Differentiating Rufus Littlejohns, aka Making Charts Makes Me Happy

Spreadsheets are awesome for solving, or at least better understanding, genealogical problems. Once your information is organized, you can literally see things more clearly, make better inferences, and see where opportunities, possibilities and solutions may be. 

So as I've been trying to untangle Rufus Littlejohns to see if indeed my 2x Great Grandfather from South Carolina is the same man who passes in Pennsylvania in 1934 - or, if that PA Rufus is actually a second Rufus Littlejohn from South Carolina - I made a spreadsheet. Here is a simplified version:

	“My” Rufus Littlejohn	PA Rufus Littlejohn	Other SC Rufus Littlejohn
Born	Abt. 1867	1867 or 1868	Abt. 1866
Parents	Strap and Eliza Littlejohn
1870	Draytonville, Union, SC
1880	Draytonville, Union, SC
1892		Kentucky
1895 - 1896		Cleveland, Cuyahoga, OH
1897		Pennsylvania
1900	Steubenville, Jefferson, OH		Limestone, Cherokee, SC
1902	Steubenville, Jefferson, OH
1904	Steubenville, Jefferson, OH
1906	Steubenville, Jefferson, OH
1908	Steubenville, Jefferson, OH
1910	Steubenville, Jefferson, OH		Limestone, Cherokee, SC
1914	Steubenville, Jefferson, OH
1920			Limestone, Cherokee, SC
1923	Cleveland, Cuyahoga, OH
1926	Deceased (per wife’s city directory listing). Alive  (per wife’s later obit).
1929	Deceased (per wife’s city directory listing). Alive  (per wife’s later obit).
1930	Alive  (per wife’s later obit).	Beaver Falls, Beaver, PA	Limestone, Cherokee, SC
1933	Dies (per wife’s later obit)
1934		Dies in Beaver County, PA  (per own death certificate)
1940			Double Shoals, Cleveland, NC
Spouse(s)	Flora Virginia Woods, 1899 – at least 1911	Jane “Jennie” Alexander, legal marriage unknown, together about 1892 – 1897	Sarah “Sallie” Walker, together about 1889 – at least 1940
Known Siblings	Junius, Jilson, Hamlet, Anna, Franklin, Edward, Henrietta, Eva, King, Butler, Emanuel
Known Children	Raymond, Franklin, Gladys, Edward, Mary, Florence	Alma, Geneva (Eva), unnamed son	Edna, Alethia, Brownie ?, Eva, Clyde, Mattie, Amanda “Mandy,” Burt, Nathan, Hiliard, Govan, Myrtha or Murphy, Ethel

 

A couple of things stand out:

1. The other Rufus Littlejohn seems to consistently live in Limestone, Cherokee County, SC from 1900 to 1930. Even in 1940, when he lives in Double Shoals, Cleveland County, NC, all he's done is crossed the county line separating North and South Carolina - Cleveland County and Cherokee County share a border.
 
2. Meanwhile, my Rufus has traveled from South Carolina north to Steubenville, Ohio. Of the two, it seems much more likely that he is the one who would also spend time in Cleveland, OH and Beaver County, PA (which is along the Ohio River Valley northeast of Steubenville.

3. The PA Rufus is with his wife/children's mother Jane "Jennie" Alexander from about 1892 to 1897. In 1898, she marries someone else and in 1899, my Rufus marries someone else.

4. Meanwhile, the other SC Rufus has been with his wife from about 1889 to at least 1940. What re the chances he's living that successful of a double life, between 5 states (PA, OH, KY, SC/NC)?

5. Both the PA and SC Rufuses have a daughter named Eva. If not for the other evidence, this could be a complicating factor. But my Rufus names two of his sons after his brothers (Franklin and Edward), and...he has a sister named Eva. So if the PA Rufus is him, he's just continued this practice of naming a few children after his siblings. 

6. Finally, the other SC Rufus is still alive in 1940, as evidenced by the Federal Census. Meanwhile, both my Rufus and the PA Rufus die at approximately the same time, in 1933 or 1934, respectively. And given that 1) the year of my Rufus' death is provided in an obituary for his wife who passed 30 years later, and 2) his wife had begun referring to herself as widowed in the 1920s despite proof in other records that Rufus was still alive (she was apparently a "grass widow" or a woman abandoned by her husband), it's not unsurprising that the year would be off by a year. With likely little contact with their father so many years ago, what are the chances the child who wrote the obituary would get the exact year right? S/he was only off by 1 year.

All of this is circumstantial evidence. There is still no smoking gun. But, as there is no other death certificate that could be my Rufus Littlejohn, born in South Carolina in about 1867, and given all of the information above, I am comfortable declaring that my Rufus and the PA Rufus are indeed one and the same. 

So, what do you think? And do you, by chance, have the smoking gun? If so, I want to hear about it!