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Female Kin Difficult To Unveil

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By SHARON TATE MOODY

Tribune correspondent

Published: March 22, 2009

Sometimes I fantasize about what my ancestors would think if time travel were possible and they could visit me today.

No doubt the women among them would be shocked to see people of their gender in high-profile positions, from CEOs to world leaders, making news daily in every facet of public life.

In 1776, Abigail Adams asked her husband, John, to "remember the ladies" as he and others worked on the Declaration of Independence. If John heeded her request, he didn't prevail with his peers.

The new legal system became a bastion of male dominance, resulting in generations of women lost to their descendants. Identifying them is one of the biggest sources of frustration for family historians. Blame it on John Adams and his gang.

In the earliest annals of American history, it didn't seem important to remember the names of married women. We now know differently. Because March is Women's History Month, why not celebrate it with a determined effort to learn the original identities of the women of your own family?

Not only did our forefathers not remember the ladies, society hid them from any practical viewing. In earlier America, when a woman married, she ceased to exist in a legal sense. The concept is called feme covert; the literal translation is "covered woman."

A woman's identify merged into that of her husband and she could not act independently of her husband in a legal action. The result is she created no records - leaving us no paper trails to follow.

If someone wanted to sue her, he had to sue her husband. If she needed to sue someone, her husband did it for her.

Not only did the feme covert cease to exist in the eyes of the law, she lost her birth name. Until late in the 20th century, few women considered keeping their maiden names - it was assumed when a woman married that she took her husband's name.

No wonder we can't find our female ancestors! The only way to try to search is by locating records the men in her life created.

In areas where marriage records have survived we have a way to identify the women in our family trees. However, many of those have been lost or destroyed. The remainder were often kept at the county level, so knowing where a couple got married gives you a better shot at finding a record.

When men made their wills they had no reason to identify their wives by their pre-marital names. In fact, new researchers usually are shocked at how many men didn't even give their wives' first names in wills. It is quite common to find a will in which a man left property "to my beloved wife" without further identifying her.

The widow of a male ancestor who served in the military might have been eligible to receive a pension for his service. Her marriage to the deceased was one of the things she had to prove in her application. Sometimes she did this with a copy of a marriage license or an affidavit from the local courts that the record existed.

I was able to prove the maiden name of one of my fourth great grandmothers, Mary Stalcup, when her husband, William, testified in the divorce of her brother, Seth Hyatt. The records for their marriage in Burke County, N.C., had burned in the courthouse, but William testified as to the time and place at which he and Mary Hyatt had married.

Before the mid-19th century, married women could not own land. If they owned property at the time of their marriages, it was put into the new husband's control once the nuptials were held. When a man died, his wife received a dower or third of his real property (land) for her lifetime or widowhood. When she remarried or died, the land reverted to his heirs (usually his children or his siblings). Married women also couldn't make wills - which makes sense because they couldn't own property. With a husband's permission, a woman could make a will for any personal, not real estate, items she owned.

As a widow, however, a woman could purchase land and make a will to provide for someone to inherit her property. It is through such records that we sometimes can identify female ancestors. While a woman was not likely to give her maiden name in the document, she might name a brother as an executor. Since they would have shared a surname, this will identify her.

A father's will also might identify his married daughter. But if you don't know her surname, how do you identify her father? Experienced researchers know it's important to identify and investigate their ancestors' neighbors. During times when society wasn't very mobile, men married women who lived nearby. Thorough genealogical research, therefore, requires an identification of all neighbors. Then it is incumbent upon the researcher to find the neighbors' wills. Hope to find an entry such as "to my daughter Jane Stansell, wife of Elijah."

Your female ancestors may not deserve a place in an official history book in the same sense as Amelia Earhart or Susan B. Anthony. They do have a place in history nonetheless, and it's up to us to make every effort to restore them to their rightful positions with the names given to them when they were born.

Registration Deadline

If you plan to attend the National Genealogical Society Conference in Raleigh in May, you have only nine days left to get early bird registration fees. On March 31, registration for members jumps from $195 to $230. You can register at www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/ register_online.

Those who have registered can keep abreast of new details on the conference blog at www.ncgenealogy.org/blogs/ngs2009.

Sharon Tate Moody is past president of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Send your genealogy questions and event announcements to her in care of Getaway, The Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa, FL 33606 or stmoody0720@mac.com. She regrets

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