Confession time: I have been going down too many rabbit holes while researching Bethina Littleton Condon.
Ok, all the research is necessary, but… dang. She had 9 more (maybe 10) children after having Henry Littleton Lowe and to find more about Bethina I am digging into each of these children and that is where the rabbit holes are getting me.
Issue 1- 8 of the children are on the 1850 census in Pike County Georgia (yes this is great) the issue: they are listed as living in the home of a lawyer. Huh? The parents are listed and they are just a two pages away. After spending too much time going over the census line by line I did hear from someone at the historical society who stated that yes, the 1850 census is a mess, no one knows how all the pages got out of order and numbered incorrectly but that is the case. It appears that the census taker while keeping great track of the dwelling numbers he did not number each page and at some point the pages got out of order and that is when they were numbered. Still with me?
I had so many questions regarding this situation: Why were all the kids living with a lawyer? Why were the parents just a few dwellings away from the kids? Was it a legal situation? A schooling situation? My head would not let it go.
Issue 2- On the 1850 census there is a Martha age 17 and a Mary age 16, well it seems that Mary is recorded as Martha on a later census, she is the right house with her new husband and using his last name but listed as Martha not Mary. This lead to a few searches being done over again to confirm I had not mixed the two up.
And guess what… I can’t find Martha now anytime after 1850. The search is not over, I have a possible lead.
Issue 3- I have a child that is with Bethina and Caleb in the 1870 census, Jennie age 22, but she is not on any of the earlier censuses. Could there be a large discrepancy with her age, and she is the daughter Jane who was born in 1843 and not 1848? Conundrum on these girls, or girl.
Issue 4 – The 1850 census is the best listing of the kids but the marking for gender is a little hard to read and therefore the indexing is a bit off. I chased a male B L, age 17, and then stumbled on a female Bethany Littleton Condon same age… So I’m double checking all records in the area with these initials to verify the proper gender while searching.
Which leads to another question: why were 5 children listed by name and 3 were listed by initials only? The census taker had no problem writing out William D but then could only write C P and S for 2 others (still not sure if S is male or female and what the S stands for).
Issue 5 – Several of the Condons are buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta Georgia. This cemetery is huge! And while I have several of the Condon family members in marked graves, in their plot are 3 unmarked graves. I think one of them is Caleb Condon as he is listed in the register for the cemetery but has no stone. Who are the others buried with the family?
This is where I am with the Condon research.
So why post this update: I want to show that genealogy isn’t always (and probably shouldn’t be) opening a website and having all of the answers handed to you. Plus, I want the sources, the glorious sources. I want to know this family and I want to let the world know about Bethina Littleton Condon and I need to go through her children to get more information on her so here we go.
When I have more answers on this family I’ll post them here.