How to untangle this mess!? [closed]

+5 votes
263 views

I would love to improve my 3rd great grandfathers profile but I'm feeling stuck.  He definitely had two marriages, and maybe three.  The marriages to two sisters of the same family are what are getting me.  

His first known record is a pretty well seen marriage to first sister Sarah C Alspach:  https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XZBP-TGZ

However, that Sarah is shown to have married Andrew Knipper in 1824 and had children with him between the years of 1826 and 1854.  https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LH8Z-633

Andrew (my grandfather) is shown having children with Sarah's sister Mary Catherine between the years 1836 - 1854: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G3YD-TTL

To really make things weird, the child John Groves born in 1845 is claimed to be Sarah C's child and his death record records his father as Andrew Groves and mother as Sarah Umspach (misspelling of Alspach, her maiden name).  

After the sister wives, Andrew then marries a third and final time and has four children with that wife.  This marriage/children feel good to me - no overlapping dates, nothing confusing there.  

I did a ton of cleaning already and got rid of some conflation that was going on, but I'm not sure that I'm done yet.  

Any ideas on how to move forward with this?  I'm so confused with the sister wives thing and one child in the middle of both of their marriages to other people with eachother.  I would understand if there was an affair and a child together, oops, but the marriage in 1836 to eachother??  Is that actually marriage to Mary Catherine since they started having children that year?  Just wrote down the wrong name???

HELP! 

WikiTree profile: Andrew Groves
closed with the note: I've made massive progress with this profile and think it is well on its way.
in Genealogy Help by Kirby Drake G2G6 Mach 2 (24.0k points)
closed by Kirby Drake

3 Answers

+7 votes
 
Best answer

Just a brief look over things suggest that you have some conflation happening. I see Sarah marrying Andrew Knipper (Knepper) in 1836 and also find the two of them (looks very likely to be them) on the 1870 census here https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCL8-7B4

There is no way that this Sarah of Fairfield was married to Andrew Groves. Sarah and Andrew Knepper were married in Fairfield in 1836 and were still living there, with children, in 1870. 

The other odd thing I noted was that the death dates for Mary Catharine and Rachel Catharine are exactly the same...what are the odds? Are they the same person? 

Divorce was not common back then, I looked at the timelines....

Andrew lived until 1883, if he married Sarah she outlived him and died in 1888. He could only have had the one wife in this scenario. 

He may have had a wife before he married Mary Catharine but she had to have died before 1836. Any children born before that date would be that supposed first wife. In the 1850 Census Mary Catherine's oldest child is 13, b. in 1837. That falls in line with the marriage in 1836. There does not appear to be children in the house from a previous marriage. 

The 1860 Census shows Andrew with a Catherine...not a Mary... and with a birth location of Virginia! This is in fact Rachel Catherines birth location. Again raising the flag that perhaps Mary and Rachel are the same person. Or the Andrew/Catherine couple of 1860 is not your couple. 

Mary Catherine and Rachel Catherine share the same death date, but their birth dates are not the same. Mary does not die until 1893 (unless this is an error) In order for Rachel to marry the same man Mary must die before Rachels marriage date of 1857. 

Those are the issues to resolve. Take each profile and make sure that the sources you are using are correct. Just because the source has the same names does not mean it is right. You would need something to confirm it, like parents names on the document, family knowledge about the childrens names and who they married..census documents that support that. etc. Set up a ==Research Notes== section just above the sources section where you can keep sources/notes that you are unsure of and that need more research.

Hope this helps a bit. 

by Lorraine Nagle G2G6 Pilot (212k points)
selected by Kirby Drake
So I beleive that Mary Catherine "Polly" Alspach died before 1860 and that he remarries Rachel Catharine Gaines who goes by Catherine.  I'm going to do this by wife I think.  The 1860/1870 census records that were attached to Mary Catherine were for Rachel Catherine - the trigger being your comment about place of birth, thank you for that!
+3 votes

Here is a Find A Grave entry for Sarah C. Alspaugh Knepper. That makes it pretty unlikely that the Sarah who married Andrew Knepper was ever married to Andrew Groves. She outlived Andrew Knepper, he died in 1862. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/78019865/sarah-c-knepper

by Lorraine Nagle G2G6 Pilot (212k points)
Correct!  That is her, and undeniably her husband is Andrew Knepper.

So is the suggestion that this marriage record is:

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XZBP-TGZ

1. Actually Mary Catherine (her sister) with the wrong name

2. A different couple completely??

And why does the child John, born in 1845, have Andrew and Sarah as parents on his death certificate?

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NMVG-NS4
Ok Question, so how do you know for a Fact that the Andrew Groves in the marriage record showing a wife by the name of Sarah ...is actually your Andrew Groves?

As to the child John - Questions

How do you know for a Fact that the child John b. 1845 belongs to your Andrew Groves? 

As far as we know Groves didn't marry until 1836, and that was to Mary Catherine. Could John be adopted? A child of a relative taken in?  Could the Andrew Groves and Sarah Alspach actually be the parents of John the child...and that they are relatives of Andrew Groves who married Mary Catherine? 

Good questions - no, there are no parents on the marriage record, but it is in Fairfield, Ohio, which is the right location.  I could remove and set these up as their own microfamily, but possibly creating duplicates if I do that.  I'll focus on Sarah Alspach next, looking at her records to see if I can find inconsistencies and remove anything not her.

I do appreciate the questions, it gives me something to work on.  I have been staring at this so long it's all mush.
The real pain of it is that Andrew/Mary Catherine look to have married in 1836ish based on first child Andrew Jackson born 1836.  I really wish I could just pretend the 1836 record said Marth Catherine not Sarah.... and they are sisters.
Ah, the bane of genealogy..facts not ficiton lol! I think taking each spouse, one by one and really nailing down the sources for them is key. Try not to make them fit in the box you want them in, confirmation bias spawns conflation. Best of luck!
+1 vote
One of the children, Andrew Jackson Groves was THREE PEOPLE conflated.... fun times:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Groves-5176
by Kirby Drake G2G6 Mach 2 (24.0k points)

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