Eliza Part 2

As discussed in my recent post, Duplicate or Different, I followed up on a 'notice of change' message to discover two Eliza Van Valkenbergs on Family Search. By looking at the differences between the two women, I discovered some clues that led to more information in Eliza.

One of those clues was the differing death dates for Eliza. In one case, the death date was given as between 1920 and 1930. I'm sure this was due to not finding Eliza in records.

The other Eliza had a death date of 1943 listed. Knowing that Eliza had been married several times, I suspected that a different surname was contributing to the difficulty in finding records. When I searched Newspapers.com for the term Eliza in 1943 in St. Joseph, Missouri, I found a notice of her death.

Since Eliza died in Missouri, I then checked for a Missouri death certificate.

Both of these documents contain clues that connect Honora Eliza Schleininger to Eliza Huntchinson Phay. First is her maiden name: Van Valkenburg. The marriage record for Eliza and Albert Hutchinson gives Eliza's name as Eliza Van Valkenberg.

Albert Hutchinson's entry on the 1895 census in Doniphan County, Kansas includes an Eliza Hutchinson along with a Howard Nolan and a Peter Nolan. One of the affidavit's by Eliza Phay in the pension application file for Elmer Hutchinson states that Eliza was married to Henry Nouland prior to her marriage to Albert Hutchinson.

Thus, when the obituary identifies Peter Nolan as the son of Eliza Schleininger, it provides another clue connecting Eliza Schleininger to the Eliza that married Albert Hutchinson.

The other clue obtained from FamilySearch was not only the year of death (1927) for Elmer Elsworth Hutchinson but also the comment in the change log that his cousins caused his death. Those two pieces of information led me to Newspapers.com. I wasn't able to find anything in 1927 but I did find information regarding his death, including the funeral notice in the 30 Aug 1926 issue of the St. Joseph Gazette.

Based on the information found in these records, I concluded that these 'duplicate' people were actually the same individuals. Thus, I added sources and then merged the duplicates.

I'm thankful for the nudge to do further research and the hints found on FamilySearch. I hope that others who follow Eliza Van Valkenberg and Elmer Hutchinson will find this work useful.