Wedding Wednesday - William Washer and Ida Sharp, 1876 - Part 2

On returning to Kentucky after completing their marriage vows in Illinois^[1], William and Ida Washer were required to register their marriage in Livingston County^[2]. This requirement generated a one line entry in the marriage registry for Livingston County, Kentucky in 1876^[3]. An extract of that data follows:

Census Sunday - W. P. Washer household, 1880 U.S. Census, Livingston Co., KY

W. P. and Ida Washer were enumerated in the 1880 U.S. census on 19 June 1880¹ about four years after their marriage². They were living in Carrsville Magisterial District #5, a rural area west of Carrsville in Livingston County, Kentucky.

Wedding Wednesday - William Washer and Ida Sharp, 1876 - Part 1

William P. Washer and Ida B. Sharp, both residents of Livingston County, Kentucky, were married on 19 July 1876¹. The ceremony was officiated by Jonathan Graham, Justice of the Peace, in Golconda, Pope County, Illinois. On the day of their wedding, the reported ages of the bride and groom were 16 and 21, respectively. Scanned images of the marriage affidavit, license, and certification follow.

Tombstone Tuesday - Agnes Sharp (1863-1874)

Agnes Sharp, my grandaunt, was buried in the Sharp family plot of Old Good Hope Cemetery, Livingston County, Kentucky next to the burial place of her parents, William C. and Delilah Sharp. She was only 11 years old at the time of her death.

Formulating Some Research Questions

So far, this blog has accumulated posts of sources that contain information about my ancestor's lives. This effort has not been focused towards specific goals. The broad goal has been to create a timeline for William C. Sharp's life.

Mastering Genealogical Proof [1] instructs us that the first step in genealogical research is to formulate questions.  The questions should be focused enough that answers are attainable with a "reasonably exhaustive" search of existing records.

As a "first pass", this list of questions regarding the life and kin of William C. Sharp, will frame my research going forward:

1. Was William C. Sharp, who lived in Livingston County, Kentucky from 1870 until his death in 1884, the same person as W.C. Sharp who lived in Pope County, Illinois from about 1855 until 1869?
2. Was W.C. Sharp who lived in Pope County, Illinois from about 1855 to 1869, the same person as William Sharp who appears in the 1850 U.S. census for Rising Sun, Ohio County, Indiana?
3. Who was the adult female, Delilah Sharp, appearing in the William Sharp household in the 1850 U.S. census for Rising Sun, Ohio County, Indiana? What was their relationship? If she was his wife, when and where did they marry?

These questions are rather narrowly focused, but proving answers to them will lay a solid foundation for future work.

Reference Notes:

1 Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013), 7. [Book available from publisher at: www.ngsgenealogy.org.]