Researching
Researching my paternal grandfather's 1st wife. They were married from 1912-1919. She appears in the 1920, 30, 40 and 50 census listed as wife to head of household and same last name as head of household who is not my grandfather. The only marriage cert I can find for her and this head of household is in the year 1961. How can she be in those census but not be legally married? Was that a common practice? Any thoughts?
Answers
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@Sally Pinter Did your grandfather die before 1920 or was he separated from his first wife? Could the first wife have not been legally divorced so could not marry the man she was living with? Also, common law marriages were not all that uncommon and seems like in this case, a likely scenario. Obituaries for her, her husband, and children might shed some light on the relationships.
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My grandfather was still living and their 2 minor children lived with him. I cannot find divorce paperwork for 1st wife. But her marriage certificate to 2nd husband, dated 1961, she used her maiden name, does say that she was married to my grandfather and was divorced from him and that this first marriage ended 1919. The marriage certificate for husband #2 is dated 1961 —- but she is listed as "wife" and living with 2nd husband in all the census records from 1920, 1930, 1940 and 1950. Her obituary does not list her children she had with my grandfather even though they visited her many times throughout their growing years. In fact, her son, is listed on the 1940 census as being 22 yrs of age and living with her and her 2nd husband. Baffling!
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@Sally Pinter If you try to put the story together, I would say 1919 is when she "left", not necessarily when she divorced. If they lived in a small town you might find some tidbits of her life in the newspapers.
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Thank you! It was in Cleveland, OH. I'll re-check newspapers and the County Archives. So do you think she just started using 2nd husbands name along with living with him but not legally? Marriage cert is dated 1961 and 2nd husband passed in 1963.
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@Sally Pinter You just have to do your best to draw conclusions from the sources you have until something tells you differently. It's always good to keep your mind open to other possibilities, while you continue to look for more information. Unless we've walked in their shoes, we can't know what drove our ancestors to do things that seem out of character.
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My detailed experience of censuses is with the English and Welsh censuses, so I could be missing something but I would say that in our censuses, there is a limit on how much checking is feasible. Bear in mind that enumerators are limited by time and if someone claims to be married, it's probably impossible for the enumerator to stand there and request the proof.
I suggest that you try to find the enumerators' instructions for the Federal censuses and see if you can find any references to this sort of issue. If you can't, then I suspect that it was simply accepted that a degree of inexactitude would exist. After all, when you think what censuses were for, did it really matter if couples were simply living together? The headcount in the area didn't change.
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