The below article is posted in the archives on Genealogy.com

Impossible and Improbable by Donna Przecha 

Genealogy thrives as a rewarding hobby because most people in the past lived 
orderly lives. We expect them to be born, marry, have children and die, and 
that there will be someone to record most of these events somewhere. Usually 
this is exactly what happens. All we have to do is find out where these 
events were recorded. However, occasionally we come across events that just 
do not fit into the orderly scheme of things. Sometimes they seem to be 
highly improbable or completely impossible. 

Disowned Children

In past times marrying outside the family's religion, race, culture or social 
class was considered by some to be taboo. If children violated this rule, 
some families would disown them and even declare them dead. In one case the 
parents not only declared the child dead but went so far as to erect a 
tombstone with her name and her marriage date as the death date. People who 
were mentally ill or physically deformed might be sent off to an asylum or 
hospital and the family would act as if they were dead. They might be 
recorded in the family Bible as having died, so when you find the individual 
in a census you will be thoroughly confused! A daughter might also be 
disowned if she became pregnant and was not married or a son cut out of the 
family if he ended up in prison. Obituaries were generally provided by the 
families, and facts and children who did not suit the image the family wished 
to project could be omitted. If a child was not mentioned in the obituary in 
the local hometown paper, it didn't mean the child didn't exist or was 
deceased. 

Finding disowned children can be very difficult because they often moved a 
long way from their original home to a completely different environment. 
Someone from Connecticut might move to Idaho or Texas for no apparent reason. 
With more national indexes becoming available, it is easier to locate these 
people. Since most census indexes are still on a state-by-state basis, you 
almost have to check each state as there is no predicting where they might 
have gone.

The names of disowned children might turn up in a will or probate. In a will 
the parent might want to mention the child just to be sure he or she is cut 
out of the inheritance. If there was no will, all living children would need 
to be named in legal documents relating to an inheritance.
   In past times marrying outside the family's religion, race, culture or 
social class was considered by some to be taboo. If children violated this 
rule, some families would disown them and even declare them dead.

Bigamy

Even in this day of instant communication with cell phones, pagers and the 
Internet, you can still pick up the paper and read about a man who was 
married to different women and had two different families, each of which was 
unknown to the other. (Why a man would want the responsibilities of two 
families and keeping them secret is beyond me!) In the past it was so much 
easier to acquire two wives, although it was more often serial rather than 
concurrent. If a man from Virginia went to California to look for gold, he 
might decide after a couple of fruitless years that he didn't want to go home 
and face the ridicule of his family and neighbors. He might decide to just 
settle down in California, perhaps open a store or take up farming and marry 
a girl he met there. Since he may have stopped writing to his family in 
Virginia months ago, he would hardly feel it was necessary to go to all the 
trouble and agony of trying to get a divorce. He might even send back an 
announcement of his death just to close that chapter of his life.
   Even in this day of instant communication, you can still pick up the paper 
and read about a man who was married to different women and had two different 
families, each of which was unknown to the other.
 
When a husband disappears, the wife usually goes through the legal process to 
have him declared dead after a certain period of time. You might encounter 
the family with the husband in one census and in the next find the wife 
listed as a widow. This would lead you to believe he died in the meantime and 
you would look for cemetery records, obituaries, wills and death records. If 
he simply disappeared, you will not find any of these and may need to explore 
court records for a legal document declaring him dead. Of course, he may not 
really be dead at all.

Name Changes

Many men, especially new immigrants, found it too overwhelming to try to 
support a family and just walked off and were never heard from again. They 
might even change their names, settle down in a new area and get married 
again. This is very difficult to track and document, but one place where this 
could come out is in military pension records. If a man was in the Civil War, 
his first wife would know he was entitled to a pension and would apply for 
one when it became obvious he was never coming back, and could be presumed 
dead. If he remarried under another name, he might feel enough loyalty to his 
second wife to disclose his military service and the name under which he 
enlisted. Once he died and the second wife applied for her pension, both 
applications would end up with the same service record. 

If you suspect a possible name change, be sure to consult as many legal or 
official documents as possible.
 
If you suspect a possible name change, be sure to consult as many legal or 
official documents as possible, such as pension papers, wills, naturalization 
papers or land deeds. Even if a man changed names he might think he had to 
include his "also known as" (AKA) name to be sure the transaction was valid, 
fearing the original name might come out at some point and nullify the action.

A woman could create genealogical confusion by not changing her name. If a 
woman had a child out of wedlock, she might move to another town, keep her 
maiden name but call herself Mrs., claiming she was a widow. Even if people 
knew she had never married, a mother would be called Mrs. as a courtesy 
because it would be embarrassing to all concerned to suggest that an 
unmarried woman had a child.

