My brain hurts. I was going along and working my genealogy and before I knew it I had to go back and delete people from my tree because William T. Barrett, son of William and Carrie Barrett nee Bittenbender, all of a sudden had two wives and his second wife had two husbands, and who do June and Linda belong to?!?!?!
Confused? So was I.
So I went back and deleted the other wife (I'll get to her in a bit) and the children. I have the marriage license for William Barrett and Ann Marie Ward. See. They got hitched. William's parents are all correct.
There's even a wedding announcement in the local newspaper...
William's parents aren't mentioned here. Not overly surprising as they died when he and his siblings were very young. Terribly sad all around, but his brother, Thomas E. Barrett, is mentioned to help confirm this is the right person. I mean the marriage license kind of already does that. Barrett might be a fairly common name, but Carrie Bittenbender (his mom), isn't.
St. Nicholas Church is not a family church on my side. That would have been St. Gabriel's in Hazleton, but it was tradition to get married in the bride's church and she is from Weatherly so nothing earth shattering.
So what's up, Cherie, you might be saying. Well, I completely understand that divorce happens. It happens a lot more today than it did back in the 1940s though. My grandfather on my dad's side of the family was divorced. It wasn't unheard of, but it just didn't really happen frequently. Unfortunately when I was going through his death certificate I didn't pay attention to his wife's name on there. I just clicked the box for the spouse as I added it to my Ancestry tree. His wife's name was Eleanor on the death certificate...
Naughty, Cherie...you must notice these things. Luckily I eventually noticed and backtracked. Of course reviewing the material it looks like he just got married twice. Eleanor belongs in my tree.
So why do I not just think that there was an error on the death certificate? I mean the information looks to be given by someone from the hospital and not a family member who could easily have gotten something wrong (but didn't).
Well, there's his obituary...
...and the obituary has it all right, but introduces three new players into the game: Eleanor Barcheski and two daughters, Linda and June. His brother and sister are correct as well. No doubt about it. This is my William with a different wife.
Another interesting point of note is that once again a family member had their funeral conducted in the family church, St. Gabriel's, and then was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Drums. Calvary is a beautiful cemetery, but it's no where near St. Gabriel's. It's a 15-20 minute drive in city traffic and then through some mountains (only 5-1/2 miles away though). I'd love to know when and why some of the family stopped being buried in St. Gabriel's.
Another sad bit from this part of the Barrett family because William was only 52 years old when he died. His dad was 33 when he died and his mom was also 33 (and remarried. She died from an ectopic pregnancy). I'll have to cover more of this family's tragic circumstances in a later post.
Sitting here the next morning I think I could safely say there was no reason to delete the people from my tree, but I'd rather remove and reevaluate than mess up my tree. I'm in the process of adding them back.
In the 1950 census Eleanor is with her parents, Joseph and Frances, but is a Barrett. William isn't in the household.
I'm inclined to believe that the children are William and Eleanor's because (sadly) William and Eleanor are mentioned in June's obituary. Another Barrett tragedy as she and her husband John "Jack" Dudeck died in their early 40s in a boating accident in Canada. You can also see that Eleanor has remarried to someone by the last name of Leperi and is living in New Jersey.
Eleanor was almost 18 years younger than William so her remarrying after his death is not surprising. As for "inclined" to believe the children are William's...June died at 42 in 1994 which puts her birth in the 1950s after their marriage and before his death.
I'll stop there and save some of this for other posts. Ann Marie Barrett nee Ward looks to have remarried by what I'm seeing in other trees on Ancestry, but I haven't verified any of that yet and I don't use other people's trees as fact. Just as potential leads. Until I find other information it's not going in my tree. Usually I wouldn't put her other marriage in my tree at all unless she happened to marry another family member, but with all the marriages happening I think it's important to note it all so future generations know that I had the stories straight.
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