Amber Alert!

 Two Missing Children:  1890 Census is Accused!

            When one hears the words “Amber Alert!” it means that there is a child missing.  When one is doing family history research, we don’t hear those words but a silent “Amber Alert!” may be in the records we research.  The “Amber Alert!” I found was in the 1900 Census of Mayfield, Lapeer County, Michigan.  There were two missing children that had been born to Alice Goodale Arms, daughter of Elijah Goodale, my husband’s third great uncle.

 

          The first clue that the children were missing lies within this census record.  The circled numbers in the census record under the columns:   Number of children born to this mother (5) and number of living children (5) show that Alice bore five children.  However, a closer look at this census reveals only three children--Gertrude (born in 1887), Harrison (born in 1889), and Justin (born in 1891) who is listed on the following page.   So who and where are the two missing children?  According to this census, the parents, Alice and Horace, had been married for 14 years, with  three children born, starting in 1887—every two years—and ending in 1891 with Justin’s birth.  So the two missing children could not have been born to Horace and Alice prior to the birth of Gertrude; and if they were born after Justin, then why are they not included with the family in the 1900 Census?

  Taking this first clue, my next step was to check the Michigan birth records to see if I could find the other two children born to Alice and Horace Arms.  I found the birth records for Gertrude, Harrison, and Justin but no other record of children born to Alice and Horace.  Alice was thirty-three years old when Gertrude was born, so it seemed possible that this could have been a second marriage for her.  I then checked the Michigan marriage records for a record of Horace and Alice’s marriage, hoping there would be some indication that she was a widow or had a previous married name.

A marriage record for an Alice Goodale Wood to Charles Horace Arms in 1886 was the second clue in my search for the missing children.  Obviously, Alice had married someone with the surname Wood prior to her marriage to Horace Arms.  Again, I checked the Michigan marriage records but could not locate a marriage record for an Alice Goodale married to a Wood.  So I had to come up with another alternative.

            Searching the Lapeer County 1880 Census for an Alice Wood, I found an Alice, aged 27, and John Wood, living next door to Elijah Goodale. This became clue number three.  The couple had three children Herbert, age 17, Frank, age 14, and Elmer, age 4.   Could this be Alice Goodale Wood, daughter of Elijah Goodale?   The age was right.    However, Alice was too young to be the mother to Herbert and Frank, but there was a possibility that she could be the mother of Elmer, who was ten years younger than the other two.  It seemed likely this was a second marriage for John Wood.   However, one can’t make assumptions or play the guessing game when it comes to the science of family history research.  All possible records need to be searched.  The next puzzle was tos to find out the maiden name for Alice Wood, wife of John Wood.

            Clue number four came about when, for the second time, I searched the Michigan birth records, this time using John and Alice Wood as the parents. Alice Wood’s maiden name of Goodale was listed on the birth record as the mother of two boys, Elmer and Clinton, one born in 1875 and one born in 1881, in Lapeer County, Michigan.   So Elmer was the first of the missing children and Clinton the second.  Four clues later and all  five children born to Alice Arms had now been accounted for, Elmer and Clinton by Alice’s first husband John Wood, and Gertrude, Harrison, and Justin by Alice’s second husband, Horace Arms.

            In a formal investigation to find missing children, every clue needs to be searched and used as evidence before one is found guilty!   The same is true of family history research.  Gathering as many pieces of evidence possible will make for a better case.  I found several more pieces of evidence that all pointed to the fact that Elmer and Clinton were the two missing children of Alice Goodale Wood Arms.  The evidence follows.

            First, the 1910 Census of Mayfield, Lapeer County, Michigan was evidence that showed Alice had been married twice.  The circled “M2” means that she had been married two times.  This is additional proof that Alice had married prior to her marriage to Horace.

 

                Second, the California Death Index, which lists the maiden name of the deceased’s mother, provided evidence of the recorded maiden name of Goodale for both Elmer and Clinton Wood who both passed away in California.

            The third piece of evidence was  the 1894 Michigan State Census which showed Clinton Wood living with the Arms family in Mayfield and Elmer Wood, age 18, was listed in the same town but working and living with a different family.  This places the two Wood boys either within or near the Arms family.

            Lastly, a search of several census records, dating from 1910 to 1940, showed that Elmer Wood and Justin Arms, half-brothers, both lived in Coos County, Oregon as did Frank W. Wood, older half-brother of Elmer.   Family members tend to migrate to the same general area and these census records provide further evidence to the familial connections between the children of Alice Arms.

                All of the records searched and pieces of evidence obtained from these records point a guilty finger at the 1890 Census which, because it had been destroyed in a fire and is no longer available to researchers, had hidden the two missing children of Alice Arms.  Clinton and Elmer would have been aged nine and fifteen and most likely living at home that year and there would have been no mystery surrounding the two missing children recorded in the 1900 Census.    Based upon this evidence,  I find the 1890 Census guilty!