{"id":52345,"date":"2019-08-29T11:23:56","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T15:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=52345"},"modified":"2020-03-05T19:33:05","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T00:33:05","slug":"documenting-mary-gilman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/documenting-mary-gilman.html","title":{"rendered":"Documenting Mary Gilman"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like to gather all of the evidence for each person in my family tree that I can.
\nHowever, the evidence does not always agree.<\/p>\n

Take for example the case of Mary Gilman, daughter of John and Mary (Young) Gilman. In two published family histories it states that she was born on 6 August 1840 and died on 22 September 1855.<\/p>\n

When I looked for confirmation of this information in newspapers published at the time in GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>, I found that a Concord, New Hampshire, newspaper ran this obituary notice for Mary.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette (Concord, New Hampshire), 11 October 1854, page 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Notice the day and month of death is the same as the family histories: 22 September; but the year is different \u2013 1854. This obituary tells me that she died on 22 September 1854, not 1855.<\/p>\n

The newspaper article gives her name as Mary \u201cMelinda\u201d Gilman.
\nHmm\u2026 the family histories give her name as Mary \u201cMarenda\u201d Gilman.<\/p>\n

The newspaper article also mentions that she was \u201caged 18.\u201d
\nThat would indicate that she was born in 1836, but the family histories state that she was born on 6 August 1840.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at the 1850 census<\/a> and see what it tells us about her age.<\/p>\n

\"Source:<\/a>
Source: GenealogyBank, \u201cUnited States Census, 1850,\u201d database with images, GenealogyBank (https:\/\/genealogybank.com\/#), John Gilman, Gilmanton, Belknap, New Hampshire, United States. (Original index: United States Census, 1850, FamilySearch, 2014.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The census states that she was 14 years old in 1850.
\nThat fits with what the obituary states \u2013 that she was 18 years old in 1854 when she died.<\/p>\n

It is looking like she was born in 1836 and not in 1840.<\/p>\n

And, look closely at her name \u2013 it is given as \u201cMarinda\u201d in the 1850 census.
\nThat\u2019s very close to the \u201cMarenda\u201d spelling in the online family histories.<\/p>\n

The census taker heard her name and wrote down \u201cMarinda,\u201d and the newspaper gives it as \u201cMelinda\u201d \u2013 two very similar-sounding names.<\/p>\n

By gathering primary sources that were created at the time of the events in her life, I can evaluate conflicting information and come to a conclusion about the particulars in her life. It can take additional research to sort out conflicting information.<\/p>\n

Genealogy Tip:<\/em><\/strong> Gather all of the evidence you can and document each member of your family tree as thoroughly as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Thomas Jay Kemp gathers evidence to document the death date of someone on his family tree: Mary Gilman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52363,"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":[6976,12,2719,2020,1084],"class_list":["post-52345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-census-records","tag-genealogy","tag-genealogy-search-tips","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-obituaries"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/illustration-0221-2019-featured-graphic-man-computer.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52345","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=52345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}