William Jasper Herren and Family, Greene County, Tennessee

First Family of William Jasper Herren

North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762-1979: Dorcus A. Morgan, female; listed in marriage to William J. Herrin. Marriage: 02 Nov 1857, , Mcdowell, North Carolina, US.

United States Census, 1860, Buncombe, North Carolina: Dorcas Haren, aged 22, female, listed in the household of Jasper Haren. Birth: 1838, North Carolina. Also in the household: Zeb Haren, infant male. Date of Census enumeration: 23 July 1860.

United States Census, 1870, District 12, Greene, Tennessee, (Archival Stamp 310), Sheet 17, Dwelling 118, Family 118, Line 23: Darkus Herren, aged 33, white female, listed in the household of William Herren. Birth: 1836-1837, North Carolina.

Find A Grave Index 39360725: Dorcas Haren. Birth: 07 Jul 1837. Death: 28 May 1876. Burial: 1876, Cross Anchor Cemetery, Cross Anchor, Greene, Tennessee, USA.

Second Family of William Jasper Herren

William J. Haren married (2) Emma (Babb) Linticum, on 05 December 1876, Greene County, Tennessee. Emaline "Emma" or "Emily" Babb was the daughter of Alfred and Mary "Polly" (Kidwell) Babb. Emaline's first husband was John D. Linthicum, but there is no evidence that she ever lived with him. She may have. The two married in 1876, but about two weeks after the marriage, they show up in census in separate households--she, with her parents (but under her married name); and he, with a family by the name of Hughs. They are listed on the same census page, but in separate households.

Citation for marriage of Emily Babb and John D. Linticum: 
Tennessee, County Marriages, 1790-1950: Emaline Babb, female; listed in marriage to John D Linticum. Marriage: 18 Jun 1870, Greene, Tennessee, United States.

Citation for marriage of Wm. J. Haren and Emma Linticum: 
"Tennessee Marriages, 1796-1950," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XD73-58S : 11 February 2018), Wm. J. Haren and Emma Linticum, 05 Dec 1876; citing Greene,Tennessee, reference ; FHL microfilm 944,387.

William and Emma Herren in Census:

United States Census, 1880, District 12, Greene, Tennessee, Supv. Dist. 1, E.D. 50, Sheet 28, Dwelling 246, Family 247: William J Herring, aged, married male, head. Birth: 1835, North Carolina, US. Date of census enumeration: 21 June 1880. Wife is Emmie Herring.

According to research based on studying the dates of marriage and years of birth listed for the children, the 1880 household has children from both of marriages.

United States Census, 1900, Civil District 12, Greene, Tennessee: William J Haren, aged, married male, head. Birth: Apr 1833, North Carolina. Married 42 years (est. 1858). Wife is Emily Haren (mother of 6 children, 6 living).

[Note: Apparently William has given his first wife's birth date and year of marriage in this census listing!]

Tennessee Death Records, 1914-1963: Emily Heren, aged 74 years, 1 day, widowed white female. Birth: 22 Aug 1849, Greene Co. [Tenn.] Death: 24 Aug 1923, Greene [Co.], Tennessee. Father: Alfred Babb, born in Greene Co., Tennessee. Mother: Polly Kidwell, born in Greene Co., Tennessee. Burial: 25 Aug. 1923, Oak Grove. Informant: W. S. Babb, of Greenville, Tenn. Undertaker: J.J. Mitchell, Greeneville.

Citation: "Tennessee Death Records, 1914-1963," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NSGH-7S9 : 25 May 2014), Emily Heren, 24 Aug 1923; citing  Cemetery, Greene, Tennessee, v 20 cn 258, State Library and Archives, Nashville; FHL microfilm 1,299,757.

Other Supporting Evidence:

The parents are listed in some of the children's death records:

Tennessee Death Records, 1914-1963: Deceased male, Zeb Glen Haren (born 23 Feb. 1880, Greene, Tenn. and died 21 Apr 1946 in Unicoi, Tennessee). Father: Jasper Haren, born in Buncomb, N.C. Mother: Emma Babb, female, born in Greene, Tenn.

Tennessee Death Records, 1914-1963: Nannie Leo Malone, aged 76 years, 4 months, 26 days, widowed female. Birth: 17 Sept 1877 (indexed as 1878). Death: 13 Feb 1954, Fall Branch, Washington, Tennessee (died at home; resided in Fall Branch for 20 years). Father: Jasper Haren. Mother: Emma Babb. Burial: 15 Feb. 1954, Babb Cemetery, Greene Co., Tenn. Informant: Mrs. Stella New, of Fall Branch, Tenn.

