By Michael L. Hogue Hey all and welcome back to The Hogue Connection! Today, I thought we would take a closer look at dates. No, not the dates that grow on palm trees down in Coachella. No, not the ones teenagers get nervous about, either. Let’s look at genealogical calendar dates.
Folks in our generation, and probably our parent’s, too, have had our important dates well documented. I have a birth certificate and so do my Mom and Dad. There are some people in the previous generation, depending on the part of the country they were born in, that have them as well. My Grandparents were all born in Oklahoma between the years of 1911 and 1919. Two of them have “delayed” certificates of birth. More on that later.
RootsMagic Added a New Feature…
I recently upgraded my home genealogy database which is part of the RootsMagic software platform. They just released Version 11, which has many new editing features. One of them was adding a label to certain dates used in building a family tree. Typically, we use the exact date if we have it. You can also use ca. and abt., which stand for circa and about. These are used when we don’t know the exact date.
RootsMagic added another option…that of “proposed”. This is just a way of labeling a date that may not be exact and needs further research to pin it down. The “proposed” label lies under the proof section of an entry when editing a person. This helps you keep track of dates of births, deaths, and marriages that need further proof along the way. I think it’s a great idea for your notes section on an ancestor.
Take Charley Hogue’s Dates for Example…
My great-grandfather Charley was only in three U.S. Census reports…1870, 1900, and 1910. In 1900, he gave the enumerator Jan 1865 as his birthdate and age of 35. In 1910, he stated his age as 44. He really was 45, based on the previous census. His grave marker has the date 1865-1917 carved into it. I have not seen an actual date of birth for Charley, so we should go with what makes the most sense.
1865 seems to be the best choice based on the facts we have gathered. I kept January as his birth month, but assigned the 15th as his birthday, because it falls in the middle of the month. Until we figure out the exact day, we will be within two weeks of it. Just saying January gives us 31 days to pick from, and in my opinion, not as accurate. Hopefully you can follow this logic. I guess, technically, this is a “proposed” birthdate. As mentioned in my last post, the 1870 census was incorrect and won’t help us much here. According to that one, he was born in 1864, but that doesn’t fit in with his siblings ages.
Charley’s Wife Nora is Another Dates Challenge…
Nora Gatlin Noble Hogue was recorded on six censuses during her lifetime, 1900 thru 1950. Most of the time she was pretty accurate with her birthdate. She used March 1879 on the 1900 and 1950 census reports, but March 1880 on the others. Oddly enough, she does not appear on the 1880 census of Tippah County, Mississippi. She may have been recorded incorrectly; her brother James L was recorded as being born in April of 1880. A James Gatlin shows up on the 1900 census of Delta County, TX, age 21, born in Mississippi. There isn’t much info out there on the siblings on either side of her in the birth order, Carrie (b 1877) or James.
Anyway, I think 28 March 1880 is Nora’s correct date of birth. It is listed on her death certificate this way. Unfortunately, a mistake was made on her tombstone, which has the dates 1879-1959 on it (see below). Because her name was not listed on the 1880 census, I have always assumed that she was born in 1881. I’ve changed my mind on that one and will now show it as 1880. It was easy to miscount kids in those days.
William M. Hogue’s Birthdate Is Just an Estimate…
Let’s take it back another generation and look at the challenges of estimating someone’s birthdate when we only know their date of death. Charley’s father William was born around 1823, based on limited census info. In the 1850 census of Murray County, GA, he told the enumerator that he was 29 years old, giving him a birth year of 1821. The 1870 census shows him age 52, meaning he would have born in 1818.
In the Union Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865, William is listed as 45 years old on 5 Aug 1864, when he enlisted in the Union Army in Loudon, TN. Doing the math, that would mean his birth year was 1819. He filed for his Invalid Pension on 11 Mar 1882 in Montague County, TX, aged 57. So, based on these four different pieces of information, William M. Hogue was born between 1818 and 1825. The only other data we have in estimating William’s age is the inscription on his tombstone. That reads “William Hogue Died Mar 6, 1886 About 63 yrs”.
Where do we go from here? To be 63 years old on 6 Mar 1886, he would have had to be born after 6 Mar 1823. If he was 64 on that date, he would have been born on 6 Mar 1824. Logically following this argument, he could have been born anytime between these two dates and still be about 63. So, lets split the difference and add 182 days (about half a year) to the earlier date. We come up with 4 Sep 1823. That date falls within the range of 1818 to 1825, and, I think, is a pretty good estimate of his birth date. Did his wife Mary Jane know his exact date of birth? We’ll probably never know.
Just When You Think You Know…
…when you were born, someone asks you to prove it! My Grandma Faye apparently never got a copy of her birth certificate before she left home in a hurry back in 1935. My Grandpa Henry devised a plan to “kidnap” Faye and take her to California. On 27 Jan 1935, he showed up at her high school in Dill City, OK and honked the horn.
Faye got up out of class, ran out of the building and jumped in the car. They went into nearby Cordell and were married by a Baptist minister, with Faye’s older brother Eldon and his wife, Dorothy as witnesses. This obviously took some preplanning! No one asked them for proof of birth; she told the clerk she was 18 (she was to turn 16 on April 21) and the brief ceremony was performed. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Hogue drove back to California that day and never looked back.
Most states were required to report births within the first year after 1910. Some older Americans found that their birth was not properly filed, so they had to apply for a delayed certificate of birth. This usually meant that the person had. To get at least three documents to verify their date of birth. Here is Grandma Faye’s:
Note that she had three records to support her official birthdate: Affidavit of Personal Knowledge (her older sister Winnie testified on her behalf), her original Social Security Application, and a School record from Washita County, OK. I’m not sure why she applied for this in 1970. She was 51 years old at the time. Grandpa Henry applied for his on the same date.
Sometimes Dates Are Wacky, but Still Important…
My last example comes from the folks in my last post, about the family of Cordie Hogue. A couple of Cordie’s grandkids appear to be twins. Lester and Dessie, children of Cordie’s son Roy and his wife Minnie, are listed as the same age on all the census reports I found them in. In all supporting documents, Lester listed his birthday as 24 January 1927. Dessie’s was 24 February 1927. I found nothing showing them with the same birthday. It is possible twins could be born a month apart. Known as delayed interval delivery, and you can read about it here.
Hopefully you found my quick look at some of the wacky dates I’ve run across interesting. Make sure you take the time to record your family’s dates as accurately as possible. I imagine you will run into a few that need some in-depth analysis, and maybe a little guesswork. Thanks for visiting The Hogue Connection and reading my blog. You can return to the Home Page here.