Today a mystery was solved.
It all started when a woman that I have been exchanging
information with for several years now emailed me to say she would be visiting
Oregon County, Missouri and wanted to know if there was anything I wanted her
to look for while she was there. She said she would be looking for more
documents on our Peters and King families.
It just so happens that I had updated my Peters research
report back in January and she said she would look it over for me to see if she
could find any gaps or offer any suggestions on my next research steps. My
Peters line is my dead end or what some might call my “brick wall.” As I was
creating an updated narrative report to send to her, I checked the WorldConnect
online family tree of my great-grandmother’s half brother, William Herbert
Peters to verify some information I had. I noticed the database had been updated
in January of 2012, so I re-read his entry. It is always a good idea to re-check
information, especially family tree files on the internet because if the owners
are anything like me, they are updating their information all the time.
I was originally told by this family tree owner that
William Herbert Peters was the son of William Edward Peters (my 2nd
great-grandfather) and Matilda Judd. He was born out of wedlock and Matilda was
only 16 years old when he was born in March of 1900. In November of 1900,
William Edward Peters married my 2nd great-grandmother, Dora King
who took in the baby as her own. Matilda Judd married Posey Woodside Willard in
1901. Matilda’s family knew about the baby. My family knew about the baby,
however, it was believed that he was NOT the son of William Peters, in other
words, he had a different father than my great-grandmother and her siblings. I put this contradiction between the two families' stories aside for a while.
Six years later, I read in this updated family tree file
that William Herbert Peters was the son of Posey
Woodside Willard and Dora King and that an affair had ensued and a child
had been produced and said child had been adopted by William Edward Peters.
Does that name sound familiar – Posey Woodside Willard? – it should because he
is the man that Matilda Judd, the woman originally thought to be William Herbert Peters' mother, married in 1901!
Usually the owner of this tree emails me when he finds
new information, but I haven’t heard from him in years. So I sent him an email
asking how did he learn about this new information and I CC’d the researcher I
had been exchanging emails with today. I asked him had he obtained William
Herbert Peters’ death
certificate?
Well wouldn’t you know it but two seconds after I asked,
I decided to look on FamilySearch.org to see if they had uploaded any new
databases recently from Texas. Sure enough, I found “Texasdeaths, 1977-1986” which filled the gap they had previously. The previous
database of Texas Death Certificates only went up to the year 1976. This one
went a little further. It is not yet indexed, but it didn’t take me long to find
the one I was looking for by browsing through the images. I knew that he had died 20 Apr 1979 in Bowie County, Texas.
Sure enough, his death certificate says his parents were
Dora Watson and Posey Willard. His mother’s name
was Dora King; however after her father died when she was just 2 years old, her
step-father, Samuel Watson, adopted her.
Here is a look at the death certificate (click to make it bigger):
So the mystery of William Herbert Peters has been solved.
Discovering divergences like this and documenting them is
essential to building successful connections to your ftDNA Family Finder (or
23andMe) matches. Trying to prove connections is often difficult and discouraging
because events like this happen and it appears as if even 2nd or 3rd
cousin matches are not possible. So make sure to look for any and all kinds of
diverging branches of your tree and document them well!
Citation as provided by FamilySearch.org webstie:
"Texas, Deaths, 1977-1986." ''FamilySearch''
([http://www.familysearch.org https://www.familysearch.org]). Texas Bureau of
Vital Statistics. Digital images of originals housed at the State Registrar
Office in Austin, Texas. FHL microfilm and digital images. Family History
Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. William Herbert Peters.
