Sorting Out Cousins
Sometimes you come across records that just don’t make sense or that contradict other records that are known to be valid. This can be a very frustrating experience and is probably more common when looking at older families that often used the same names many times over the generations. As a case in point, I was recently working on my ex-husband’s lines as my daughter has begun to show an interest in her roots. Since he had told me years ago that his parents both died when he was in his twenties, I was quite surprised to see a record online that appeared to show a much later death date for his father. What made the record so convincing at first glance though was that burial site listed was the same Perry County cemetery as the rest of his family and the birth date fell within the right span of years. Who was this guy? As it turns out, once I was able to obtain the obituary for the man, it was clear that he was not the right guy, but rather his first cousin, which explained why he was buried in the same cemetery as some of the others I knew about in the family. In this case, there were two brothers who lived in the Perry County area who both had sons named Robert Wayne, born several months apart, probably named after an uncle who died young. Between the census records for the brothers and the obituary, it was possible to determine who belonged to which family, but it certainly wasn’t clear at first glance! Had I not had a bit of personal knowledge of the family though, I would have accepted the record as it stood without question, highlighting the necessity for doing the additional research to really verify our data.