What if That was All Wrong?

 

The month-long chase to discover the parents of Lidia Miller, my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother who seemed to materialize out of nowhere, is almost over. Only four more days remain to work on this month's selection for my Twelve Most Wanted, but while I feel I've made headway on this brick wall puzzle, I haven't come to any solid conclusion.

I feel good about the progress I've made—especially the discovery of DNA matches linking to Jonathan Miller, a Perry County, Ohio, neighbor whose descendants may be telling a story I couldn't find through the traditional paper route. There is, however, one nagging question: what if that discovery—and all the documentation it led me to—turns out to be all wrong? What if Lidia Miller's story was far different than what we've discussed so far?

There's a good reason for asking—perhaps one you have noticed too, if you followed the links I've included with this month's posts. Notice the 1840 burial information for Lidia's husband, William Gordon, as presented by the volunteer posting his memorial on Find A Grave. As is often done by these volunteers, memorials are linked with those of family members, a helpful gesture—as long as the connections are correct. In this case, I'm not so sure the information is right, but I can't just not check it out. 

William Gordon's memorial has the usual listings for his parents, children, and siblings—and in William's case, his half-siblings, as well. As is often the case, volunteers also link a memorial with the burial information on a spouse. However, in William's case, information supposedly about his wife Lidia was cross referenced with the burial information of someone named Lydia Palmer.

This Lydia was born about the same year our Lidia's birth was estimated to be: 1820. That's where the similarity ends. Lydia Palmer was the wife of someone named Benedict Palmer, and she was buried with him in 1895, not in Perry County, the location where we'd expect to find Lidia in Ohio, but in Mercer County, a county halfway across the state on the Indiana border.

True, it could be possible that our Lidia, widowed with a young child in the early years of Ohio's statehood, might have sought out an eligible bachelor to fill her departed husband's shoes—but I can't just take anyone's word for it, not even that of a dedicated Find A Grave volunteer. This brings up a possibility that we need to take our due diligence to inspect for ourselves.