Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
As a grandson of Harlow Dwight Gray (3 Jun 1884 – 19 Dec 1931) of Ashtabula County, Ohio, who married Mattie Mabel Giddings (22 Jun 1886-5 Jun 1967), the daughter of Sidney Giddings and Etta Allen of Cherry Valley, Ashtabula County, Ohio, I’d like to correct some information that I’ve seen posted in Gray and Giddings forums as well as in family trees found on the Internet.
These trees erroneously indicate that Mattie Mabel Giddings either married or had an affair with a Clarence Green, bore his child, Arlie W. Green, and was progenitor to generations of succeeding Greens. This is not true, and the mindless copying of those trees will certainly screw up the genealogy of future generations of Grays who will stumble across that incorrect info and discover they don’t exist! I’ve located the real mother of Arlie Green – a Margaret V. Giddings Spafford – as described further below. Here are the true facts:
1. Harlow’s parents were Adolphus Curtis Gray (11 May 1858 – 27 Aug 1923) and Mary Matilda Thompson (6 Apr 1855-13 Apr 1925). His grandparents were John Gray (1837-1867) and Jane Young (1835-2 July 1907), daughter of Benjamin and Rhoda Brown Young of Cherry Valley. His great grandparents were Draper Gray, Sr. (20 Sept. 1808 – 28 Mar 1883) and Draper’s wife Hannah Catherine (surname unknown), who settled in Cherry Valley by way of Verona, Oneida, NY and then from Pine Grove, Warren, PA. His great great grandparents were John Gray (1761 – 26 Sept 1847) and Charity Chase Gray (1765 – 16 Dec 1849), daughter of Benjamin Chase and Elizabeth Haviland of Dutchess County, NY. John and Charity were married in Dutchess County, in 1783, resided in Petersburgh and Grafton, Rensselaer, NY for many years, moved to Verona, Oneida, NY in 1811, then sojourned with Draper and other Grays in Warren County, PA in the mid-to-late 1830s before moving with Draper around 1838 to Cherry Valley, Ohio, where they later died.
2.. Mattie Mabel Giddings’s only marriage was on 22 Jun 1905 in Jefferson, Ashtabula County, to Harlow Dwight Gray. It was his only marriage, also. They had 8 children: Gladys Christina, Dorothy Cleo, Eleanor Orilla, Marietta, Robert Allen, Betty Marie, Virginia Lee and Mable Mattie (spelled as such). My Mattie Giddings did not marry or have a relationship with a Clarence Green, or bear a child named Arlie W. Green.
2. The confusion over which Giddings woman was the mother of Arlie W. Green (1902-1960) sprang from a “delayed” birth certificate issued to Arlie in 1941 in Trumbull County (Ohio) Probate Court. Such certificates were commonly issued many decades after the actual birth when a 20th century adult needed proof of birth to gain employment, apply for benefits, etc. Arlie’s court application stated that his mother’s full name was “Mattie Giddings”, born in Andover, Ashtabula County, and whose “usual residence” was “Cherry Street in the city of Ashtabula”, same county.
3. A person researching Arlie’s ancestry starting looking for women named Mattie Giddings living in Ashtabula County circa 1902, and found my grandmother’s name. She found no other contemporary Giddings women with the name “Mattie”, and so understandably but erroneously concluded that Arlie’s mother was my Mattie Mabel Giddings. I suspect her conclusion was solidified by the presence on the court document of signatures of two women who witnessed it. They were Maude Spafford and Aileen Watts, and both stated their relation to Arlie as “aunts”. (However, I had never heard of these women. They were not sisters of my Mattie, whose only sibling was Claude Blaine Giddings).
4. Many years ago, after I discovered the forum messages about Mattie and Arlie, I contacted the author to clear up the error. Apparently she and another Giddings genealogist had long since cemented their conclusion, and decided that input from a living descendant of Mattie Mabel Giddings who knew her and his aunts and uncle very well runs second to signed affidavits from two elderly women who had a vested interest in their nephew’s gainful employment. I suggested that they look for another Giddings women with a similar name, but my protestations that my Mattie had never resided in the city of Ashtabula, was born in Cherry Valley and not Andover and had no relationship to anyone on the birth certificate fell on deaf ears.
5. Therefore I was left to find the Mattie Giddings who was the real mother of Arlie Green, and clear my own grandmother's name. It seemed like a simple enough quest. If Arlie’s aunts signed the papers, then common sense logic dictated that his mother was their sister. Find her and the problem is solved.
6. With the help of volunteers at the Ashtabula County Genealogical Society, I learned from marriage licenses that Aileen Watts and Maude Spafford were daughters of Lewis R. Giddings and Electa J. Burlingham of Cherry Valley. However, a third sister –Arlie’s mother – could not be found in census records or marriage records. I then traced obituaries for descendants of Maud Spafford until I found a living Spafford descendant in Pierpont, Ashtabula County, who was familiar with Arlie and his mother (her great aunt), whom she thought was nicknamed “Maggie”. She relayed in a phone conversation that Maggie had married a Spafford man as had her sister Maude, and recalled that Maggie had some sort of earlier relationship with a man named Green. She had heard of Arlie, and said he had a half-sister, Olive Spafford. Maggie had died a few days after giving birth to Olive. This info was relayed to Arlie’s researcher.
7. A few weeks later, a volunteer at the genealogical society sent me a notice found under Cherry Valley community news in the Jan. 18, 1915, Jefferson (OH) Gazette. It told of the death of Margaret Giddings Spafford, daughter of Electa J. Burlingham and Lewis Giddings. A son (Arlie) and several other family members were mentioned. Later I found the Ohio death certificate for Margaret Viola Giddings Spafford. It, too, listed her parents and placed date of death as Jan. 13, 1915, and place of burial as Cherry Valley. Cause of death was puerperal fever, once a leading cause of maternal deaths after childbirth.
8. I still find family trees at Ancestry.Com, World Connect and other websites that perpetuate the Mattie Giddings error. They show my grandmother marrying Clarence Green. They erroneously show Green descendants. There is no mention of Mattie Mabel Giddings’ one and only actual marriage to my grandfather, Harlow Gray, nor of my mother and her siblings. I always attempt to notify the owners to make the necessary corrections.
If you don’t have the time or common sense to do research thoroughly or properly, please hire a professional genealogist so that you don’t screw up someone else’s genealogy.
Jack Calaway
CalawayJ@bellsouth.net
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:No followups yet |
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/gray/messages/13092.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|