How do you
reconcile information when you have conflicting dates, names or places? Do you just pick one and hope it
is right?
Let me give
you an example. An obituary for Dolly H.
Wilson, of Bells Mines, Crittenden County, Kentucky states she died at the residence of
her granddaughter, Mrs. Wm. Love, at Dekoven, Kentucky.[1] In another article in the same issue, it
states Mrs. Dolly Wilson breathed her last at George P. Wilson's Thursday night.[2] I could
just write down Kentucky as her place of death and I would be correct, but Dekoven is in Union
County and from previous research I know that George P. Wilson was Dolly's son
and he lived in Crittenden County. Which shall it be?
I could look for a third source of the place
of her death, but Crittenden County had no death records in 1892 so that is
out. I could look for an obituary
in another area newspaper and hope Dolly's death had been published.
That might work - providing her death was listed. What if no other obituary or death notice is
found?
My
inclination is to include all information found in both obituaries and note the discrepancies and
their sources. Somewhere down the road additional information might be found
that tells us the definitive answer on her place of death. In the meantime, I will include every bit of information found.
What would you do?
[1]
"Old People Answer the Summons of the Death Angel," Crittenden Press, Thurs., 28 Jan. 1892, p. 3, reprinted from the
Sturgis Enterprise.
[2][2] "Weston
Cullings," Crittenden Press,
Thurs., 28 Jan. 1892, p. 2.
Published 4 Mar 2021, Western Kentucky Genealogy Blog, http://wkygenealogy.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment