This post is the conclusion of the story started in The Scandal in Pennsylvania. If you have not read that yet, I recommend you go back and do so before reading the conclusion.
So, it has taken weeks to comb through all available sources and sort out who is Claude Arthur Peterson’s (LDQ5-N98) father. As you may recall, I began this search because someone had changed Claude’s father on FamilySearch.org from Arthur Lee Peterson (KHBX-D21) to Joseph Roden (LRFY-DV6) and I was trying to verify if Claude was a relative or not. Initially I thought he was Arthur’s stepson because Arthur and Julia didn’t marry until 12 years after Claude was born. However, when I found Claude’s birth certificate, it lists his birth name as Arthur Claud Peterson but lists the father as Bill Rhoden, possibly meaning Julia’s first husband, Joseph Roden. Hence the muddle.
Since my previous post I have search a number of additional records and concluded with high confidence that yes, Arthur Lee Peterson is Claude’s father. Here are my reasons.
1) Claude’s last name on the birth certificate is Peterson – strongly indicating that his father is Peterson not Roden. Also, with the first name Arthur, Claude very likely was named after Arthur Lee Peterson. (Arthur and Julia named their 2nd child Paul Lee Peterson, after Arthur’s middle name Lee, demonstrating a trend in naming the children after the father.)
2) Claude’s birth certificate marks the birth as illegitimate but lists the “father” as probably Julia’s husband. (Bill Rhoden probably meant Joseph Roden, but someone else was acting as informant instead of Julia herself and got the name wrong). Birth certificates were recently introduced when Claude was born, so the nurse may have asked for the name of Julia’s husband and was told that, with no one really thinking about the fact that the real question is who is the father of the child.
Franklin, PA City Directory, 1902
3) As far as I can tell Joseph Roden & Julia Kidder had split up by 1902, 5 years before Claude’s birth. The 1902 Oil City, PA city director lists Joseph Roden without including Julia as he wife, indicating that she wasn’t living with him then. The 1904 Titusville, PA city directory lists Julia alone without including Joseph. By 1905, Joseph appears on the New York state census in Pomfret, Chautauqua, NY, living alone as a boarder. By 1910, Joseph and Julia are living in different parts of PA and have listed themselves as divorced or widowed, respectively.
Titusville, PA City Directory 1904
This is a nice tight summary of weeks of research, looking for every record that showed where Joseph and Julia were between 1900, when they were together, and 1910, when they definitely were apart. I also searched for any Bill/William Roden/Rhoden, in case the birth certification did mean someone other than Joseph Roden, but there were no results. While I lack definitive proof, I think the evidence is good enough to give me high confidence.
Sadly, I also learned the Claude was mentally handicapped. I started suspecting this after seeing the 1940 Census, where Claude was 32 years old, still living with his parents, listed as unable to work, and had only a 5th grade education (compared to both parents and his brother, Paul, which all had up to 8th grade). Claude’s WWII draft card in 1942 listed him as an “imbecile” and he signed the card with an X, next to which someone wrote “his mark.” He died on 10 Jun 1958, 2 years after Arthur and 1.5 years after Julie each died. Arthur, Julie, and Claude lived with Arthur’s sister, Nellie Crosby, before they died, and she cared for Claude after Arthur and Julia were gone.
Now that I have reached my conclusions, I have updated FamilySearch.org to show the correct relationship, with a long explanation for why I think it is correct, so that hopefully it doesn’t get changed again. I also directly messaged the person who made the change that started this search, so that he will not just change it back to what he thought was correct.
It has been a weekend of uncovering apparent scandals! I’ve run into more weird marriage arrangements in two generations of one family line than I think I have in all my other research for the last several years.
It all started when my uncle asked me to research Claude Peterson (LDQ5-N98) because someone else had changed some information for him on FamilySearch.org and now Claude no longer shows up as a relative. (FamilySearch.org is like a Wikipedia family tree; anyone can edit it to make corrections.) My uncle thought the other person may have mistakenly merged two people who should not have been merged, leading to changes in some of the dates and to the father listed for Claude.
I started my research by looking at the change history in FamilySearch.org. There was no record of a merge but it did show the father has been changed from Arthur Lee Peterson (KHBX-D21) to Joseph Roden (LRFY-DV6), and listed a birth certificate as evidence for the new information being correct. Just by looking at this information it wasn’t clear to me if the new father was correcting a previous mistake or if there might be two different Claudes that were being confused.
I decided to start by researching down my family line from Arthur Lee Peterson’s father, Francis Peterson (LHDP-FVX), who I already had in my own family tree, but had not completed researching yet. This way I could confirm if there is a Claude Peterson who belongs in my tree who may be different than the Claude with a different father in the birth certificate.
My research for Francis Peterson was pretty standard, looking at census records, a death certificate, and an obituary. The obituary in 1931 was one of the documents I looked at early in my research. It told a little about his life, mentioned that his wife, Susan A Barber (KDMH-675), had died 12 years earlier, and mentioned that they had nine children. Thus, I was a little surprised to when I looked at the 1900 Census to see that Francis (who started going by Frank) was divorced from Susan. Nothing in the obituary made it seem like he had been divorced, but they had been married long enough that nine children were possible, even though I hadn’t identified them all yet. So I kept looking.
At this point, I moved chronologically forward in time looking at records for both Francis and Susan. On the 1900 Census, Susan is also listed as divorced, living with one daughter (8 years old), and a nephew, William L Peterson (KCJL-CB7), who is a few years younger than her. He is listed as married, but his wife is not on the census with them. Next, I looked at the 1910 Census for Susan and discover that she and William L Peterson have now been married 7 years. Hmm….