In African-American research, many people assume that a freed slave would 
take the family name of the person who had owned him before emancipation. In 
fact, the freed slaves could take any name they liked and many experimented 
with several names before settling on one. Siblings might choose different 
surnames so it is not obvious to a researcher that they are related. A parent 
might have lived on a different plantation and select a different name from 
the child. Many chose names of famous people or people they admired, so the 
surname may or may not be significant for the researcher.
   Freed slaves could take any name they liked, so the surname may or may not 
be significant for the researcher.
 
Duplicate Names

Sometimes a researcher looking through baptism records will find a couple who 
gave the same name to two different children. A look at the burials usually 
reveals that the first child with that name died before the second one was 
born. In some cases no such death is found. In fact, both children seem to 
live, grow up and produce their own records. This can cause the researcher a 
bit of confusion and reexamination of the records. For some reason â€" perhaps 
a lack of imagination? â€" parents will give children almost identical names. 
In one family there was a John and a Jonathan, and both lived to adulthood. 
Mary and Maria are also possibilities. 

Sometimes, especially in German names, the first name would be the same for 
all children of the same sex, but the second name would be different. A 
family might consist of Johann Georg, Johann Wilhelm, Johann Josef, Anna 
Barbara, Anna Maria and Anna Theresa. Needless to say, the children usually 
went by their middle names and the children might be known as Georg, Johann, 
Josef, Barbara, Anna and Theresa. In later records, they might reverse the 
name since the middle name was the one usually used. This means you almost 
have to follow the lives of all the brothers to be sure who was really 
Johann. Just to confuse matters, Georg and Josef might use their official 
first name, Johann, on a record.
   Sometimes, especially in German names, the first name would be the same 
for all children of the same sex, but the second name would be different.
 
Informal Adoptions

Very often in the past, adoptions were very informally arranged. A woman 
might have a child that she really couldn't care for, because of health or 
financial reasons, while her sister might have wanted a child but was unable 
to have one. It might be agreed between the two families that the child would 
be given to the other to raise. No papers were signed or legal documents 
filed. Similarly, a foundling might be taken in by a family and simply raised 
as their own.

Wrong Sex

We have all encountered a person being classified as a male in one census and 
a female in another. This frequently happens with unusual names, or names 
that can be either sex, and usually it is just an error on the part of the 
census taker. However, there have been cases where children have been raised 
as if they were the opposite sex. Boys were dressed like girls when they were 
small and a mother who wanted a girl and was unable to have any more children 
might well continue that deception until the child revolted. Sex change 
operations were not possible 100 years ago but people could live as if they 
were the opposite sex. A woman might be especially tempted to masquerade as a 
man if she wished to be a soldier or a cowboy or follow some equally 
masculine occupation. Very recently a well-known band leader died and it was 
found that he, even though he was married, was actually a woman and no one 
knew.
   We have all encountered a person being classified as a male in one census 
and a female in another. This is usually just an error on the part of the 
census taker, but alternate explanations are sometimes possible.
 
Race Change

While following a family back through the census you might find a person who 
had always been classified as white, listed as mulatto, meaning a mixture of 
white and African ancestry. While we know the census taker often made 
mistakes, this might mean there is African-American ancestry in that line. 
Appearance played a big part in racial designation and when possible, many 
people of mixed ancestry would "pass" for white when they could. The children 
of Sally Hemings are a good example. (Whether or not you believe Thomas 
Jefferson was the father, it is generally accepted that the father of the 
Hemings children was white.) 

Sally herself was 1/4 black, as her father and maternal grandfather were both 
white. Her children were only 1/8 black. They all drifted off, with or 
without permission, and settled elsewhere. Eston at first settled in Ohio and 
in 1852 moved to Wisconsin where he changed his name from Hemings to 
Jefferson and his race to white. Eston's descendants did not even know of 
their black ancestry. Beverly (a son) and Harriet apparently disappeared into 
white society. Thomas became a minister in the African Methodist church and 
Madison stayed in the black community.

Many people, especially in the south, have both white and black ancestry. 
Given the conditions and disadvantages under which blacks, even free ones, 
had to live, it made sense to be classified as white if at all possible. It 
made their lives and the lives of their families much easier.
   Many people, especially in the south, have both white and black ancestry. 
Given the conditions and disadvantages under which blacks, even free ones, 
had to live, many people of mixed ancestry would "pass" for white when they 
could.
 
Facing the Impossible

I would not encourage anyone to look for any of these extreme situations in 
his or her own family research, but if the impossible or the improbable 
appears, keep an open mind. If you come across one of these situations, this 
line may be truncated. Even if you do manage to work around it, it will take 
much research and documentation to gather enough evidence to prove what 
really happened. However, if you do manage to piece the whole story together, 
it will probably be the highlight of your family history!
 
Ruth in NC

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