The Marriage of John K Carson and Rachel Truax
I read recently that if you stop and think about your family heritage mathematically, you quickly realize that you are not simply the result of two people who came together for a time, you are the result of many, many people and millions, or billions, of life decisions that resulted in you.
In my case, John K Carson and Rachel Truax are one set of Great-Great Grandparents. They are only two of my sixteen great-great grandparents. Why sixteen? If I start with my two parents and then multiply each generation by their two parents, then you can see that we all have four grandparents, eight grandparents, sixteen great grandparents, etc. If you are lucky enough to go back 20 generations, which represents about 500 years, then you would find that you have 1,048,576 people to thank directly.
As for John and Rachel, I am thankful that they cared enough for each other to marry during a March wedding in the late 1800's. There are records that indicate that the precise date was either March 23, 1874, sometime in 1875, or March 24, 1876.
The earliest date is listed on several genealogy web-sites.
The middle date is provided in Rachel's obituary (see below). It states, "Rachel F., daughter of Stillwell and Rachel Truax, was born in Pennsylvania in 1852 and was married to J.K. Carson in 1875."
The 1876 date is recorded in a booklet called "Fulton County, Pennsylvania Marriages prior to 1885" by William O. Turner. He writes, from Fulton County Newspaper records, that "Carson, John of Bethel Twp marries Truax, Rachel F. of Bethel on 24 Mar 1876". Twp is an abbreviation for Township.
Which is to believed? Since the newspapers, from which the later date is extracted, recorded the information closer to the actual event than the obituary, and since there is no source documentation mentioned on the various web-sites, I believe the latest date.
UPDATED 2 April 2005: I received a copy of the Fulton County Newspaper wedding announcment for the marriage of John and Rachel. Under the heading “MARRIED”, on an unspecified page, eight marriages are listed, the sixth of which is:
“CARSON-TRUAX-At the home of the bride, near Warfordsburg, this county, March 23d, 1876, by the Rev. R. Arthur, Mr. John Carson and Miss Rachel F. Truax, all of Bethel township, this county."
In my case, John K Carson and Rachel Truax are one set of Great-Great Grandparents. They are only two of my sixteen great-great grandparents. Why sixteen? If I start with my two parents and then multiply each generation by their two parents, then you can see that we all have four grandparents, eight grandparents, sixteen great grandparents, etc. If you are lucky enough to go back 20 generations, which represents about 500 years, then you would find that you have 1,048,576 people to thank directly.
As for John and Rachel, I am thankful that they cared enough for each other to marry during a March wedding in the late 1800's. There are records that indicate that the precise date was either March 23, 1874, sometime in 1875, or March 24, 1876.
The earliest date is listed on several genealogy web-sites.
The middle date is provided in Rachel's obituary (see below). It states, "Rachel F., daughter of Stillwell and Rachel Truax, was born in Pennsylvania in 1852 and was married to J.K. Carson in 1875."
The 1876 date is recorded in a booklet called "Fulton County, Pennsylvania Marriages prior to 1885" by William O. Turner. He writes, from Fulton County Newspaper records, that "Carson, John of Bethel Twp marries Truax, Rachel F. of Bethel on 24 Mar 1876". Twp is an abbreviation for Township.
Which is to believed? Since the newspapers, from which the later date is extracted, recorded the information closer to the actual event than the obituary, and since there is no source documentation mentioned on the various web-sites, I believe the latest date.
UPDATED 2 April 2005: I received a copy of the Fulton County Newspaper wedding announcment for the marriage of John and Rachel. Under the heading “MARRIED”, on an unspecified page, eight marriages are listed, the sixth of which is:
“CARSON-TRUAX-At the home of the bride, near Warfordsburg, this county, March 23d, 1876, by the Rev. R. Arthur, Mr. John Carson and Miss Rachel F. Truax, all of Bethel township, this county."
posted by Steve | 12:00 PM
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