writing was more common, although it's perhaps a little small for that.

There is handwriting on both sides, although the writing on one side is minimal, only numbers.  That side also has some names typed on it.  The handwriting appears similar to that of Jean La Forêt from his journal entries.  It also would seem to be his writing because it refers to Emma in the third person.  As some of the writing is a little difficult to read, I'll transcribe the entire side:

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

Fraudulent Conveyance
Section 1931 - Page 564 - I -

Emma was german thru
her marriage with Petit
(Foreigner)

The mother was adminis-
tratrix – Her husband
bought and returned
property to her -

Fraudulent conveyances all
over, since the marriage of
Mrs. Shaefer with Curdt,

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

This appears to be more information that Jean had noted for his and Emma's fight against Emma's half-siblings in the dispute over the split of Elizabeth Curdt's estate.  The reference to fraudulent conveyance seems to be from The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, 1899, which was cited on a document discussed a month ago.  Section 1931 is "Fraudulent conveyance" and does appear on page 564 in that edition.  I don't know how useful of a tool it was going to be in the La Forêts' fight, however, as it carried only a misdemeanor conviction.

It was not necessarily true that Emma became a German citizen through her marriage to Emile Petit.  Until the law was changed in 1907, whether a woman's citizenship status changed to that of her foreign husband was decided on a case-by-base basis.  What would have caused her to lose her citizenship was leaving the country.  When the act of March 2, 1907 went into effect, Emma's divorce from Petit was already in process; it was finalized in March 1908.  But even if she was considered a foreigner based on that marriage, her subsequent marriage to Jean in 1908 (a mere two months after her divorce) made her an American citizen again, because he had naturalized in 1890.  So well before the time Emma's mother died and all these disputes over the estate arose, Emma was no longer a foreigner.

The broad overview of the Schafer estate included the information that Elizabeth had been the administratrix of her deceased husband's estate.  That same document mentioned that Louis Curdt had sold the property back to Elizabeth after they were divorced.

The accusion of fraudulent conveyances since Elizabeth married Louis Curdt is interesting, primarily because it's so open-ended.  I'm guessing he was referring to the pressure to have Emile Petit and Emma sign away their rights to the Schafer property.  It's hard to tell if the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence is a period or a comma, as Jean seems to have used them almost interchangeably.  If it was intended as a comma, this thought does not continue on the other side of the paper.

That other side doesn't have much information on it.  Typed at one end are three names:  Miss Rosita La Foret (daughter of Jean and Emma), Overland, Missouri; Miss Ethel Schaefer (first time we've seen her name; perhaps the daughter of Charles and Alvina [Curdt] Schaefer?); and Mrs. E. M. La Foret (Emma).  Nothing else is there, so there's no way to tell why the names were typed.

Written in the middle of the page and upside down from the names are some numerals with absolutely no context.  Jean must have been trying to figure out some amounts connected with the estate, but he left no clues to follow up on.

Loving Day 2016

It is Loving Day, and therefore time to celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967 that struck down antimiscegeneation laws in those states that still stood firmly by them.  Those sixteen states, all in the South, did not permit someone classified as "black" (the "one-drop rule" prevailing) and someone classified as "white" to be married, some of the states even disallowing marriages performed in states that permitted the unions.  If not for the Loving v. Virginia decision, my brother might not have been able to marry Sandra, and my family would not have had the pleasure of welcoming her and her family into our lives.  This year will be their 5th anniversary.

Skeletons in the Closet: Divorce

This is the first of what will be an occasional series of posts. The idea behind this series is to discuss subjects which are often denied, covered up, or in some way obfuscated when relatives talk about family history.  When information is hidden, family history research becomes more difficult and can be derailed.  I'm starting with divorce because it's somewhat less volatile than some of the other topics.

It can be difficult for many people in our modern world to understand why divorce might be such a touchy subject in one's family history, but for previous generations divorce was a much more significant event.  Approaching the situation with gravity was even part of the legal procedure.  A couple did not simply get divorced.  Cause had to be shown, and then an interlocutory decree would be issued.  The divorce would be finalized a year later, and then only after one of the parties followed through.  That intervening year was to allow the couple to really, really, make sure they wanted to go through with the divorce.

Because of the social stigma attached to being divorced, women in particular did not want to admit to it.  A lot of "widows" in the census were actually divorcées.

Some of the trepidation about divorce is a holdover from Catholicism, which still does not permit divorce.  The most that Catholicism allows is legal separation, which, in all ways but the final dissolution of the marriage, is just like a divorce.  Paperwork is drawn up, assets are divided, child custody is accounted for -- the same things you see in a divorce.  Legally, however, the couple is still married.  Most other religions allow divorce through some mechanism.

Apparently my family was very "forward thinking" regarding divorce.  My grandmother was divorced in the early 1920's -- I wonder if it caused scandal in the family!  My grandfather divorced for the first time in the mid-1950's, when it still was not a common occurrence.  (Before that happened, he and my grandmother were together and my father was born.  That, however, is a different kind of skeleton in the closet, a discussion for another day.)  One time I sat down and counted and came up with twenty divorces through four generations of one branch of my family.

From a family history perspective, a divorce can provide incredibly helpful information.  I have not yet found a divorce file that did not include the date and location of the marriage.  If you have not found that through other research, obtaining the divorce paperwork can give you a lead.  If the couple had children, their names and birthdates are usually included, particularly if the children are minors.  There may be a full inventory of the couple's assets and property, which can give you an idea of their economic status.  The file may also include addresses of the two parties if legal paperwork was served to them.

Divorce is a civil matter and the records are usually not found in the same department as birth, marriage, and death records.  They are usually available at the county level in the U.S.  Some divorce indices are linked from the German Roots site.  You can also use your favorite search engine with the county name (and state, in case more than one county has that name) and the words divorce records.  (Make sure you find a county site and not a for-profit third party.)  For example, I searched for "okaloosa county divorce records" (not in quotation marks) and found the Okaloosa County Clerk of Court site (which I discovered has scanned images online!).  If the county does not have images or a searchable index online, there will be information on how to request a search and how to order records.

Even though divorce is more commonplace in today's society, it still causes great emotional effects to all parties involved.  If you are researching a divorce in your family and you talk to family members about it, keep people's feelings in mind and be diplomatic and gentle in your discussions.