Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - A Surprising Discovery

It's Saturday Night -

time for more Genealogy Fun!

Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:

1) What genealogical discovery surprised you? [Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting topics!]

2)  Write your own blog post, or add your response as a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook Status post or note.

Here's mine:

Surprisingly, I have not had a lot of surprises in my research. I have many brick walls, as we all do. There are always new parents to find for our outermost ancestors on the family tree. But I can speak about a small surprise.

For many years, I could not find a trace of George W. Lancaster’s wife, Martha Polly, nor their younger children. The oldest son, William Carlton Lancaster, is the one I descend from through his oldest son, George W. Lancaster, who is my mother’s maternal grandfather.

The thirty-two-year-old George W. Lancaster married Martha Polly, who was sixteen, on 25 October 1871 in Kaufman County, Texas.[1] She was the daughter of Nathan H. O. Polly and Margaret Rose.[2]

By 1880, George and Martha had three children: William Carl, Lonnie Osborn, and Margaret Rose.[3]

I asked for help on an online message board and I got an answer from a descendant of one day, explaining that Martha Polly Lancaster had married Noah Parks, and died in Orosi, Tulare County, California on 7 April 1932.[4] I sent for the death certificate and the parents listed for her matched what I knew of her parents.

Somewhere along the way, George and Martha had divorced. It’s not a wonder—their age difference was wide with him being twice her age. I wondered if that had been a factor.

I spent a lot of time along with the other researcher filling in the lives of Lonnie, Margaret, and the other three children born to them: George Eldon, Reginold F, and Jesse Polly. Next, I tackled the gap between 1880 and 1900, where I found George in Erath County, Texas, and Martha in Maricopa County, Arizona Territory. How did she get there?

I was able to follow George and Martha from Rockwall County to Dallas County to Johnson County to Maricopa County through land transactions. The last one was George purchasing forty acres from the Federal Government in 1889. Now would be the time to have the 1890 census.

A notice in “Local Briefs” reported on three suits that had been filed in district court the previous day. One was the divorce suit of Mattie J. Lancaster against Geo. W. Lancaster.[5] I determined that the Arizona State Archives have the records of the Superior Court and requested the file.

It turns out that George and the oldest son, William, returned to Texas and abandoned Mattie with the remaining five children. He made no appearance and she was awarded the divorce on 23 December 1893.[6] The following week, she married Noah Flood Parks on 28 Dec 1893.[7]

So, it was a big surprise that Martha Polly Lancaster did not die in Texas, and her divorcing George and moving to California is the reason I couldn’t find a death or cemetery record in Texas.


Copyright © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

Comments

  1. Linda StufflebeanSeptember 4, 2022 at 6:34 AM

    Finding family members who were not westerners in AZ or NM by 1900 always surprises me. This area was still pretty much the Wild West. When I worked on my husband's Williams family project, I was surprised to find a Virginia family who migrated to Eddy County, NM near Carlsbad Caverns. I have no idea why!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lisa S. GorrellSeptember 4, 2022 at 6:40 AM

      My guess it was the draw of the cheap land from the Feds. However, they probably had a hard time there and he wanted to go back and maybe she didn't. I have no idea. Shocked me that he left her.

      Delete

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