I don't even really know how to start this. I finally got the marriage request back yesterday--after three months of waiting--and it was successful. I actually received John Ristow and Bessie Hibbs' certificate of marriage that occurred on April 22nd, 1920, just as I had deduced.
Check it out here.
The marriage certificate listed Bessie Hibbs' parents as Charles Hibbs and Jennie Smith. This whole time I was (LUCKILY) researching the right people and that I didn't get my Bessie Hibbs confused with any other during that time period.
So why aren't I more excited?
I think I was at first. I had another document that proved that Bessie wasn't a figment of my friggin' imagination. But this told me nothing about her death, which is my ultimate goal. It wasn't until today as I was researching more crap that I had a thought: maybe Bessie really did die in a car crash when my grandmother was only 10-years-old, but by then her and John were divorced and John had already remarried Beulah.
Another gigantic mystery arose though as I was looking up divorce and marriage info: John married Beulah sometime in 1927 ... in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. What the hell? Where did Pennsylvania come from? I found out that Beulah was born in Philly, but how in the world did John end up down there?
I think my new lead is to send a request to Trenton, NJ and ask for divorce papers for John and Bessie. That won't help me with her death certificate either, but I don't know. Maybe it'll spark something...
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Finally an update!
On April 21st, 2012, I sent Philadelphia, PA a request for a death certificate they had listed in their public records for a female named Bessie Hibbs. According to the marriage certificate of John Ristow's second wife, Beulah DeFrehn, that's where they were married.
It hit me like a burlap sack of bricks: I don't know if the Bessie I've been researching is the right one or not. I got a death certificate of a woman named Bessie Hibbs, but not with the parent's names that I've found. This new Bessie Hibbs could be the right one, it may not be.
Son of a bitch...
But because of my tenacity, I've found another lead. Right now I feel as though THIS is now my last hope, but I'm sure I'll figure something else out if this doesn't work. Here's my idea:
I was looking over the facts that I absolutely knew about Bessie. One included the marriage announcement that in the paper. Check it out. That article actually says that the marriage "took place on Thursday afternoon." That paper is the 24 April 1920 edition of the Trenton Evening Times, which is a Saturday. Two days prior would make it the 22nd, so this Bessie Hibbs married John Ristow on 22 April 1920.
I'm going to send a request to Trenton for the marriage certificate. The marriage certificate has names of both the bride and groom's parents, so if the parents to John Ristow match what we have here currently, I'll have proof of who Bessie's parents were. When I have those names, it'll feel like I'm a step closer to figuring this out.
I literally had no other option. This was my last hope: to try and see if Bessie had died in Pennsylvania where it was hopefully recorded.
About a month into waiting for a response I gave them all call, and the lady said that it would take between 16 and 18 weeks. FOUR MONTHS! It takes them four months to type a number into a database, print out the record and mail it. They can't be THAT busy. Sure enough though, four months later in mid August I got a response. And guess what? It was the wrong woman. This attempt number five to get her death certificate, and also failure number five.
I hadn't been to the Mormon Family History Center in a long time, so I dropped by to tell my depressing story. The guy there complimented my tenacity and how I wouldn't let anything hold me back. He told me a few stories of how people gave up after two or three tries, so the compliments felt pretty good.
I honestly didn't know what I was doing at the center. I went to tell my story, and that was it. But I stayed. I found a computer, logged into the genealogy sites and started searching for the familiar names: Bessie Hibbs, John Ristow, Charles Hibbs (Bessie's father), so on and so on. The same hits showed when I typed in Bessie's name--but then it clicked. I went through everything that I definitely knew for certain about Bessie Hibbs.:
- Born in Trenton, NJ.
- Gave birth to my grandmother Marian.
- Found a marriage announcement of Bessie and John in the newspaper.
- Apparently died in a car accident with her unnamed "infant son".
- ...literally nothing else
It hit me like a burlap sack of bricks: I don't know if the Bessie I've been researching is the right one or not. I got a death certificate of a woman named Bessie Hibbs, but not with the parent's names that I've found. This new Bessie Hibbs could be the right one, it may not be.
Son of a bitch...
But because of my tenacity, I've found another lead. Right now I feel as though THIS is now my last hope, but I'm sure I'll figure something else out if this doesn't work. Here's my idea:
I was looking over the facts that I absolutely knew about Bessie. One included the marriage announcement that in the paper. Check it out. That article actually says that the marriage "took place on Thursday afternoon." That paper is the 24 April 1920 edition of the Trenton Evening Times, which is a Saturday. Two days prior would make it the 22nd, so this Bessie Hibbs married John Ristow on 22 April 1920.
