My Mystery Ancestor: Irene Havens - Part 3

In my previous post on my mysterious ancestor, Irene Havens, I wrote about discovering a possible sister (or half-sister or step-sister). In this post, I want to continue writing about this sibling, and my continued research into my ancestor, Irene. Plus, I want to make other beginning genealogists aware of some of the mistakes one can make when one makes assumptions without looking at records that might give an answer.

After discovering that Philip Lang was Mary (Stout) Albright's uncle and was married to a Rhoda Havens, I decided to look for Rhoda (Havens) Lang in the censuses. Of course, from the existing 1870 to 1900 censuses I was able to find her living with her husband in Saint Joseph County, Michigan. One of things that I did not due at that time (and should have) was to try to view Rhoda's death registration. If I had, I probably would not have wasted the time I did digging into another Havens family. (A family, of which I will mention later.)

So after finding Rhoda listed in the surviving censuses from 1870 to 1900 under her married name, I decided to look for her in the censuses prior to 1870. Of course, when I did an online search for a Rhoda Havens in the 1860 census, I came across a listing for a Rhoda Havens listed in the household of Guerdon Havens in Plattsburgh, New York. My first mistake was to assume that I had found the right Rhoda Havens. My ancestor, Irene Havens, was not listed in this household, but since I had already found her in Michigan, I figured that was why. So, to try to confirm my assumption, I tried to look for Guerdon's family in the 1850 census, but I was unable to find him. (This should have been my first clue that I might have the wrong family.) Even though, I could not find a Rhoda Havens of the right age living in Plattsburgh, I did find a Rhoda Havens living with a Clarissa Havens and Hirena Haves in Rochester, New York; however, I disregarded this census as I thought I had found the right family. (That was my second mistake.)

So, to find out as much as I could about Guerdon Havens and his wife Salinda, whom I believed might be my ancestor and step-mother (I'll explain in a moment), I started to follow them forward in the censuses. In the 1870 and 1880 censuses, I found them living in Shelburne, Vermont, and I began tracing their sons forward in the censuses as well. I also began looking for a possible marriage record for Guerdon and Salinda, and on the familySearch website, I found some information that suggested that they were married about 1844. Since I knew my ancestor, Irene, had been between 1840 and 1842, I assumed that Salinda must have been Gurdon's second wife. (Again, I was making a big mistake.) So, I tried to look and see if I could find a possible first marriage for Gurdon, but I was unsuccessful. (Of course, looking back now, I realize that what I was doing at the time was trying to make my hypothesis work. Instead of waiting until I had viewed Rhoda's death registration before I tried to move backwards, I made an assumption that I could try and find Rhoda's family in the censuses without that vital record. Unfortunately, I probably made more of a mess by just jumping to a conclusion without some solid information.)

As I stated before, I made several mistakes up above, and although I was trying to make my assumption work, I was still trying to find out as much information as I could about Guerdon and Celinda Havens and their family. In short, I was still trying to figure out if my assumption was workable since I knew I still needed to look at that death registration before I could confirm my hunch. I figured that Rhoda's death record would confirm my beliefs. (I did not know it then, but I was in for a big surprise.)

In my next post, I will continue on with my research into Rhoda and conclude with my who I think are actually Irene and Rhoda's family. I will also include my list of my sources. (Also, as a note: I had used different spelling variations of Guerdona and Salinda Havens' names in this post since I found their names spelled in multiple ways. The two I used just happen to be the ones I can recall off the top of my head at the moment.) Stay tuned ...

More On Irene Havens ...

Earlier this month, I started to write about my mysterious ancestor, Irene Havens, but to be honest, I realize I left the post unfinished. I'm terribly sorry about that. Anyhow, I'll just start over again.


