Dead men don’t register for the draft … or …How searching for the FAN club confirms direct ancestor data

So in recent weeks, there have been a few comments on some of my Mosley research (most recently on a blog post showing marriage license index cards for a few families that I’m researching).  One of the comments suggested that I had the incorrect death date for Richard Washington Mosley (b. 22 Feb 1834 in Pennsylvania).  The comment noted that his obituary puts his death in February 1918, and suggests that the 1942 death date was actually for his grandson, who was also known as Richard Washington Mosley although he was born as Richard Washington Graham.  My curiosity was sparked, and it seemed an interesting little quest to find out more while I waited for my current work project to upload.  Richard wasn’t a direct ancestor that I was researching, but part of the FAN (Friends, Associates and Neighbors) club of a direct ancestor.  So here is a little bit of what I found this afternoon…

I wonder what happened?

I had a little extra time this week in between other tasks, so I decided to try some new searches on the recently upgraded FamilySearch website.  I found a few items that with scans of original documents that directly answered a few questions, but I also found one that had a bit of a surprise…

Transcription errors are fickle beasts

Ancestry.com has opened up marriage records for free access this week through Sunday.  I was able to carve out a little bit of time today to see what I could find in a quick search on a couple of the lines I’m researching, and found some interesting results…