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Blogging here as part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge:
This week's challenge didn't do much for me other than make me learn how to use Family Tree Maker's search function to sort by birth date. In a tree with thousands of people in it, only three shared my birthday. One was the sister of an ancestor so far back I know nothing about him let alone his siblings, the second was only related through marriage, and the third ...
... is my second cousin. Now that's kind of interesting. I was born smack-dab on my second cousin's second birthday. I don't know her, but that side of the family is planning a "cousins reunion" next summer. I hope she'll be there. I will definitely look her up.
So I decided to randomly blog about someone in my tree I've been interested in lately. There are some mysteries in her life, and I've gotten a good deal of help from the people at reddit.com/r/genealogy, but if anyone else wants to help with her, I'll be really grateful.
Juanita Grace Coffman b. 1901 d. 1995 and her daughter Margaret
I recently came across two pictures that were in my great-aunt Ruth's possessions. They are from a family trip they made when Ruth was a little girl to visit Ruth's grandparents who lived in Illinois. One picture has the date 1917 written on it, so Ruth would have been 8 years old. On that trip Ruth met an aunt and uncle who were the youngest in their family, so still living with their parents. The aunt was Juanita Grace Coffman (known as Nita) and was sixteen years old. Ruth had a picture of Nita and a little girl about 15 months old. Tiny print on the front of the picture says "Nita and Margaret". On the back, in different handwriting -- Ruth's -- Ruth writes that during this one family trip to Illinois she met her aunt Nita "small as her mother" and she had a little baby. She muses that the little girl might still be alive somewhere. So sixteen-year-old Nita had a baby named Margaret something, who was born about 1916. What happened to her? What happened to Nita? And thus are genealogy hunts born. Between my own research and help from /r/genealogy, I found an unusual timeline:
1914-1915 Nita Coffman has a sexual relationship with a man, Who?
1916 Nita gives birth to a girl and names her for her mother, Margaret.
1917 Ruth and her family visit and meet Nita and the child, who are obviously not ostracized from their family or anything.
1917 Norman Wilkerson, age 19, marries Isabelle Dobson, age 22
1918 Isabelle Dobson Wilkerson dies
1919 Widower Norman Wilkerson marries Nita Coffman
1919 Norman Wilkerson dies
1920 Nita and Margaret are not findable in the census.
1922 Nita marries Fred Myers
1924 Nita gives birth to Constance Myers
1925 Nita divorces Fred Myers
1928 Nita marries Howard Osterland
1930 The census finds Nita and Howard living in Arizona, but six-year-old Constance Myers is living with her widowed grandmother back in Illinois. No Margaret anywhere.
I think Margaret must have died, though it seems like my great aunt's branch of the family might have heard about that and clearly Ruth didn't know what became of her when she wrote on the back of the picture. So much death! I was wondering about that, and about WWI, when my mom pointed out that these were young people dying during the 1917-1919 worldwide flu pandemic. Young people died more often than old in that pandemic, as is still true of H1N1 flus. My gosh, what a rocky beginning for Nita. Maybe even the father of Margaret died, though he could just as easily be merely absent. Then Norman's young wife dies and Norman and Nita marry only to have Norman die six months later! And no, he doesn't seem to have died in WWI. Somewhere in there Nita's little girl Margaret may have died too. So sad. And Nita looks so happy in the picture with her baby.
This week's challenge didn't do much for me other than make me learn how to use Family Tree Maker's search function to sort by birth date. In a tree with thousands of people in it, only three shared my birthday. One was the sister of an ancestor so far back I know nothing about him let alone his siblings, the second was only related through marriage, and the third ...
... is my second cousin. Now that's kind of interesting. I was born smack-dab on my second cousin's second birthday. I don't know her, but that side of the family is planning a "cousins reunion" next summer. I hope she'll be there. I will definitely look her up.
So I decided to randomly blog about someone in my tree I've been interested in lately. There are some mysteries in her life, and I've gotten a good deal of help from the people at reddit.com/r/genealogy, but if anyone else wants to help with her, I'll be really grateful.
Juanita Grace Coffman b. 1901 d. 1995 and her daughter Margaret
I recently came across two pictures that were in my great-aunt Ruth's possessions. They are from a family trip they made when Ruth was a little girl to visit Ruth's grandparents who lived in Illinois. One picture has the date 1917 written on it, so Ruth would have been 8 years old. On that trip Ruth met an aunt and uncle who were the youngest in their family, so still living with their parents. The aunt was Juanita Grace Coffman (known as Nita) and was sixteen years old. Ruth had a picture of Nita and a little girl about 15 months old. Tiny print on the front of the picture says "Nita and Margaret". On the back, in different handwriting -- Ruth's -- Ruth writes that during this one family trip to Illinois she met her aunt Nita "small as her mother" and she had a little baby. She muses that the little girl might still be alive somewhere. So sixteen-year-old Nita had a baby named Margaret something, who was born about 1916. What happened to her? What happened to Nita? And thus are genealogy hunts born. Between my own research and help from /r/genealogy, I found an unusual timeline:
1914-1915 Nita Coffman has a sexual relationship with a man, Who?
1916 Nita gives birth to a girl and names her for her mother, Margaret.
1917 Ruth and her family visit and meet Nita and the child, who are obviously not ostracized from their family or anything.
1917 Norman Wilkerson, age 19, marries Isabelle Dobson, age 22
1918 Isabelle Dobson Wilkerson dies
1919 Widower Norman Wilkerson marries Nita Coffman
1919 Norman Wilkerson dies
1920 Nita and Margaret are not findable in the census.
1922 Nita marries Fred Myers
1924 Nita gives birth to Constance Myers
1925 Nita divorces Fred Myers
1928 Nita marries Howard Osterland
1930 The census finds Nita and Howard living in Arizona, but six-year-old Constance Myers is living with her widowed grandmother back in Illinois. No Margaret anywhere.
I think Margaret must have died, though it seems like my great aunt's branch of the family might have heard about that and clearly Ruth didn't know what became of her when she wrote on the back of the picture. So much death! I was wondering about that, and about WWI, when my mom pointed out that these were young people dying during the 1917-1919 worldwide flu pandemic. Young people died more often than old in that pandemic, as is still true of H1N1 flus. My gosh, what a rocky beginning for Nita. Maybe even the father of Margaret died, though he could just as easily be merely absent. Then Norman's young wife dies and Norman and Nita marry only to have Norman die six months later! And no, he doesn't seem to have died in WWI. Somewhere in there Nita's little girl Margaret may have died too. So sad. And Nita looks so happy in the picture with her baby.
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