What I know about Irene primarily consists primarily of estimated birth year, a possible birth location, and her marriage to my ancestor, Peter Stout. As I mentioned before, I suspect she was born sometime between 1840 and 1843 in New York. (That information is based upon census records and her tombstone epitaph at the moment.) On one of my first research trips to Saint Joseph County, Michigan, I found the marriage record for Peter Stout and Irene Havens, and learned that they were married on the 1st of January in 1862. The marriage record suggested she was about 18 years old at the time, and unfortunately, the record in the county did not record the names of either bride or groom's parents. Prior to Irene's marriage, the only census I could find Irene in (at first) was the 1860 U. S. Census. In that census, she is living in the Household of Calvin Johnson in Florence Township, the same township where the Stout family resided, and her occupation is given as a servant. Calvin's birthplace was listed as New York, and I thought at that time that there might be family connection since Irene's birthplace is given as New York. Of course, when I tried to find a location in New York for Calvin Johnson and Irene Havens, I could not find a place where both could have lived nearby each other's family. I then quickly made the assumption that the chances were that Calvin and Irene were not related. So, for a little while after that, I was stuck and I put her line aside for a while.

Later on in that year, I visited St. Joseph County, Michigan again, to do more research. (I was planning to do research on all of my branches, not just on Irene.) In my previous visit, I had been unable to find a death record for Irene. Even though I did not have a death date for Irene, I knew she had died by 1877 since her husband remarried that year. (Of course, I should also state that I noticed that Peter had another wife by looking at the 1880 census, but at that time, it was only a guess.) I would not have a possible death date until towards the end of my visit when I visited Calhoun Cemetery in Florence township. I'll write more about my visit to Calhoun Cemetery in another post, but for the moment, it'll suffice to say that after finding Irene's grave, I had a possible death date and possible age at death in years, months and days. So far, this is the closest I have to a possible birth date and year for Irene.

Of course, finding Irene's grave did not help me figure out where in New York she was from or who her parents were. And I would not have an idea until about a year later. At that time, I was starting to think about what I could do to figure out where Irene came from when I realized that I had not followed her younger daughter forward into the censuses from 1900 to 1930. I knew that Mary Stout had married Clement Albright in the 1880s, but I realized that I did not know what happened to her after her marriage. So, I began to look for her daughter in the censuses. At the same time, I took a look back at the 1910 census for Peter Stout's household, and I noticed that Peter had a granddaughter named Jessie Albright living with him at the time of the census.

After finding one of Mary's children, I decided to look for her and her family in the censuses. I was able to quickly find Mary and Clement in the 1900 census in Kalamazoo County. I then looked for Mary again, and I found her with her children in the 1910 census living in Gladwin County with a Philip Lang (or sometimes spelled Lange). Mary and her children are listed as nieces and nephews to Philip, and since Mary is listed as a widow, Clement probably died sometime between 1900 and 1910. (Of course, I could be wrong, but I'll have to do a little bit more research to find out when he died.) I then looked for Mary again, and I found her living in Gladwin County again in the 1920 census. In this census, Philip was listed in the building below Mary's. After finding them in the 1920 census, I could not find Philip or Mary in the 1930 census. I am uncertain as to when or where they died, and I hope to be able to do some research sometime into when they died.

After noticing that Mary Albright was listed as Philip Lang's niece, I went backwards in the censuses to see who he married, as Philip's wife might be a sibling to Irene. In the 1900, 1880 and 1870 censuses, I discovered that he was married to a Rhoda. I then looked up Philip Lange's marriage record in Saint Joseph County, and discovered that he had married a Rhoda Havens. After discovering that Rhoda was related to Irene (either as a sister, step-sister or half-sister), I decided to look for her in the censuses prior to 1870. I also looked again at the 1900 and 1910 censuses and realized that Rhoda had died sometime between the 1900 and 1910 censuses. I looked at Saint Joseph County's online death index, and learned that there was a death record for a Rhoda H. Lang listed.

On another note, I'll have to continue this article on Irene in another post since this post is getting extremely long. So, in another post, I'll write about searching for Rhoda, and what I discovered. In addition, I will continue writing about my research into my Havens ancestors.