Good opening night for A Nice Family Gathering! Seats available for tonight and the next two weekends.

Sometimes genealogy research turns up some peculiar situations! One such situation came up with my Simmons research. I was digging into records for Sylvanus Simmons, younger brother of my James Morris Simmons, and found him in the census from 1860 through 1880. In 1860 the family consisted of Sylvanus, wife Henrietta and daughters Henrietta [14] and Ada [11].  Henrietta was indexed as Harriet and H.P. in the other two enumerations.

Sylvanus' mother, Dolly had written a letter to one of her sisters in November 1860 and mentioned several of her children, including Sylvanus, with whom she was living at the time. Dolly mentioned the girls [14 & 12], but not by name.

Sylvanus turned up in various northern Kentucky and Cincinnati directories through the early 1900s. Then came  three finds that led to mass confusion!

(1) Henrietta's obituary appeared in the Covington, KY Daily Commonwealth [17 Mar 1881]: "The funeral of Mrs. Henrietta P. Simmons, late wife of Mr. S. Simmons, took place this afternoon from the residence of her son-in-law, ex-councilman Bateman, on Bakewell St., where she died last Tuesday."

(2) The marriage of Ada J. Simmons to Edward Bateman on 3 Mar 1864 in Cass Co., IN

(3) The death certificate of Ada Bateman dated 27 Aug 1930 in Cincinnati, OH. Husband: Edward Bateman; Father: S. Simmons; Mother: Kate Van Loo.

Whoa! Kate Van Loo?! Mama was supposed to be Henrietta P. ________. What's going on? Husband and father matched with the obituary details, why was the mother different?

I had not been able to find Sylvanus, Henrietta and the girls in 1850. They should have been married about 1845 in Ohio or Kentucky.

A search of Ohio marriages turned up one for 16 Sept 1845 between Sylvanus Simmons and CATHERINE VAN LIEU. The 1850 census recorded S.S. Simmons [26], Catherine [23], Sarah A. [4] and Margaret J. [2]. Ages fit all concerned, but Henrietta was Sarah and Ada was Margaret! What was going on?

Based on the 1930 death certificate of Ada Bateman and other records, I had the right family. For some reason the females underwent name changes between 1850 and 1860. The informant on Ada's death certificate did give the "actual" name of her mother. The BIG question - WHY?

I'm still looking for explanations! I ran into a similar situation with one of my German Catholic families. I wrote the discrepancy off  as the possible use of baptismal given names in 1850 and preferred middle names thereafter. This Simmons family has me baffled!