What is the source for Moses' middle name being "Hiram"?

Question

Can someone point me to the source which provides Moses' middle name? The only source I have ever seen that gives "Hiram" as his middle name is his Find A Grave memorial, which I believe is in error.

Comments

JOHNSON Co., MO, Jackson

Moses Ferguson, sen.

Answer 1

I agree with you to be skeptical of Find A Grave memorials (which can be hit or miss depending on who hosts the memorial) but I would contact the Profile Manager first to see which source he used.

Doing a quick web search I found pages that list this Moses Ferguson as being Moses "Hiram" Ferguson, which makes it more of a nickname. Besides that reference the earliest I found was this from 2009: https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/ferguson/10784/

If you wonder why I am bothering to trace these pages, it can be important to see how a tidbit gets garbled over the years in the case there is a root truth to be gleaned from it.

As you noted there does not seem to be a source cited on any of these pages for his middle name or initial. So far it seems to be a phantom, but I would not assume that either.

Comments

I copied over Moses Hiram Ferguson as part of my tree. I can't find any Hiram in the sources, except find-a-grave and some old online trees, which do not provide sources. I always found the "Hiram" convenient because there is another Moses Ferguson (a nephew). But this Moses is on a large number of documents and none appear to mention Hiram.

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I believe that the "Hiram" name may have originated with a family genealogy published by Barbra Sedory in 1992. Ms. Sedory, a descendant of Margaret Ferguson and Preston Knight, said that Moses' Knight descendants called him "Hiram." She did not know his correct name until she started genealogy research. So it might have been a family nickname.

Johnson Co, MO, Probate records for Moses Jr.'s estate refers to him as "Moses G. Ferguson."