Found!
I found Mable! She was the daughter of my Dad's Uncle Hannagin and his wife Mary. She was born in 1907 in Oklahoma. The last record I have of her is from the 1920 census when her family lived in Texas. By then she had a little sister Lucille (I cannot find any pictures of Lucille). I have no idea what happened to her, but I'm determined to keep searching.
Meet Great Uncle Hannagin and Aunt Mary, Mable's parents. Hannagin was born in 1881 in Tennessee and died in 1969 in California. He was 89 years old. I don't have any other information on Aunt Mary other than she was born in Texas around 1883. Aren't they a nice looking family?
Part of the problem with researching family members is the earlier census were all handwritten and therefore misspelling can be rampant. In addition, many people gave nicknames to the census workers instead of their given names. In my Dad's family, most of his siblings all went by their middle names (Aunt Roberta - as I knew her - was actually Mary Roberta. Aunt Veola was Opal Veola. I never knew this about either of them until I joined ancestry.com).
Great Uncle Hannagin is a perfect example of name misspellings. In the first census he is listed in -1900 - his name is spelled "Hanagam". In the 1910 census his name is spelled "Hannagie". On both the Social Security and California death certficates, it is spelled Hannagin. The only reason I finally found him, Mary and Mable was by searching for all people born in Tennessee in 1881 with just his first initial and last name. About halfway through the search I found his California death certficate and I knew it was him. California lists the person's state of birth and mother's maiden name, and it was a perfect match. Finally! My very next search gave me the 1910 census with Mary and Mable! SUCCESS!
The picture I posted of him and Mary above has the inscription on the back "Mr. H.... AugiesLast Name and Mrs. Mary AugiesLastname". It was written in pencil and is faded, and I just could not read the first name. I thought it might be Uncle Hannagin, but at that time I was looking for Uncle Hanagam. And I wasn't sure his wife was Mary, so I didn't really know who they were. Once I found the census with Mary listed as his wife, I knew the picture was of them.
It's like being a detective. I love it. As of today, Ancestry.com does not have any census records later than 1930, so I am hoping once they get the 1940 and 1950 census records I can find out what happened to Mable. But for now I'm happy to know her place on the family tree.
posted by yvonne at Saturday, June 05, 2010
6 Comments:
YAY! You found her! That's awesome - good detective work! That had to be such a great ah-ha moment! The photos are wonderful too!
I'm looking forward to the 1940 census data coming out soon, too. I'm hoping to use it to confirm some mystery people that my dad and I have found. It should be out in 2012.
It'll be a longer wait for the 1950 data. It won't be out until 2022. There's a 72 year privacy law with census data so it won't be available until then.
A 72 year privacy law? Wow! I mean - it makes sense in many respects, but it does kind of render the census useless as a tool for finding live people, doesn't it?
Congrats on finding Mabel!
Thanks everyone! When I finally figured out I had Mable, I called my brother and left the following message "I found Mable! I found Mable!" and then hung up.
I'm with Swami...72 year privacy law? Really? I had no idea. I guess I'll have to be content with the 1940 census coming in a few years.
I suppose the average age people died was 72 years so they made the privacy law 72 years.
I'm so happy that you found Mabel. Wouldn't she literally turn over in her grave if she knew that people were not only thinking and talking about her all these years later, but also BLOGGING about her!
Puffy, that makes sense...the age thingy. I think it's nice to know that little Mable may be long gone, but she is not forgotten. I guess we all hope in some way that once we have died that we are not forgotten.
Yay for Mable! I didn't realize they release census data at certain periods. Makes sense, I just never thought about it.
P.S. Please post flower pics soon. :-)
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