The errors in the 1900 census listing led to some confusion over the dates of marriage and the names of the wives. However, looking at the complete picture, the two marriages are recorded, and the deaths of each of the wives are established by good records. The names of the couple are established by their listings in the children's death records. While each of these records have minor discrepancies, there doesn't appear to be time between marriages for an extra marriage for William (to another Emma of a different birth date). Because of the good documentation from census, marriage, and death records, there doesn't seem to be much possibility of a lineage error (based on incorrect identification). The most likely explanation for the discrepancy in 1900 census is that the head of household, an elderly man by then, just made a mistake and gave his first wife's anniversary and date of birth.

Census Searches with Surname Errors. Mcallister / Mcallester example.

This is the first of what I hope will be many discussions of research problems. Those brick walls of genealogy!

I do my searching on FamilySearch.org, Google, and various state and library databases, but feel free to try any search engine you like. I've had pretty good success in finding my misspelled, erroneously listed relatives, many of whom told little white lies about their ages, because, what the census taker doesn't know, won't hurt him, right? ;-)

I've worked out a lot of tricks to use on the search engines, but it's not an exact science for me. I am methodical up to a point, but I never can stick to a list, or think of every conceivable variation. I often get side-tracked, and sometimes even wind up tracking down someone else's line, just for the fun of untangling their briar patch, or breaking down their brick walls. I feel I do it pretty well.

Today's misspelling really shouldn't have presented much of a problem, but it certainly did. It took me over an hour to find this relative, and I did get side-tracked.

Margaret McAllister, born 1929 in Georgia, was my "known" quantity. Her parents were Charles Clifford McAllister and Nancy Clemmie Green. I expected to find them in Catoosa or Walker County, Georgia. Here are some of the things I tried...

I started out with Margaret Margret Maggie Mattie (given-name field); "McAllister" in the surname field; 1927-1934 in the year-of-birth field; "Georgia" in the birthplace field; and "Catoosa, Georgia" in the residence field. I also put in the parents' names (without the mother's maiden name). I got nothing. I quickly dropped some specifics, and searched for the same name in Georgia and in Tennessee (North Georgia people often end up in East Tennessee). I still couldn't find her, and tried widening the birth range, dropping the parents' names, then the birth state, and finally the residence. I then varied the residence (places where I thought they might have lived briefly). I even dropped the state.

For surname variations, I began with wildcards: "Mcalister," "Mcall*r" and "*lister." I must have left out "Mca*r," because it seems to me it should have come up at the top of the list, unless the extra "t" in "Margarett" stumped the search engine. My broadest search (surname of "Mc*" with no birth state or residence) was just useless. It brought up thousands of records, including some in the Midwest who looked like twins of this Georgia family, and some in  Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and other places I would never expect to find them. Some were such mismatches I had to look back at my wildcards to find out why I was finding such oddballs.

I saved my broadest search for last, because putting in the wildcard surname of "Mc" brought up a tremendous lot of results, even with the county in there; and "*ister" brought up quite a few as well.

I tried again using "Mc,*" but narrowed down the places again: birthplace of Georgia, residence of Catoosa, Georgia. That was the search that worked. Even so, it brought up a lot of results (because so many surnames start with "Mc." I had to scroll through pages of results to find them. Here's what I finally found:

US Census, 1930, Militia District 0930, Catoosa, Georgia: Margarett Mcallester, female, aged 1 10/12, daughter of Clifton C Mcallester (and wife, Nancy). Birth: [est. June 1928; indexed as 1929], Georgia. Date of Census Enumeration: 21 April 1930.

It appears that the age, birth state, and residence were not the problems in this frustrating search, but the misspelled surname of "Mcallester" and the wrong given name on the father "Clifton C" instead of "Charles Clifford" caused a lot of trouble! The search for "*ister" was a good try, but missed "Mcallester" because of the "e." I don't know if the extra "t" in Margaret messed anything up. I may have used "Marg*" at some point.

Each census year has its own search problems, due to the different ways the indexes were compiled, and I will discuss some of those problems later. I hope that some of my successes will inspire someone else and help tear down that brick wall!