I found the marriage record for William and Susan, which reveals an interesting story. Susan divorced Francis on 27 Dec 1899 for adultery and abuse on the part her husband. By June 1900, the date of the census, she is now living with her nephew by marriage, William, though I can’t know if they are “living” together or just living in the same house. The marriage record also revealed that William and his first wife were divorced on 26 Feb 1903 for “incompatibility,” just about 2 months before William and Susan got married. Obviously, I can’t learn the whole story from genealogy documents, but the situation definitely looks suspiciously like Susan may have been the pot calling the kettle black.
Also interesting, and potentially indicative of another scandal, the marriage certificate lists William’s parents as Lyman and Arminta Peterson. Arminta Peterson is a name I remember from elsewhere in the family tree, but her maiden name was Peterson. However, the name is not very common, so I started wondering. I looked at Francis’s bothers and found Lyman Peterson (KHCQ-27V), who is William’s father. I hadn’t really researched him, but I did have one record that showed his wife as Alice Davis. So I dug a little deeper and found Lyman’s obituary. From it I learned that Lyman had married Miss Arminta Peterson, and they had five children, three boys and two girls. After Arminta died, he married Alice Davis. I still need to do some more research, but I would bet money that Miss Arminta Peterson (L47Q-J5D) is the one I already have in my family tree, who is Lyman’s first cousin. If William is their oldest son, as I suspect he must be, then Lyman was about 17 and Arminta about 16 when William was conceived. More to follow on this family sometime in the future.
Map of the relationships so far in the story…
Back to Claude and figuring out who is his father. Finished researching Francis and Susan Peterson, I started researching their son, Arthur Lee Peterson, and Claude’s possible father. As I always do, I start with the records I can verify are the right person I am looking for based on other relationships in the document. In this case, it’s the 1919 marriage record for Arthur and Julia Ette Kidder (LRFY-H5W), which lists Arthur’s parents as Frank Peterson and Susan Barber (so I know I am on the right track). Julia Ette Kidder is also Claude’s mother on FamilySearch.org, so this is a good sign too. From the marriage record, I learned that it was a second marriage for both of them and that Julia’s parents are John Kidder (GMN3-PRJ) & Martha Ann Eddy (GMN3-VR1). Next I find Arthur’s obituary, which says his is survived by his wife, Julia, and two sons, Claude and Paul. So far, so good.
Martha Ann Eddy, circa 1882
Then it starts to get weird. I looked at the 1900 Census; the first one where Arthur is an adult. He is living with his wife, Martha Peterson, (ok, first wife) and his in-laws, Joseph (K6QG-6NP) & Mary Eddy (K6SJ-Y1S). Then I moved on to the 1910 Census; this is where my mind was blown. In 1910, Arthur & Mary (married 13 years at this point) also have in their household: Julia Kidder, listed as daughter and widowed, and Ethel (13 yrs), Henry (9 yrs), and Claude (3yrs). Wait! What?! Then it all starts to click. Julia Kidder’s mother is Martha Ann Eddy, and Arthur is married to Martha Eddy …. So he ends up marrying his first wife’s daughter from her previous marriage? Ah … yuck.
Sorting out all the drama…
Perhaps it is not quite as bad as it seems though. Martha was about 12 years older than Arthur, and they were 35 and 23, respectively, when they married, according to the 1900 Census. Martha died in 1915, after she and Arthur were married 18 years. Arthur didn’t marry Julia until 1919, 4 years later. Julia is actually only about 3 years younger than Arthur. Still…
The one thing I can say at this point is that Claude appears to be Julia’s child from her first marriage, so FamilySearch.org probably has the right relationships.
Arthur Lee and Julia Ette Kidder Roden Peterson
As I followed Arthur forward in time, I saw that in 1925 (New York state census) he and Julia are living with Claude (now 18 years old) and Paul Lee (LDQ5-N4Y) (3 years old). On the 1940 Census, all four are still living together. Claude is now 32 years old. The census notes that his highest education is only 5th grade (compared to both parents and Paul, which all had up to 8th grade). Claude is also listed as unable to work, which suggests he probably had some physical or mental impairment.
At this point, feeling pretty confident that I already know the right answer, I start researching Claude. I found a death certificate that lists Arthur Peterson as Claude’ father, but that’s not especially reliable because Claude has been living in the same household as Arthur since at least the time he was 3 years old, so it may just mean he is the adoptive or step-father.
Next, I look at the 1907 birth certificate that caused the change in FamilySearch. I didn’t start here because I wanted to make sure I had a solid chain of evidence one way or the other first. Now that I look at it I am really confused. It lists the child’s name as Arthur Claud Peterson but lists the father as Bill Rhoden, possibly meaning Julia’s first husband, Joseph Roden. It also notes the birth is illegitimate. Now I’m left scratching my head. Is Bill/Joseph Roden the father? If so why is the last name Peterson? If Arthur Peterson is the father, why list Julia’s husband as the father on the record but name him Arthur Claud Peterson (a bit of a give way)? Also, if Arthur is the father, it means he had an affair with Julia while he was still married to Julia’s mother, then kept living with Julia’s mother while Julia lived in their household for another 8 years!
More research to follow in the coming weeks on Joseph Roden and the two other children, presumably from Julia’s first marriage. I’m hoping that as I keep researching this muddle will become clearer. Stay tuned.
Ancestry’s attempt to visually display these weird relationships
Genealogy Adventures 