No Smoking Gun...Yet

On the heels of my recent success in finding obituaries related to a person who might be my 2x Great-Grandfather Rufus Littlejohn, I thought I'd see if my luck continued by seeking out the obituary of the potential candidate himself.

I learned two things:

1.  The good people at the Beaver County Genealogy and History Center respond very quickly to queries (based on my sample size of 3 requests in 1 message).


2.  Luck was not on my side.

Within a couple of hours of sending my request, I already had an email from them in my inbox. They had found 2 of the obituaries I requested (and were mailing the very next day), but unfortunately, there was no obituary for Rufus in the local paper. My hope was that such an obituary would name at least one of Rufus' parents, or perhaps a few siblings or other children, something that would connect him to - or disconnect him from - the Rufus Littlejohn I know to belong to my line. Sadly, they have no such smoking gun. Because of when and where he died - during the Great Depression and in the county Poor Farm - they don't believe an obituary was published.

On the one hand, this is surprising: he had children and extended family in the area. No one wanted to write an obituary? On the other hand, just 4 years prior, he'd been living with one of his daughters. Was there a schism in the family that resulted in him being put in the Poor House rather than continuing to live with his daughter as a man in his late 60s? If so, perhaps this explains why there may be no obituary.

If you read my last post, you know that there are a few things that point to the Beaver County Rufus being "my" Rufus:

- Similarity in year of death: 1933 in my Rufus' wife Flora's 1964 obituary, 1934 for the Beaver County Rufus.

- Similar birth year: approximately 1866-1868 for both

- Same state of origin: South Carolina

- And it's interesting that my Rufus marries my 2x Great-Grandmother the year after the woman he'd previously been with and had several children with, Jane "Jennie" Alexander, gets married. It's like they went their separate directions and each found someone new.

All of that said, there's not one smoking gun among those points, particularly when you add in the confusing fact that my Flora Littlejohn, my 2x Great-Grandmother, is listed as widowed on multiple documents, including:

1926 Steubenville City Directory

1929 Steubenville City Directory

(Yes, both of these say Flora was the widow of "John" - he is referenced as John R. Littlejohn or John Rufus Littlejohn on several of his children's vital documents as well. And yes, both of these city directories list Flora as widowed before the year her obituary says he died.)

So, I'm still searching for a smoking gun.  But I do have 2 new obituaries that help me understand this family a little bit better.

Do you know something I should know about either Littlejohn family? Please leave a comment below!