{"id":11672,"date":"2015-10-14T10:40:16","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T14:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=11672"},"modified":"2015-10-14T10:40:16","modified_gmt":"2015-10-14T14:40:16","slug":"william-mercer-married-five-sisters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/william-mercer-married-five-sisters.html","title":{"rendered":"William Mercer Married Five Sisters!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This has to be a record.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s not uncommon for a young man to marry the girl next door \u2013 but in William Mercer\u2019s case he married five of them, all sisters!<\/p>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_11673\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11673\" style=\"width: 454px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/omaha-world-herald-newspaper-1008-1899-mercer-moffitt-marriages.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11673\" src=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/omaha-world-herald-newspaper-1008-1899-mercer-moffitt-marriages.png\" alt=\"[William Mercer] Married Five Sisters, Omaha World-Herald newspaper article 8 October 1899\" width=\"454\" height=\"527\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/omaha-world-herald-newspaper-1008-1899-mercer-moffitt-marriages.png 454w, https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/omaha-world-herald-newspaper-1008-1899-mercer-moffitt-marriages-258x300.png 258w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 454px) 100vw, 454px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11673\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), 8 October 1899, page 28<\/figcaption><\/figure>He married the first of five of the Moffitt sisters, Jennie, when he was 19. After her death, he married in succession her sisters Ada, Catherine, Missouri, and then Anna. The reason for all these marriages? As the article explains:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Each of his wives has died of\u2026consumption.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nestled in the Raccoon Creek area of West Virginia, the Mercer and Moffitt farms were next to each other.<\/p>\n<p>[search_box]<\/p>\n<p>When he was asked \u201cWhy don\u2019t you marry somebody besides a Moffitt, just for a change\u2026?\u201d He responded:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If ye want a reason, it\u2019s kind o\u2019 handy to run over there an\u2019 git a wife. I aint got much time to go chasing round in the mountains for one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Mercer\u2019s marriages to the first four Moffitt sisters produced eight children. Are you related?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related Articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/love-marriage-newspaper-engagement-wedding-announcements.html\">Love &amp; Marriage: Newspaper Engagement &amp; Wedding Announcements<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/wedding-belles-how-to-find-your-ancestors-marriage-records.html\">Wedding Belles! How to Find Your Ancestors\u2019 Marriage Records<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/was-your-ancestors-marriage-certificate-filed-late.html\">Was Your Ancestor\u2019s Marriage Certificate Filed Late?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[bottom_post_ad]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This has to be a record. It\u2019s not uncommon for a young man to marry the girl next door \u2013 but in William Mercer\u2019s case he married five of them, all sisters! He married the first of five of the Moffitt sisters, Jennie, when he was 19. After her death, he married in succession her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[10605,10608,10606,1658,2233,12,465,10604,2446,10475,10607,10603,2020,27,4818,1090,10601,3450],"class_list":["post-11672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-ada-moffitt","tag-anna-moffitt","tag-catherine-moffitt","tag-family-history-2","tag-family-research","tag-genealogy","tag-historical-newspapers","tag-jennie-moffitt","tag-marriages","tag-mercer","tag-missouri-moffitt","tag-moffitt","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-newspapers","tag-newspapers-for-genealogy","tag-west-virginia","tag-william-mercer","tag-wv"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}