Here are two recent inconsistencies:
1. My grandfather Paul Lee's middle name. It's Haid. Not Henry. But my grandmother didn't like "Haid", so she changed it to Henry. Not legally. She just did it. Named their youngest son Paul Henry Lee, Jr. Just like that. I had always HEARD that granddaddy's middle name was Head or some alternate spelling of it. I finally found proof of it. May 6, 2010. Took me several years. I was googling the name of the orphanage my grandfather had lived at approx ages 2-14. Nazareth Orphanage in Belmont, NC.
Googling led to an article about Father Thomas Frederick Price who had convinced Bishop Leo Haid that an orphanage for boys was needed. My eyes opened wide! There was the name! Haid! A little more digging revealed that one of my grandfather's brother Peter's middle initial was "L". Could his middle name have been Leo?? Hmmm... I discovered that my great-grandmother Mary Troublefield Lee had given two of her son's middle names undoubtedly to honor Bishop Leo Michael Haid! Mystery solved.
2. My great-great grandfather Francis E Phillips. It has taken me forever to learn more about Francis. I knew he was born approximately 1854 in New York. I knew he'd moved from Cook Co, Il to Orlando Florida in the early 1900s. But I kept coming up short on where in New York he started from. His wife Kate Valentine had been born in Buffalo, NY in 1851/2. Maybe Francis had been born there, too? I knew they both died in Florida. It wasn't until my cousin William "Billy" Morgan, another family gene-bug, suggested two sites. He suggested searching Greenwood Cemetery, Orlando, FL, which I had done previously, but he had a book that gave a detail that helped me find Francis' death date. THEN I was able to find his burial information at http://www.ucf.edu/ through the Carey Hand Funeral Home archives. Having that information, I was able to find out his place of birth which was indeed Buffalo, NY and that his father's name was Thomas B Phillips (also the name he gave his son). Here's where it got interesting. Billy also gave me another link to search Orange County, Florida's Comptroller's site. Honestly, I'd looked for a site like that, but I couldn't find it! http://or.occompt.com/recorder/eagleweb/docSearch.jsp There I discovered that Francis' middle initial was NOT "E" but was "V" instead. I began searching for Francis V. Phillips and began finding more. My cousin Billy did another amazing thing. He thought to search for Philips with only one 'l' instead of two. Bingo! We found Francis with his parents in Buffalo in 1860. Thank you, Billy!
Here's cousin Billy's blogpage: http://sockdryer.blogspot.com/
I still have one more mystery about dear old granddad. He listed his name as "Frank Rosburgh Phillips" on his daughter Harriet Ellen Phillip's birth certificate. She was born in Middlesex, Ontario, Canada. I wonder if I'll ever find out if they traveled while Kate was pregnant, or stopped and lived in Canada for a while. Were they on their way to Illinois? Kate's family lived in Davenport, Iowa. Did any of Francis/Frank's family move the mid-west?
If you don't ask the questions, you'll never find the answers!
