Zander's Inside Voice

I have been dutifully trying to figure out what happened to my great-great grandmother for almost a year now. It’s not easy because she was never married to my great-great grandfather and I never knew my great grandfather. I’ve written about some of my saga with researching Diana here and here.

Recently I found something that seems to suggest that she had a child at 13 years old with a man that was 7 years old than her. I’m not sure this is true because she married this man five years later, after she had her second child with my great great grandfather. I am not sure why she would marry a man she had a child with many years before but not marry the man she was pregnant by, although it seems that his older brother was pushing for them to get married.

In the hunt for the above information, I found an old census where they list her as having seven children, with all seven living in 1910. That means my great grandfather and his sister (W.H. and L.M.), plus her four kids on that census (T, B, C, and H), plus ONE MORE. When I found that a couple weeks ago, I assumed that this was the kid from when she was 13. That all made sense.

Until today, when it looks like she had a kid in 1900 with this guy she married in 1898. I found actual marriage certificate information that has her name and birthdate. But then on another site, I found a suspect name with the same marriage date and someone saying that Diana was also known as Frances Crawford. Huh?? Who is that?

Additionally, I found census information that links Diana (as Frances) with another man that I found she married to. I can’t remember if I found that actual marriage certificate as well, or if I just found it on someone else’s ancestry tree. But the problem with this other man is that Frances was having kids at the same time as Diana was with James Moore. WTF?? It’s all a huge mess now and I had to quite looking at it for today. So, Diana was 30 in 1910, had had seven children by the time the census people came to her house, and died/disappeared sometime before 1920, when James Moore was married to someone else.

Since I can’t find any death information for her and she appears to have been involved with at least four men, marrying two, maybe three, and almost marrying another man, I am more and more convinced that she either ran away or met an untimely death somehow, maybe childbirth? She disappeared on me another time and it took weeks of research to find her again with James Moore.

Damn it, Diana or Frances or Elizabeth or Bettie or whatever you’re calling yourself after 1910. I WILL find you if the information is out there!