Saturday, May 19, 2012

Oh, Danny Boy, Really, Ya Gonna Get Married?

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

One of my little joys (side benefit of the formatting project from &^#$) is that I get to read some really neat ole news articles, and I never know what I will find.  I will confess that in my desire to be done with this project that sometimes I skip reading many of the pages.  However, now and then, there will be a short article that I read while cleaning the streaks, dots, marks  and messes.  I found one this AM. This was published in the December 1, 1897 issue of the Michigan Messenger, published at Adrian, Lenawee County, Michigan.

I thought it was rather, mmm, humorous.  Now, we have to consider that this IS a news report, and I am not sure that in 1897 the reporting was all serious, or factual, and well, we do sell papers with a bit of controversy, right??  I mean, Dan, really, making love to 42 women in 1897?  So, I decided to do just a bit of research, I did not want to spend a lot of time on it, but, ya, I was driven to go have a quick look.  So, over to FamilySearch.org I went and I found:

"Michigan, Marriages, 1822-1995"
groom's name: Daniel W. Whitman
groom's birth date:
groom's birthplace:
groom's age:
bride's name: Sophia Rich
bride's birth date:
bride's birthplace:
bride's age:
marriage date: 29 Nov 1897
marriage place: Lenawee, Michigan
groom's father's name: Daniel Whitman
groom's mother's name: Rebecca Butterfield
bride's father's name: Wm. Rich
bride's mother's name: Sarah
groom's race:
groom's marital status:
groom's previous wife's name:
bride's race:
bride's marital status:
bride's previous husband's name:
indexing project (batch) number: M01819-4
system origin: Michigan-ODM
source film number: 2342507

AND:

"Michigan, Marriages, 1868-1925"
groom's name: Daniel W. Whitman
groom's race:
groom's age: 68 years
groom's birth date: 1829
groom's birthplace: Pennsylvania
bride's name: Sophia Rich
bride's race:
bride's age: 19 years
bride's birth date: 1878
bride's birthplace: Michigan
marriage type: License
marriage date: 29 Nov 1897
marriage place: Lenawee, Michigan
groom's father: Daniel Whitman
groom's mother: Rebecca Butterfield
bride's father: Wm. Rich
bride's mother: Sarah
groom's marital status:
groom's previous wife:
bride's marital status:
bride's previous husband:
film number: 2342507
frame number:
digital folder number: 4207941
image number: 474
reference number: v 3 p 103 rn 396

Now, this second data base comes with images, and yes, I did open the image, despite the fact that I have been having serious connectivity issues, I clicked and then I walked away while it loaded.  And, when I came back, it was so worth the time spent.

(Note:  screen captures of only the specific portion of the page that applies, the full page of records can be viewed here.  I did overlap the captures a bit.)


License returned not used
Sophia, did you call off the wedding?   Or is this a case where the marriage took place and the recording procedure went amuck?

I did not discover Daniel on the 1900 census, I did find a possible on the 1910, noting 1910 said he was single and he was not living in Lenawee County.

I discovered Daniel's fate, at SeekingMichigan, note it says he is a widower:


Not being able to stop my research, I charged over to Find a Grave, and there is a very respectful memorial there with quite a bit of family information and a photo of his headstone.

I have done no further research on Sophia cause I have to get back to the formatting this book.  My break is over.



.

5 comments:

Michelle Goodrum said...

Oh yeah. Just leave everyone hanging as to whatever Sophia really did. LOL

Fun distraction anyway :)

Carol said...

ROTFLOL Michelle! So far, I have not had time to search for her. So far, she is doing the typical female thingy in our research, disappearing. And, seeing that she is NOT on my data base, I thought I would leave ya all with something to go search for! ROTFLOL!

Not found on 1900 census, not found a second time in the same data bases as this "reported" marriage was found in. So far.

Search on - - -

Carol said...

Not found in public World Trees at Ancestry. Not on Social Security Death Index (Ancestry.com version). If she were born 1878 then not found on 1880, but an interesting entry on 1880, a Sophia born 1872 living in Tuscola County, Michigan with Andrew and Margaret. Note that I did also find a death certificate for that gal, in Michigan in 1907 in Grand Traverse County Michigan.

And, now, I turn it over to the rest of my readers.

Good luck!

Kathy Reed said...

Not only is this an amazing piece of research, but I'm TOTALLY hooked! But you HAVE to find out what happened to Sophia. What fun!

Marti said...

How interesting! I wonder what making love really meant back then? I remember reading that one time and it wasn't the same as now, but I can't remember exactly what it was.