Saturday has made another appearance and Randy Seaver has provided us with a new challenge for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

1)  Share a recent genealogy find about an ancestor or family, such as a new name, document or even a clue towards cracking a brick wall.

I haven’t found any recent find in my family tree, but I’ve been helping/researching for a second cousin on his mother’s family tree, which I don’t share with him because his father and mine were first cousins.

He had some of what I’d loosely called research notes, done by other cousins, but one particular person in his tree – his 2X great grandmother, Catherine.

Other family members had variously recorded her husbands as Henry Moore and a Mr. Smart. Additionally, her maiden name was given as Moore, but her daughter was Sarah Jane Clay, and Clay was said to be her maiden name.

Therefore, I was faced with Catherine and daughter Sarah, who were “said” to have various surnames associated with them.

It took some sorting out, but Catherine, who was born c1846 in Scotland, was the daughter of Robert and Jane (MNU) Moore.

Catherine married (1) Henry Melnott on 23 January 1876 in Paterson, Passaic, New Jersey. He was reported to have died c1881, possibly in Yonkers, New York, where they lived in 1880.

Catherine and Henry had one daughter, Margaret Helen, born 28 December 1881 in Yonkers.

Catherine then married James Smart on 31 March 1888, also in Paterson. James died between 1900-1910, probably in Paterson.

That left Sarah Jane hanging in the breeze with no earlier marriages found for Catherine. Yet, Sarah Jane used Clay as her maiden name.

Two clues appeared that suggested Sarah might have been born out of wedlock. First, her Clay surname and there was a Thomas Clay family living only doors away from Catherine in the 1870s. Thomas was of an age to be Sarah’s father.

Secondly, Sarah’s marriage announcement in the newspaper called her Sarah Moore – perhaps to not embarrass her father, married to someone else, and his family.

Sarah Jane Clay married Harry Fennell Gill on 10 April 1895 in Paterson. However, she died at the young age of 27 on 16 January 1903.

The suspense was killing me so I paid up the $10 fee and sent to the New Jersey State Archives for her death certificate.

There in black and white were her parents’ names – Catherine Moore and Thomas Clay!

Thanks, Randy, for another fun challenge.