Coincidences

I’ve talked about coincidences before on my blog. It seems there is always a little taste of it in genealogy research. Two of the first coincidences that I remember coming across, I’ve already blogged about. The time I found someone from my mother’s side of the family, in a book halfway across the country that my father’s side of the family owned. The other time was when I got some Redford family photos from my Great-Aunt Barb and it had William H. Moore written on the back. This would be a generation before my Moore grandfather married my Redford grandmother.

I’m back today with another Redford coincidence, but this time when it comes to the address they lived at. Between 1910 and 1920, Herbert Redford and his wife Sadie Sutcliffe-Redford lived at 16 Gist Place in Orange, New Jersey.

herbertredford1910

Well, now that I know who Sadie’s parents are, I was able to do some census searching for her siblings and parents. It just so happens I found another coincidence around the corner and a couple blocks away from Herbert and Sadie’s residence.

gistplace

The location of this other household is not the coincidence. It’s their surname.

johngist1910

The household at 197 Day Street is the home of John Gist and his wife Alice. Alice’s maiden name just happens to be Sutcliffe and her sister Elizabeth Sutcliffe even lives with her. Alice and Elizabeth are the sisters of my 2nd great-grandmother, Sarah (Sadie) Ann Sutcliffe.

It’s definitely a small genealogy world. It’s crazy to think Sadie’s family has been there all this time. I’ve had Herbert and Sadie entered into my database for over 10 years and now, I find Sadie’s sister just a few census pages from her in 1910.

Note: This research was done before I started my Genealogy Do-Over.

Find a Grave – Sutcliffe

While I am starting the Genealogy Do-Over/Go-Over, I am not researching anything new. However, I had a couple of post ideas before I started that I thought I’d still share.

I recently got in the marriage record for Paul Sutcliffe and Mary Senior from the State Archives. The New Jersey State Archives is a wonderful source of New Jersey information for me and I am planning a trip there someday, hopefully soon!

3824-PaulSutcliffe-MR

What I usually do after I’m done analyzing a new record is I hit census records and I hit Find a Grave. Just to see what kind of opposition I’m going to run into with the new people in my tree. Paul Sutcliffe and Mary Senior have to be two of the easier people in my tree to search for. I haven’t tried super hard yet, but I was able to find possibilities for Mary’s parents pretty quickly. Ancestry suggested a Find a Grave link to me, so that was even better.

williamhseniorfindagrave

Here is the entry on Find a Grave for who I think Mary Senior-Sutcliffe’s father is. Everything looks fine here, it doesn’t have Mary listed as a child but that’s no big deal. Then I saw that there was a huge group of Senior graves in that top picture and I needed to blow it up a bit.

sutcliffeandseniorgraves

Well folks, that is exciting and disappointing at the same time. Exciting because I might have gone back another generation, and disappointing because the tombstone was cut off. Thats alright though, because I still have potential parents and siblings of Mary Senior to explore. I even have a cemetery location to look at. If they are in a family plot, that will tell me a lot about Paul and Mary. I checked Find a Grave, but the Sutcliffes aren’t listed. I suppose whoever did the Senior graves didn’t know that Mary might be a Senior. Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree completely and that tombstone says Westcliffe.

I will be adding this to my to-do list for when I get there in my re-analyzation of my records!

Marriage of Herbert Redford and Sadie Sutcliffe

Sadie Sutcliffe is no longer my family tree’s biggest mystery! Thanks to the New Jersey State Archives, there are plenty of new names for me to play with!

0288-HerbertRedford-MR

I hope your family trees are treating you kindly! My father’s side is definitely ripe with activity while I am waiting on my website to change servers. There are a couple more records that came with this one and I can’t wait to share them.

lovekathleen