Newspapers Tell The Story

Sometimes all you can find of the woman you're researching is her married name. I had this happen tonight. Caldonia Penrod, my 1st cousin 2 times removed, married Emanuel Craig and had 4 children, 3 of them daughters. The children were all born between 1923 and 1933 making it difficult to find their married names because they wouldn't show up as adults in the 1930 and 1940 censuses. While I didn't have any luck finding an obituary for Caldonia, which would have hopefully listed her daughters' married names, I did find one of them written about extensively in the social columns in Illinois. I found "Mrs Ervin Haydon" listed as the daughter of Mrs. Emanuel Craig in a society blurb detailing a shower given for another woman. But which of Caldonia's daughters married Ervin Haydon?

Party for Mrs. Haydon

Newspapers.com

Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, Illinois) 12 Jan 1943, Tue • Page 6, Column 2

Pvt. Ervin Haydon Wounded in Action

Newspapers.com

Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, Illinois) 22 Sep 1944, Fri • Page 14

I was very lucky that Mrs. Ervin Haydon was very prominent in her city's Junior League and appeared in numerous articles on www.newspapers.com.

Further investigation gave me "...the former Nancy E Craig..." listed as the wife of Ervin Haydon. After that, I was able to find Nancy's Social Security Death Index entry, which gave me her last residence and month and year of death. She died in 2012 in Illinois, and I found her obituary on GenealogyBank. Nancy's obituary gave me the married names of her two sisters, which will help me find their obituaries:

Don't give up too soon when all you can find is a woman's husband's name in a newspaper. Her maiden name will likely be in an article at some point and found with further investigation.