Monday, October 2, 2017

Family History Month - post 2

Today's post is about one of my most stubborn brick wall ancestors - my 3rd-great-grandmother Orlena Hazeltine Martin. She was born in Missouri around 1855 to a father from Tennessee and a mother from Virginia. I'm still working on determining who her parents were, and I have some leads, but nothing definitive yet.  (Most online family trees have her as the daughter of Lewis Martin and Deborah Ryester/Register, but I disproved that years ago by finding the death certificate of that Orlena, who died in Tennessee under her married name, Orlena Slaughter, in 1916.)

She married James Craddock on 20 February 1875 in Dent County, Missouri. They had four kids in Missouri, then moved to Montana for reasons unknown, where they had three more, including my ancestor Ernest Craddock. Orlena died shortly after the birth of her last child in 1899, which leads me to believe it was due to complications from the birth. Her passing happened a few years before death certificates were kept, so I don't have an official death record for her. Actually, I only have two records of her existence - the marriage record, and the 1880 census shortly after.

I've been in contact with relatives who believe they have identified a half brother, her mother, and step-father. I keep getting distracted before I can fully investigate these leads, but eventually I will get there! I would love to find out more about her.

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