The summer of 2014 I started pursuing joining the DAR.
I filled out the application and gathered all my information including all source’s, I thought I had everything in order.
I mailed it off to the DAR.
Well three weeks later I get a letter in the mail from the D A R.
They were asking for proof of marriage for my great- great grandfather Joseph Stone and my great- great grandmother Emily Amelia Taylor.
Since they were married in 1872 and marriage licenses did not exist at that time I had to find some other way to prove their marriage.
I couldn’t find anything about my great great grandmother after 1880 she and my great great grandfather divorced in 1879.
I found him in the 1880 census living in a boarding house and their two oldest girls living with his father their grandfather.
There was another daughter that in 1880 was only 11 months old she was not living with the two oldest girls’ her name is (Theron Leland Stone)
I could not find anything on her or her mother.
Not knowing what happened to my great great grandmother I didn’t know if Theron was with her or was living with a different family.
I decided to try searching newspapers in the state of Nebraska as that was state they were living in in 1879.
Couldn’t find anything so….
I started broadening my search to more than just Nebraska.
I did my search for Emily Taylor Stone or Theron Stone using newspaper websites.
My first search turned up an article in the Rocky Mountain news about a school activity naming the students in the activity and Theron Stone’s name was there as one of the students.
I called the school district located just outside of Denver and asked about students in school April 30, 1886 did they still have records.
I told him the article that I was looking at and would like to see if they had any information on a Theron Stone and her guardian in 1886.
The gentleman was very friendly and said that he would have to look in the archives and he would get back with me.
He did return my call in about two hours.
Stating he had looked at the records and they did not have anybody by the name of Theron Stone recorded.
He also explained there was another school inside of the Denver school district with the same name that they might have the information I’m looking for, he gave me the phone number which I called and asked for the person that could help me in researching old records.
When I reach that person I told her what I was looking for and she immediately told me I will need a birth certificate or death certificate before they could look for any information I tried to explain to her I didn’t have a birth certificate or a death certificate that I was trying to go in through the back door so I could see who the Guardian was of Theron Stone which might lead me to a more information.
She was sorry she could not help me but the Denver library keeps those records and you can go there and do your research.
She must have been having a bad day.
Still searching in the newspapers finally found an article in the daily Alaska dispatch from Juneau Alaska, Sunday 25 February 1917 about the marriage of Theron Leland Stone to Robert Daniel Eberts this time I am sure I have the right person.
I still pursued searching through newspapers when I found an article in the Riverside daily press Riverside California this was a death notice of Theron Leland Eberts. Death was September 28 1926 and in the article it states how old she is that she has a daughter named after her Theron Roberta Eberts. It also names her two sisters Zoe Ingrad Stone Uptegrove Fish and Denton Underwood Stone Smith. I now know I have the right person because my great grandmother was Zoe Ingrid Stone. I had Zoe’s death certificate but it was not correct as her father’s name was wrong and her mother’s name was listed as unknown, so I couldn’t use that as proof of my great-great-grandparents marriage. I had all the information to send for Theron’s death certificate to the state of California. When I received the death certificate it named her father as Joseph Stone and mother Emily Amelia Taylor.
Theron had a sister named Denton I was able to find when she passed away and where and sent for her death certificate to Kansas. Her death certificate stated Joseph Stone as father and Emily Amelia Taylor as mother. I now had prove that my great great grandfather and great great grandmother were married and the DAR excepted that as proof.
With the secondary source of information I found in the newspaper it led me to find the primary source (death certificates) which gave me proof.
I became a member of the DAR 5 February 2015.
Yet my illusive great great grandmother Emily Amelia Taylor is still my brick wall.
Winona I Laird
“Genealogy Granny”
Genealogy Education Center.com
