Sure, Make a List — But Check it Twice

 

If we draw up a list of the facts we've gleaned from Theresa Blaising Stevens' death record, we'll have the following:

• Father: Blasing, unknown first name
• Mother: Mary Hirshberg
• Birth: Lorraine

If, however, at that point we simply dust off our hands with a resounding and victorious "There!" we may simply open ourselves up to being misled down the path of genealogical discovery. We've made our list, alright, and we are ready to move on, but before we do, we need to check that list twice.

I'm a huge fan of seeking more than one document to confirm each detail about an ancestor's life. In the case of Theresa, our quest to find her roots will be expedited if we look for additional records. And that is exactly what I did: check for Theresa in multiple documents. Not only did I check a census record from her early years of marriage—the 1900 census gave her place of origin as Germany, and her arrival in the United States at about one year of age—but also located possible records from her childhood home in Indiana.

There, in the earliest census record in which I can find the "Blasing" family—the 1870 census enumeration for New Haven in Allen County, Indiana—Theresa was listed as an immigrant from France. Her age was given as two years. And her mother's name, encouragingly enough, was Mary, just as Theresa's own death record, decades later, indicated.

All well and good, until we seek further information. Eventually, a 1907 obituary for a "well known pioneer woman" who died in New Haven confirmed that Theresa's mother was indeed born in France—in Lorraine, as it turns out. That discovery pointed me to a death certificate for "Mary Anna" Blaising, which in turn gives us the chance to view the possible names of Mary's parents.

Spoiler alert: if you were thinking this death certificate would confirm the details on Mary's maiden name that we saw in Theresa's own death record, go back to re-read yesterday's post. Or here, I'll save you the time: names provided for death certificates by informants are often given under the stress of grief over loss and can sometimes include mistaken details.

So, Mary's maiden name, as given by the informant for her own death certificate? According to her son August, at whose New Haven home Mary had died, Mary's maiden name might have been something like Herschbeck. But I can't tell for sure; the handwriting, while clear, actually looked like it said "Herochbeck." Either way, it certainly wasn't Hirshberg, as had been given by the subsequent generation when Theresa herself had passed in 1947.

Added bonus: that lingering doubt about troubled memories calls the provision of Mary's mother's name into question, as well. Perhaps it was Mary Ann Becker, as her son August reported it. Or not. There's only one thing left for us to do: check that list of gleaned facts not just twice, but maybe three times. Or more.