NH NH - Allenstown, Adult Female, 23-33, & 3 Children, under 11, Nov'85 & May'00 #3

[Shane 65]

Tomorrow night at 9pm (EST) the new show about the Bear Brook case will be available on Discovery Plus. Its title is the same thing as the 20/20 show- The Chameleon Killer.

 

[Winstigator23]

Going along with the theory that TPR met MC's mother short after/before his divorce in 1975, and according to the surprised visit he did with family in 1975/1976, he said he was living in texas, so presumably they could have met in TX?

so I found this case on charley project. This mother was married and divorce twice and left behind a 1 year old child at the time. Her maiden name is Dean, does that ring a bell with people who are building the family tree?

Thanks.

Sherrye Lee Bethel
Missing Age: 21 Years
Current Age: 65 Years
First Name: Sherrye
Middle Name: Lee
Last Name: Bethel
Sex: Female
Height 5' 6" (66 Inches)
Weight: 130 lbs
Race / Ethnicity: White / Caucasian

Circumstances
Date of Last Contact: July 15, 1976
NamUs Case Created: November 29, 2017
Last Known Location Map
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
County: Tarrant County
Missing From Tribal Land: Unknown
Primary Residence on Tribal Land: Unknown
Circumstances of Disappearance: Last Seen in July of 1976 by husband, allegedly left husband and 1 year old child

Physical Description
Hair Color: Brown
Left Eye Color: Brown
Right Eye Color: Brown

Bethel was last seen in Fort Worth, Texas on July 15, 1976. Her husband of two years, who was the last person to see her, stated she simply left him and their one-year-old child. She has never been heard from again.

Bethel was married twice; her previous marriage lasted from July 1972 to February 1974, and she married her second husband three months after her divorce was final. She was in the process of a divorce from her second husband at the time of her disappearance; he filed in March of 1976, and the divorce was finalized in July 1977, a year after she was last seen. Few details are available in her case.

 

[MadMcGoo]

The documentary on Discovery + is really good. I wish they’d release it to a more accessible network, instead of a subscription based streaming platform. His face needs to be out there! Someone is bound to recognize him.

 

[Alleykins]

Going along with the theory that TPR met MC's mother short after/before his divorce in 1975, and according to the surprised visit he did with family in 1975/1976, he said he was living in texas, so presumably they could have met in TX?

so I found this case on charley project. This mother was married and divorce twice and left behind a 1 year old child at the time. Her maiden name is Dean, does that ring a bell with people who are building the family tree?

Thanks.

Sherrye Lee Bethel
Missing Age: 21 Years
Current Age: 65 Years
First Name: Sherrye
Middle Name: Lee
Last Name: Bethel
Sex: Female
Height 5' 6" (66 Inches)
Weight: 130 lbs
Race / Ethnicity: White / Caucasian

Circumstances
Date of Last Contact: July 15, 1976
NamUs Case Created: November 29, 2017
Last Known Location Map
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
County: Tarrant County
Missing From Tribal Land: Unknown
Primary Residence on Tribal Land: Unknown
Circumstances of Disappearance: Last Seen in July of 1976 by husband, allegedly left husband and 1 year old child

Physical Description
Hair Color: Brown
Left Eye Color: Brown
Right Eye Color: Brown

Bethel was last seen in Fort Worth, Texas on July 15, 1976. Her husband of two years, who was the last person to see her, stated she simply left him and their one-year-old child. She has never been heard from again.

Bethel was married twice; her previous marriage lasted from July 1972 to February 1974, and she married her second husband three months after her divorce was final. She was in the process of a divorce from her second husband at the time of her disappearance; he filed in March of 1976, and the divorce was finalized in July 1977, a year after she was last seen. Few details are available in her case.

I haven't come across that last name but I'm still digging around.

 

[Winstigator23]

The documentary on Discovery + is really good. I wish they’d release it to a more accessible network, instead of a subscription based streaming platform. His face needs to be out there! Someone is bound to recognize him.

On one of the facebook groups the detective said the documentary was going to include more information on potential orange county victims, but I didn't see that at all. Am I missing something?

 

[MadMcGoo]

On one of the facebook groups the detective said the documentary was going to include more information on potential orange county victims, but I didn't see that at all. Am I missing something?

I haven’t finished it yet but so far I haven’t heard anything about Orange Co..

 

[Shane 65]

[George Kamenov] “Her hair showed that the last few months before death, she was living in the area. However, about 5-7 months before death, she went somewhere -- either to the North or to the West. To a colder climate where the oxygen isotopes are lower. And what’s interesting is that the unrelated victim, the fourth girl that is not related by DNA, her teeth also show these lighter oxygen isotopes. So one possible interpretation is that that’s the time when the non-related girl joined the group.”

