What are the odds

Greetings!

Another genealogy story for you. I will try to keep it a bit shorter this time, LOL.

I knew that my great great grandfather Benjamin Burlin Parker's oldest daughter Rosilla had married a fellow by the last name of Weidner. And I actually had a lot of information on her and her family but could not find when she died. I knew the general area so I had been searching the newspapers in that area. Found several articles regarding her children but nothing on her. Her sister, Mary Amelia Parker Rader lived in the same county but a different city. And I still had one sister to find, Phebe L Parker, that I knew nothing about. Phebe last appeared on any records in the 1860 census with her father and some of the other siblings at the tender age of 5 and then nothing. She seemed to disappear into thin air!!

Frustrated that I was not finding anything on these two sisters, Rosilla and Phebe I decided to look through the newspapers where Mary Amelia lived to try to get a little more info on her and also by the off chance one of the missing sisters would show up in a story with her.

Eureka!! The first thing that turned up was none other than Rosilla's obituary. The reason I was unable to find her before was the names were misspelled. In fact, the obituary has a lot of errors in it.

In spite of the errors there is enough accurate information in there to confirm that this is my great grand aunt Rosilla's obituary. But wait, there is more!! Mentioned in the obituary are her surviving siblings. Again some mistakes, W G Parker should be G W, my great grandfather. I knew who the other sisters were for sure except Mrs Isaac Parr. By process of elimination Mrs Parr has to be Phebe L!! Awesome!! Now I have a name and a place to look!!

Keep in mind there are two Hartford, NYs One is spelled with the t and is in Washington County. The other has no t and is in Cortland County. I knew this was another misspelling and it had to be the one without the t in Cortland County. (long story how I knew and I will write about it another time)

So, I searched and searched for an Isaac Parr in Harford, NY. No luck so I thought OK, even though I don't believe it is true I will try the Hartford with a t. No luck there either. There simply is not an Isaac Parr in NY state that fits the correct time frame. No Phebe L Parr either. Refusing to give up I went back to the same newspaper and started searching again.

Look what I found!!!

Yes, a different name for Phebe's husband. What are the odds one article had the first name right and the other had the last name correct? That is exactly what happened!! After tons of research at ancestry.com in Cortland County court records and various other places I was able to determine that Phebe's husband's name was actually Isaac W Banker. Phebe went by her middle name which showed in various records as Louise, Louisa and Ludemia. She is buried in the cemetery next to Isaac, listed at Ludemia. Isaac died in 1904 and Phebe remarried within a year. Her second husband died in 1917. He is buried with his first wife.

Of course I am leaving out a great deal of detail of how I came to these conclusions, otherwise this would turn into a book, LOL. Thanks to newspapers.com for the articles.

Until next time,,,,,,