I'm going to send a request to Trenton for the marriage certificate. The marriage certificate has names of both the bride and groom's parents, so if the parents to John Ristow match what we have here currently, I'll have proof of who Bessie's parents were. When I have those names, it'll feel like I'm a step closer to figuring this out.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
LAST CHANCE, JERSEY....
So since the years of Bessie's death have been narrowed down, I sent more money to New Jersey for a third attempt at getting this woman's death certificate.
I just want to find the death date!! Apparently, it IS too much to ask...
I just want to find the death date!! Apparently, it IS too much to ask...
Monday, January 16, 2012
'Sorta' Update...
[Insert obligatory excuse for not posting here.]
In all honesty I just hadn't felt like it lol.
But now I do, so:
1) With the help of a Mormon Genealogy Super-genius, let's call him "Harry," we have narrowed down the possible death years of Bessie Hibbs.
When I sent the letters off to New Jersey trying to get her death certificate, I didn't have an exact date of death, and NJ charges $1 per year you want searched, so I only had them search for five years: 1927 to 1932. As the family story went, my grandmother was 10-years-old when her mother--Bessie--died, and my grandmother was born in 1921, so that would put the death date around 1931. Right? Well, not quite.
See we found Bessie's husband on the 1930 Census. On that census was the husband, my grandmother, my aunt, and my grandmother's step mother Beulah Ristow (neé DeFrehn). So by 1930, the husband was already remarried. That's proof that not only my grandmother was NOT 10-years-old when her mother died, but the rejection letters I got back from Trenton were right.
We took that knowledge and put it together with my grandmother actually having memories of her mother, and a human doesn't start forming memories until they're about four. That would put the year at 1924-25.
So Bessie's death date was somewhere between 1924 and 1927.
2) I'm becoming more and more acclimated to the Family History Center's computer programs they use, so it's getting easier and I'm getting faster at doing my genealogy. With this, I've learned I'm related to a lot of awesome people:
That's pretty much it. Everything else that's happened to me has been about school and career choices.
It's getting to the point to where if I ever discover what happened to Bessie, I won't know what to do anymore.
In all honesty I just hadn't felt like it lol.
But now I do, so:
1) With the help of a Mormon Genealogy Super-genius, let's call him "Harry," we have narrowed down the possible death years of Bessie Hibbs.
When I sent the letters off to New Jersey trying to get her death certificate, I didn't have an exact date of death, and NJ charges $1 per year you want searched, so I only had them search for five years: 1927 to 1932. As the family story went, my grandmother was 10-years-old when her mother--Bessie--died, and my grandmother was born in 1921, so that would put the death date around 1931. Right? Well, not quite.
See we found Bessie's husband on the 1930 Census. On that census was the husband, my grandmother, my aunt, and my grandmother's step mother Beulah Ristow (neé DeFrehn). So by 1930, the husband was already remarried. That's proof that not only my grandmother was NOT 10-years-old when her mother died, but the rejection letters I got back from Trenton were right.
We took that knowledge and put it together with my grandmother actually having memories of her mother, and a human doesn't start forming memories until they're about four. That would put the year at 1924-25.
So Bessie's death date was somewhere between 1924 and 1927.
2) I'm becoming more and more acclimated to the Family History Center's computer programs they use, so it's getting easier and I'm getting faster at doing my genealogy. With this, I've learned I'm related to a lot of awesome people:
- John Locke (2nd cousin, 7 times removed)
- Emily Dickenson (5th cousin, once removed)
- Daniel Wesson [of "Smith and Wesson"] (5th cousin, twice removed)
- Jack London [he wrote "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang"] (6th cousin, once removed)
- Stephen Crane [wrote "Red Badge of Courage"] (6th cousin, once removed)
- Henry David Thoreau [American essayist] (5th cousin, 3 times removed)
- WALT %$%)*( DISNEY!! (7th cousin)
- Robert Goddard (6th cousin, once removed)
- Agatha Christie, John Steinbeck, Robert Graves, Jane Austen [no wonder I like to write]
- and most notably, John Wentworth. Read more about him here. Be sure to scroll down and read about The Wentworth Letter.
That's pretty much it. Everything else that's happened to me has been about school and career choices.
It's getting to the point to where if I ever discover what happened to Bessie, I won't know what to do anymore.
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