The isotope comments made at the presser and elaborated on in the podcast were duly noted. The Mitchell/Livings descendants who wound up in Toronto and northern NH give one pause for thought.

Didn't mean to imply there was anything particularly significant about the NH and Toronto descendants, it was more a comment on the fact that the descendants are widespread and the ones living in more northern areas such as Oregon, Chicago, the Great Lakes etc make me think of the comments about isotopes even when they are not reflected on the maps originally released.

 

[proctorelites]

I am sure there is a better term for what I am describing , but i have a quick question for the genealogy folks. How common are name variations? Is it possible for a last name to drop a letter, swap out a letter or add a letter over time.. Livings becoming Living or Loving or Lovings or ?
In what I believe to be my tree- sometimes we dropped a letter or added an e to the end in the distant past. I saw that on the census records. Same names & place etc Idk if that was because they were never taught to read & write properly or it was recorded wrong. I have no idea.
Can you all elaborate on this particular issue as it relates to the genealogy of the last unidentified child.

(my poor cell phone had the hardest time allowing me to add those name variations lol)

 

[Alleykins]

I am sure there is a better term for what I am describing , but i have a quick question for the genealogy folks. How common are name variations? Is it possible for a last name to drop a letter, swap out a letter or add a letter over time.. Livings becoming Living or Loving or Lovings or ?
In what I believe to be my tree- sometimes we dropped a letter or added an e to the end in the distant past. I saw that on the census records. Same names & place etc Idk if that was because they were never taught to read & write properly or it was recorded wrong. I have no idea.
Can you all elaborate on this particular issue as it relates to the genealogy of the last unidentified child.

(my poor cell phone had the hardest time allowing me to add those name variations lol)

Oh, my goodness, this is my experience so far while researching this family line. I've come across the adding or dropping of an "s" on the end of the last name so many times, even within a sibling group. I'm not sure if it's the person having a personal preference for the addition/subtraction, or if it's transcription errors. People were always adding an "s" on the end of my name growing up, not sure why. So I'm sure there are records out there with my name wrong.
On the census, I wonder if members of the household are illiterate and can't spell or write, so the census taker can't understand what they're being told and spelled it the best they can. For one name, I found 4 different spellings on different censuses & genealogy databases. First names spelling issues, too. There's one first name which popped up which no one in the history of the world has ever had that I can find in any database or modern internet search.
What I end up doing is looking at other dates, like death/birth dates, where the person is from, where they died, alternate name spellings, to determine if it's the same person.

 

[Laughing]

I am sure there is a better term for what I am describing , but i have a quick question for the genealogy folks. How common are name variations? Is it possible for a last name to drop a letter, swap out a letter or add a letter over time.. Livings becoming Living or Loving or Lovings or ?
In what I believe to be my tree- sometimes we dropped a letter or added an e to the end in the distant past. I saw that on the census records. Same names & place etc Idk if that was because they were never taught to read & write properly or it was recorded wrong. I have no idea.
Can you all elaborate on this particular issue as it relates to the genealogy of the last unidentified child.

(my poor cell phone had the hardest time allowing me to add those name variations lol)

Agreed with Alleykins on this.

For Livings, don't dismiss Livingston, Linning(s,) even Havens too Billings too quickly.

Keep in mind that when handwritten documents are typed in by agencies, errors creep in. Scanning can be worse, although this does make documents available.

Visual errors, auditory errors, transcription errors, eventually you'll find them all.

In my tree three siblings were married in the same county within 4 years. Granted, handwriting was more uniform in this time, but in the same handwriting their mother's maiden name was spelled 3 different ways! Looking at the name, most people would pronounce each version the same way.

Sometimes this happens when people move to a different area. Acadian/Cajun surnames that would spelled correctly in Louisiana are mangled in other areas for example.

If something like Soundex is available, the system will automatically return results in this category -- names that are similar & could be confused.

And, please, if you find a likely individual -- check the page before & after for more candidates. Whether you're looking in a city directory or a census, the people you're looking for probably lived close together. They had front porches and church groups, no Facebook or dating apps.

Keep looking!

 

[Alleykins]

I should also say I'm relatively new to genealogical research and my efforts would surely make my great aunt cringe. But I think she would applaud my attempts.

 

[UnlicensedPI]

My ancestors, a married couple, had their names spelled differently on the ship manifest from their journey over. Married couple with the same last name on the same ship at the same time and the last name was spelled differently. Genealogy can be just so fun like that!

 

[Alleykins]

Agreed with Alleykins on this.

