Today’s Wedding Wednesday is for my great grandparents William Harmon Mays and his second wife, Iva Belle Moyer. Next week I will post the record for his marriage with his first wife.
1918 marriage of William Harmon Mays and Iva Belle Moyer
As far as I’m aware, there are no known photographs of William or Iva. There are a few family members who remember them at the end of their lives but I haven’t been able to find any pictures of them.
There is a lot of jumping around going on with my posts since I’m working on my Do-Over. To help orientate anyone who is confused on where people belong on the tree and just how far back I’ve gotten into my Do-Over, just scroll a little further for an updated pedigree screenshot.
Brown County, Ohio Marriage Records, vol 1, 1857-1860
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned during my cleanup is to always track down what the original source was. For me, I like to know what website I got each record from, but that’s not the most important part of the citation. When you’re citing your sources, it’s most important that if something crazy happens, you could actually track down that original source again if the need arose.
For example, say one day (a horrible day) FamilySearch lost all their servers and records. (I did say a horrible day.) In light of this unfortunate (and completely fictional) incident, I decide I’m going to Brown County, Ohio to research the Carter family because that’s where I am in my cleanup. Well, I knew I last left off with Daniel Moyer and his wife Hannah Carter. However, I want to look at their marriage record for more clues, or even the same time period of marriages to track down their siblings. Well, you can’t always do that from what you get from the FamilySearch indexes. They don’t always leave reference numbers.
This is where my lesson comes in. I’ve started going to the very first images in a group of images and the picture above is what I find. This gives me the exact direct source information for the marriage record of Daniel and Hannah. With this information, I would know exactly where I’m going at the Brown County Courthouse in order to find this record in it’s original form.
Probate Court, Brown County, Ohio, “Marriage Records, 1818-1939”, 1857-1860, vol. 1, p. 147, no. 7723, for Daniel Moyer-Hannah Carter;
Not that there was much information on the original record, but you never know!
Probate Court, Clermont County, Ohio, “Marriages, 1801-1910”, 1881, p. 516, no 299, Lafayette Moyer-Mollie Howell;
One of the reasons I haven’t been posting much is because I’ve been catching up on my family file cleanup. It’s been going really well. I’m onto the Moyer line of my family tree. I’ve also been soaking up the Ohio, County Marriage and Birth images that were added to FamilySearch. At first I wasn’t going to do new research into Daniel Moyer’s (my 3rd great grandfather) brother. I know he had siblings, and I knew I’d get back around to it, but I couldn’t help myself with these county marriages. What would a little search hurt right?
Well, I found Henry Moyer up to the 1880 census. I know he had two children, Emma and Lafayette. I was having problems finding the children after they left their father’s house. For Lafayette it would be the 1900 census and Emma the 1880. As you all know, the girls take a little more leg work. Well, I found Lafayette in the marriage records as you can see above. However, it was a pleasant surprise to also find that Henry Moyer, appeared with the couple. This is the first time I’ve actually had a parent appear with the child. Lafayette was well over the age of consent (21), so that wasn’t the reason why.
I think what I want to do is learn more about the marriage records from the 1800’s and figure out what little surprises like this could actually mean about the family.
It’s finally happened. I’m finally out of the Kentucky section of the family file cleanup. Not that I don’t love the Kentucky section. It just has a way of going on and on without end. I did make some decisions to not follow some leads on the siblings of my ancestors. I’ll get back around to them. I just needed to take a break. I’m now onto the Clermont County, Ohio section of my family tree. The main surname there is the Moyer surname. I’m in much more comfortable territory on this section because I’m very familiar with Clermont County and two of my Aunts still live there. It’s so easy to call Aunt Molly and ask her any questions about the area or even some of the family history.
The one thing I find difficult in my long distance research is trying to see the records myself. I love nothing more then to scan down the pages of a birth or marriage register. I find it a lot of fun. The only problem is I don’t have any of those records for my family in the immediate area. Even worse, the Family History Center by me is within a half hour drive, and I still haven’t been able to find the time when it’s open twice a week. So I make to do lists, and hope that one day I’ll be able to visit these repositories in an area my family once lived.
There are a few reasons that I chose to highlight this tombstone. In all my hijinks into my family history, I have stumbled onto learning how to do certain things. One of the first things I realized is that even official records can be wrong. I’ve also learned that spelling doesn’t matter in the early and late 1800s.
An important thing to remember about tombstones is that they aren’t always accurate. Take the example above. The names are mostly right, spelling mistakes aside. I also need to state that the death years are all correct (hard to get that wrong, right?)
John (1853-1927): Â His death certificate states his birth year as 1842. Since John is living in the 1850 census and listed as age 5, either date could be wrong but 1853 is more wrong then 1842.
Cecilia (1842-1914): Â I’ve only seen her referred to as Celia or Cela. That could be a shortened nickname but I might never know unless I find her birth record. Her death record also lists her birth date differently. I have 1840 and her age in censuses always matches that.
Harmon (1872-1952): Everything here is correct too!
Ivah (1897-1949): Iva’s name has been spelled a million different ways and that’s not including her maiden name (Moyer/Meyer/Myers). Once again I have her death certificate and her birth date is listed as 1894 and not 1897. The 1900 census actually gives her birth date as Sep 1894 too, which is spot on with her death certificate!
So basically what I’m saying is don’t always trust the tombstone. You never know who was giving the information at the time of your ancestor’s burial. In fact, it’s usually the same person giving the information for the death certificate. That’s why I’m so surprised the death certificates and tombstone varies so much here.
Florence Redford-Moore's tombstone. July 2010
In fact, even newer tombstones can be a bit wrong. This is my grandmother’s tombstone inscription. Everything is spot on except the fact that she was actually born on April 13 and not April 15. Oops! Be sure your family knows that they can come to you for correct dates!
Tombstone Tuesday is a blogging theme used by many GeneaBloggers.
I know it’s an old complaint. Everyone has it. I just don’t know why people can’t just get last names right! I’m not even just talking about record keepers. I’m talking about people too. I don’t have the problem on my Dad’s family, or on the Taylors. I have the misspelling problem with the Mays family. That I can deal with.
The Moyer family has been a whole new frustration though. For some reason the family goes by both Moyer and Myers/Meyers/Moyer. I thought at first it was a miscommunication with the census. However, when I looked again at the Moyer tree that was sent to me a few years ago, some of the Moyer children chose to go by Myers/Meyers eventually.
