Thursday, November 19, 2009

EVERY ANSWER BEGETS 20 QUESTIONS

I thought all had been discovered (I REALLY should have known better with that thought) about Olive Bauser Stephens.

But, I WAS WRONG. I subscribe to the PA Allegheny County Roots Web and they are the greatest and best bunch of fellow genealogist I have come across.

I had posted another query about Olive Stephen trying to find her in a census record and the name of her parents, of which I was having zero luck. I mention what I knew about Olive, DOB, died on Christmas Eve in Ohio, and the newly found maiden name Bauser.

A very kind woman on that Roots Web list send me a copy of an Ohio death certificate she had found. It listed a Olive Rauhut, with husband Oswald and date of death as 24 December 1923. Her father was Jacob Bowser and mother Mary UNK. I was really surprised.

Then I did a search on Ancestry for Oswald and came up with the family in Missouri in 1900 and Pittsburgh in 1910. They had lived in the same community, so now it explained where they had met, and I had been suspecting they met in Ohio.

But the biggest surprise was his application for Naturalization and it listed Olive as his wife and the four Stephens children (including grandmother Mary) as step children. Never once did I ever hear Mary mention she had a step father…I asked Chuck and he said he never remembered his grandmother talking about her side of the family at all.

So it seems that they got married in 1913, the year that Robert had died. Did a lot of women remarry because they had no means of supporting themselves and their children?

I was really surprised with this turn of events. I have to give Aunt Edna a call.

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations on gaining so much new knowledge about her! It's great that someone was willing to help you out.

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  2. The PA Allegheny County Roots Web is the best, I have never had a problem that lots of people would help or give suggestions.

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