Once friends and acquaintances find out that genealogy is my primary hobby, it's not unusual for them to ask for help, as they've "always wanted to know more about where the family came from." I email some basic questions, and most times I never hear back from the person.
But several times the person has followed through ~ and those have almost always led to fascinating problems necessitating my developing skills with new resources.
I've outlined one of the more interesting cases below. Follow me below the fold for the details.
A friend asked me to find out more about a great-grandmother he knew little about ~ and he was also pretty sure that what he did know wasn't necessarily the strict truth. He had a passport application from 1919 for Martha Marjorie Clark and a death certificate for the same woman listing her maiden name as Martha Marjorie Steinhart. The family legend said that she might have been from Boston and that she (or possibly her husband) might have been married previous to this marriage.
First, I found a passport application for Dayton Phillips Clark, Martha's husband. Also from 1919, he said he was going to Brazil and Argentina for work, which matched the destinations that Martha said she was joining him in. So far, so good.
Next, I turned to the 1920 census, hoping they were back in the US by the time the census was taken. And this is where the story began to take a turn for the interesting. I found Dayton Phillips Clark in the 1920 census twice.
In one listing, he was listed as the son-in-law of John Furey at 145 Seymour St., Philadelphia, and with the occupation of auditor at a railway company. His young son, also named Dayton Phillips Clark, aged 1 11/12, was also there.
The other listing had him with his father Arthur D. Clark, at 22 Keystone St., Upper Darby PA. The occupation of this Dayton was bookkeeper at a textile mill. Listing said he was married, but no sign of a wife or not quite 2 year old son.
So, one person listed twice.... or two people?
And no wife listed at either location :-(
The 1919 passport application lists Arthur D. Clark of Keystone St. as Dayton's father, while Dayton requests that the passport be sent to the Seymour St. address, as well as claiming that as his permanent address. Not quite proof that the two 1920 census listings are the same person, but definitely showing a connection.
So, what about Dayton's wife/wives and son? Dayton Jr. lists Martha Marjorie as his mother on his marriage record, but I became quite skeptical of that when I started piecing together a timeline.
Eventually, after searching various databases at Ancestry and Familysearch (including waiting for some new ones to come on-line.....), I ended up with this timeline for Dayton Sr. and his family:
1915 Dayton P. Clark marries Grace Elizabeth Furey (who was listed as Bessie in an earlier census with her parents)
1917 WW1 draft registration ~ Dayton married but wife not named
1918 Dayton Jr. born in February, based on later records for him (actual birth record not yet found.....)
1918 Grace Furey Clark died March 29, according to a newspaper obituary
1919 Martha, second wife of Dayton Sr., applies for a passport
Dayton Sr. seems to have found employment in the oil industry, and (based on passenger records and children's birthplaces) the family spent most of the time from the mid-1920s to the late 1930s abroad.
1942 Dayton Sr. registered for the WW2 draft; he is working for Gulf Oil and living in Pittsburgh.
I still haven't found a marriage record for Dayton and Martha (which would have happened between Grace's death in March 1918 and Martha's passport application in August 1919), nor have I found any provable trace of Martha before her marriage to Dayton (the MA records available on-line through the New England Historical and Genealogical Society don't have any relevant entries, and they are fairly complete by the 1890s in terms of percentage of vital events recorded).
I also haven't found them in the 1930 or 1940 census records ~ guessing they were abroad at those times, based on passenger list results.
It's not too often one finds a duplicate census record like this in the twentieth century, so this family managed to intrigue me.... even though this isn't my family (which I why I don't have nice pictures of all the places involved) I keep poking around as I have the time ;-) and as new databases become available ~ for example, the 1915 marriage record for Dayton and Grace Elizabeth wasn't on-line when I started, nor was the paper I found Grace's obituary in.
If I ever teach an advanced beginner class in genealogy (I've only taught beginners), I may use this as a case study for the 'backbone' theme of the class, as it has several interesting and/or tricky elements.... records with inaccurate information (Dayton Jr.'s marriage record with the wrong mother, for example), half accurate family legends, duplicate census records leading to the 'same person or just the same name' questions, a first name that makes searching on-line records less easy (keep getting anyone named Clark who lived in Dayton, Ohio), and so on.....