Tuesday, July 28, 2009

They didn't make it easy...

If only our ancestors thought about "us" (their genealogy loving descendants) when they had children, named children, married etc. Some of their choices make our research more difficult and challenging.

Case in point...my great great grandfather, James A. Blay. He was born 9 Jan 1858 (the son of Alexander Blay), lived in Jersey county, IL for a time and by 1889 had moved to CO. He died in 1929 in Denver, CO. He had three wives, one of which was named Emma.

Fairmount Cemetery, Denver county, CO

Then there is James A. Blay's uncle, James Blay who was born 3 Jan 1859 (his father was also named Alexander Blay). This James lived in Jersey county, IL and died there in...you guessed it...1929. The name of his wife? Why Emma of course.

Oak Grove Cemetery, Jersey county, IL

Were they trying to drive us crazy? Personally, I think they are on the other side having a good laugh at our efforts to try to figure things out.

1 comment:

Diana Ritchie said...

Of COURSE they were trying to drive us crazy ;-) Great job of figuring it out - and a good lesson to all of us that same name does NOT equal same person!!

Reading your post makes me realize that I need to write up my Edna Graber Saurer/Edna Saurer Graber story.