These Pearsons are a troublesome bunch. Fairly early on in my genealogical journey, I was looking into my great great grandparents, George William and Emma Katherine (Green) Pearson. The Pulaski County, Illinois, 1900 census listed the following as their children:
| Rosa Pearson | 18 |
|---|---|
| William T Pearson | 16 |
| Cora L Pearson | 13 |
| Benjamin D Pearson | 9 |
| Payton E Pearson | 8 |
| Harris I Pearson | 6 |
| Nettie W Pearson | 3 |
I added all seven of them to my tree as the children of George and Emma, and, blissfully unaware of the mistake I had just made, I went on my merry way. It was only when I found a marriage record for George and Emma that I started to suspect something was not quite right. First, the marriage was recorded as May 21st, 1883, which meant that Rosa had been born before their marriage. (Additional records for William suggested he was born before 1883 as well.) Much stranger, though, was the fact that the marriage record was for a Mrs. Emma Pearson marrying a George Pearson.
At this time, I had very little information on Rosa, so I revisited what I had on William. His death certificate listed George W. as his father, but his WWI Draft Registration indicated his closest relative was JW Pearson from Anderson County, Indiana. The date on the registration was after Emma Katherine's death in 1917, and as William was not married, it made sense that William would list his father as his closest relative. Here, William's date of birth was listed as July 17, 1878 - significantly before the 1883 marriage of George and Emma.
With only this much to go on, I built out a tree for a JW Pearson living in Anderson County, Indiana. Lo and behold, I found another 1900 census with William listed as living with John W. and Zana Pearson. In this census, William is listed as being born in July 1881. A bit more digging found that John and Zana had married in July 1883. I continued to build out John's tree to see if I could place him in the same area as Emma Katherine. Turns out, John Winston was the son of my great great great grandfather's brother, Benjamin Everett Pearson, and Benjamin and his family lived in Pulaski County, Illinois, from roughly 1869-1885. Even better (see if you can follow along now), Emma Katherine's mother, Ann (Echols) Green married Benjamin Everett in 1869 after divorcing her first husband, Thomas Green. Yeah, I know...
Back in the Pulaski County records, I kept coming back to an index record for a marriage between JW Pearson and MK Green in 1874. And then it occurred to me..."Emma Kate" sounds a lot like "MK," and it seemed more than reasonable that the combining of Benjamin's and Ann's households had resulted in a love match. And obviously, this would explain why George and Emma's marriage record listed her as Mrs. Emma Pearson. It doesn't explain why John left/divorced his wife so his cousin could marry her, but hey. To each his own.
Eventually, I found a marriage record for Rosa that listed John W. and Kate Green as her parents. So, while there isn't a ton of documentation, I think it is safe to say that "I Can Identify" William and Rosa Pearson's father.
For more fun with William Pearsons, go here.
No comments:
Post a Comment