For Livings, don't dismiss Livingston, Linning(s,) even Havens too Billings too quickly.

Keep in mind that when handwritten documents are typed in by agencies, errors creep in. Scanning can be worse, although this does make documents available.

Visual errors, auditory errors, transcription errors, eventually you'll find them all.

In my tree three siblings were married in the same county within 4 years. Granted, handwriting was more uniform in this time, but in the same handwriting their mother's maiden name was spelled 3 different ways! Looking at the name, most people would pronounce each version the same way.

Sometimes this happens when people move to a different area. Acadian/Cajun surnames that would spelled correctly in Louisiana are mangled in other areas for example.

If something like Soundex is available, the system will automatically return results in this category -- names that are similar & could be confused.

And, please, if you find a likely individual -- check the page before & after for more candidates. Whether you're looking in a city directory or a census, the people you're looking for probably lived close together. They had front porches and church groups, no Facebook or dating apps.

Keep looking!

Yes, I found one Livings listed as Livingston, and I think Levings or Lovings on one census.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

I am sure there is a better term for what I am describing , but i have a quick question for the genealogy folks. How common are name variations? Is it possible for a last name to drop a letter, swap out a letter or add a letter over time.. Livings becoming Living or Loving or Lovings or ?
In what I believe to be my tree- sometimes we dropped a letter or added an e to the end in the distant past. I saw that on the census records. Same names & place etc Idk if that was because they were never taught to read & write properly or it was recorded wrong. I have no idea.
Can you all elaborate on this particular issue as it relates to the genealogy of the last unidentified child.

(my poor cell phone had the hardest time allowing me to add those name variations lol)

How common? Super common. Our ancestors didn't care so much about spelling. Or how old they were! But also, sometimes census-takers could easily just misunderstand someone, or be less familiar with some ethnic names and spelled them kind of creatively. Some people intentionally Americanized names - during World War I, my ancestors changed their surname to sound less German and more British since anti-German sentiment was obviously strong. And even now, some old documents were often written in an older cursive hand that may cause them to be misinterpreted and mixindexed by transcribers today, even if they were actually recorded correctly!

But, these are problems that genealogists are very aware of and used to working around. Genealogists who are experts in a certain region may even know in advance of some of the more common nicknames or alternate spellings and proactively look for those. And a lot of the software used for searching allows for things like that to be taken into account, setting wider age parameters, searching for similar names, etc.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

Just to give a better example of what I'm talking about above, I've done a lot of research in southern Ireland. If you came to me and wanted to find more about your ancestor and you only knew he immigrated to Boston and his name was Jeremiah Minogue, his wife was Ellen and his kids were Mary, Lawrence, James, and John. I'm not just going to look for that name, Jeremiah Minogue. I'm also going to look for Darby, which was a common Irish diminutive for Jeremiah. I'm also going to look for Mannix, which was an earlier variant of the surname Minogue. So even if he's in records as what would seem to be a completely other name - Darby Mannix, I'll probably still be able to find him and match him up with the names of the wife/children you gave me, or with DNA or whatever it is that we're working with to verify that he is in fact your ancestor.

 

[proctorelites]

Thank you so much! I would never in my wildest dreams be able to come up with Darby Mannix from the name Jeremiah Minogue. Thank you @Irish_Eyes I am impressed. We always draw blanks in our own research and now I understand why.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

Thank you so much! I would never in my wildest dreams be able to come up with Darby Mannix from the name Jeremiah Minogue. Thank you @Irish_Eyes I am impressed. We always draw blanks in our own research and now I understand why.

No problem. Here if you ever need help as well.

 

[Laughing]

Thank you so much! I would never in my wildest dreams be able to come up with Darby Mannix from the name Jeremiah Minogue. Thank you @Irish_Eyes I am impressed. We always draw blanks in our own research and now I understand why.

OH and keep in mind

Minnow
Meno
Meanoe

you get the idea

 

[proctorelites]

I do. Thank you @Laughing

 

[Tabirey]

Too many posts to quote, but while doing my tree I learned very quickly how census takers back then wrote what they heard and didn't ask for spelling clarifications. My great grandmother's name was Asora, but in all but one of the censuses, her name was put as Sarah/Sara. Confused the heck out of me as I was so new to it! It made me question that I had the correct name for her, especially as it was so unique! I was eventually able to confirm through her burial records and birth certificate that it is Asora.

Although, you can't always confirm through death certificates either. My grandfather was Bernard, but my grandmother gave his nickname Barney for the death certificate. But Bernard is on his headstone and birth certificate.
Varied spellings for last names are even more common, Schwartz, Swartz, etc