Tree Inconsistencies: Update #2

In my last blog post on this subject I stated that, according to MyHeritage, I had 493 inconsistencies in my family tree. I went on to explain how to recognize such errors or problems on MyHeritage and on my Legacy software.

Some have been easy to find and correct; others have involved doing some additional research.

One example on the Legacy Potential Problems List showed that for William Henry Colman the “birth date is bad.” That could mean a lot of things, so I looked at the detail on his record. It turned out that I had just missed putting in a space between the month and the year and Legacy did not recognize the format. Having corrected the date for William Colman’s birth also took care of the notes on each of the five problems noted on entries for his children that showed Father’s birth date was bad. (The pages from my Legacy program are shown on the accompanying slide taken from my talk.)

I have been slowly working my way through the error as identified on both MyHeritage and Legacy. But on a recent email from MyHeritage they told me I now had 497 issues. It seems it’s getting worse, not better.

One of the issues on the latest message was for Mattie Miller, a supposed 2^nd cousin, twice removed. Apparently, the birth of Mattie’s mother was too close to her own: just 15 years apart. Now, that could have been right, but it was suspicious. So, I thought I should do a little more research on the family.

The mother in question was Anna M. Keith (1868-1949), according to my Legacy program, a 1^st cousin, three time removed. She was the daughter of Mason Parks Keith (1812-1879) and his second wife, Lucinda Francis Robinson (1830-1910). They were married in Indiana in 1856, a month after the death of his first wife in the same year.

Mason Parks was the son of my 3^rd great-grandparents Samuel Adkins and Isabel (Parks) Keith. I had quite a bit of information on the Keith family, mostly collected by my aunt and a cousin. But not much on grandchildren of Samuel and Isabel. The Keith family migrated to Indiana from Kentucky around 1820.

Anna married John Miller in Indiana, but I did not have a marriage record. From census data, it appeared they had seven children together, including Mattie, born in 1883. The 1900 census showed five of them still living at home. I started to look at each of the children to see if any information might shed light on dates and relationships.

I found a 1957 death record for Mattie’s brother, Clarence. Surprisingly it listed his mother’s named as Elizabeth Carlile, not Anna Keith. His obituary said the same thing. There was a note on the Find a Grave website, however, that indicated his mother might have been named Clark.

Mattie lived until 1968. Her obituary named children from several marriages, which I found to be to Jerrad Tobias, Alva Eacret, Daniel Garriott and Loren Rutledge. Each of the marriage records showed her mother as Elizabeth Hobson or Hopson. The obituary of her father John Miller, named Mattie Nail as a surviving daughter, indicating another marriage. From this data, I had another line to research.

I have found limited data on Elizabeth Hobson. There is information on Find a Grave that shows she was born in 1860 and died in 1887 which would be consistent with an 1881 marriage to John Miller, who is also listed on the site, and a death prior to the births of his other children by Anna Keith, the first in 1889. There is still a great deal to do on the family line, particularly as to how the names Hobson, Carlile and Clark fit, it at all.

It is clear now that Mattie’s mother was not Anna Keith but Elizabeth Hobson. A rather innocuous issue on the MyHeritage Tree Checker has resulted in a whole new family line to look at and a realization that the person named in the problem is not a blood relative.