How to find my great grandparents when they have very common names, and be sure they are the right ones.

Question

My grandmother listed her parents as William Hodges and Louise Yates on her social security application, in California. 1943 .but her madein name is Bass. She was born in Louisiana and lived in Oklahoma. I can't find any records that show her living with either parent. Why would she have a different last name, then her parents. My grandmother was very hush hush about her life before she had my mom and uncle.

Answer 1

Richelle,

You are on the right track - you have entered some information on the profile for Bernice.  I suggest the following steps to build the full picture.

Enter what you have so far showing sources. - I have added a little with sources for both Bernice and Alvis.  

The birth certificate is needed but it will not confirm that she is the same person that married Alvis, so more is needed.  Do you have the death certificate for Bernice - who was the informant?  Can you check with them?

As there are multiple marriages I suggest you try to find all of the marriage records and add them.  Sometimes parents are listed and sometimes family members are witnesses.  In addition to the two children listed were there other children?  Did Bernice have any siblings?  They need to be entered.  Copies of divorce records can also be useful.  Have you found them?

How many times were William and Louise married?  Is it possible that William is a step-father?  It is very common to find step-parents listed as parents especially if the child was quite young a the time of the parents second marriage. - If you build the data for William and Louise that may give a clue.  So adding the census records with all of the siblings is important.

You will need to be very careful - as I'm sure you already know there are family files for Benice showing Sam Bass as the father and ones showing William Hodges - none of the family files seem to have solid sources - so you will need to dig.  It might be useful to add the Sam Bass family profiles as well - not as parents but as another set of profiles - so you can add sources to both sets of profiles as you find material.

There are many examples on Wikitree of research - here is one with some detail showing how the profile was built and various marriages were found. Emmit Alexander Roach

Comments

Thank you very much I will keep digging and add the other profile. On Ancestry is where I got a copy of her social security application in which the parents are listed. I do have a death certificate in storage. My grandma lead us to believe she was a only child. And I have not tried to get the birth certificate yet as I just found out a couple of months ago her parents names. And Louisiana is a closed record state. But I will send for it in February when I get my income tax money. And I am pretty sure Alvis and Berniece are the right ones as my grandma told my uncle that is who his father was. Also I have a record on Ancestry of Alvis and my grandma living together in 1955 , just two blocks away from where my grandma lived when I was a kid. Thanks again.       Richelle