How Regina was the Key - Part II

Once you think you have identified an ancestor, you can't be satisfied you are correct until you have undergone a sort of scientific method of attempting to *disprove* your hypothesis. Without absolute proof of someone's identity, you are making many assumptions that can be wrong! Therefore, when I thought I had identified the perfect Smith family living in Maryland but having hailed from Pennsylvania, with the right "Catherine" born the right year, I had to make sure she was really our Katie. The best way to disprove a woman is an ancestor is to find her either married to someone else, or alive or dead at the wrong time.

If the Catherine Smith born to George and Elizabeth and living in Taneytown, MD in 1870 was our Katie, she should not show up in 1880 in Maryland married to someone else! However, while searching for the mother, Elizabeth Smith's maiden name, I found her daughter, Catherine married to a man named Dorsey, who happened to be relatively well-documented. I therefore had to eliminate that wonderful Smith family from contention, after hours of researching them. Heck, I practically knew the names of their pets by the time I realized my mistake. I had to bid a fond farewell to the wrong Smiths. Auf wiedersehen!

Wasting hours of time following the wrong family happened more than once - as you will see. In an effort to determine Catherine's parents' names, we ordered a marriage license from the state of Maryland, listing Joseph Cooke and Katherine/Catherine Smith, married 1872, according to the census records. A clerk in Allegany County, Maryland mailed me a letter with Eileen's check returned, uncashed, with the information that there was no such record. We have yet to find that record, but we really don't need it anymore. Within about three months of on-and-off searching (I had other family mysteries to solve!), I finally had to make the case to Eileen that the Charles and Mary Smith family were, in fact, the correct family, despite the inconsistencies, the 1900 census in PA that includes Regina (when she was also in Cleveland), and the fact that Charles shows up with a different wife in 1880 and I could not yet find a death record for "Mary E. Smith."

The best evidence was the fact that Mary Eva Smith had 12 children from 1848-1873 I discovered after tracking that family back another ten years to 1850, before Catherine was born. Catherine/Katie had two older siblings, Mary A. and Louis. The only way Eileen could accept that Regina was Katie's younger sister by 18 years was if her mother had continuously bore children until 1870 or so, which proved to be the case. Never mind she dropped dead as a result. Of all the Smith siblings, only Katie and Regina moved to Ohio, and it's still a mystery why Regina left. Perhaps Katie was a second mother to her?

Additionally, while making my case to Eileen why the Charles and Mary E. Smith family was the right one, I noticed in the 1850 census in Somerset County, PA nearby German immigrant farmer neighbors with the names Louis and Catherine Wambaugh! Considering the Smiths had named their eldest son Louis and their second daughter Catherine (a consistent German tradition until the 20th Century), it all fit like a glove! And we now know that was the case.
Earlier in my research, I had discovered the Cleveland Necrology Files located online hosted by the Cleveland Public Library. Most people who died between 1900-present had obituaries listed in the newspapers and the library has those records. When I searched for the various Cook and Smith family members, I found all of them! The names of surviving relatives listed in the obituaries proved a mother lode of great information. As a result, I was able to confirm once and for all who Regina Smith was, the definitive link to the Wambaughs, Joseph Smith's mother's maiden name (Anschutz), Albert Cook's marriage to his son's widow, and many other interesting facts that will be revealed!

So, it was because of an invisible unmarried, childless, insignificant woman who lived with various siblings and relatives throughout her life, whose name was misspelled and age mistaken, who never made an impact in society, but who proved to be the invaluable key to identifying our Cook and Smith ancestors! We will remember you, Regina.