"Exhaustive research" sounds... exhausting! However, a recent case proved to me that such work is not useless busy work, but rather reveals the truth of people's lives. Reasonably exhaustive research is the first element of the Genealogical Proof Standard. My experience trying to answer the question "who was Flora Bell Cox's husband?" led me to find who I thought was the right man, but turned out to be two Ward Farrars! That there were two men only became clear after some exhaustive research on every member of the Ward/Wardie Farrar FAN club -- the FAN club being research of F amily, A ssociates and N eighbors.  The results of this research can be seen on the SKCGS Black-Heritage-Franklin Ancestry.com tree [1] .  Flora Bell Cox is the niece of Benjamin Gaston, one of the Black miners I've been researching. Flora married Wardie shortly before the US entered World War I, and Wardie served in the "Pioneer Infantry" created with White officers a...

  Woodville Cemetery, Deerfield, Waushara, Wisconsin; photo courtesy Steve and Fay Bray, 2020 Inspiration Recently I wrote about Anna Wood Dyer, my great-great-grandmother and inspiration.  I told about receiving pictures of Isaac and Betsey Fuller Wood that confirmed their relationship to Anna and helped me find their parents. Isaac and his family settled in Deerfield, Waushara County, Wisconsin, in about 1855.  I've looked for records in all the usual places including Find A Grave where I found several Wood memorials in the Woodville Cemetery.  Unfortunately, not all the family is listed and at one time Find A Grave stated that there were some unnamed graves. I still need to find death dates for Isaac and Betsey and for Isaac's father, Billa. After writing the article about gggrandmother Anna, I went back to Find a Grave and learned that contributor Janet Marie #480008518, had posted a picture of a stone that was no longer legible and noted that it might be a doubl...