Two Hannahs, One Big Mistake: Clearing Up a Common Mix-Up

 

Hannah JONES Stewart/Stuart lived in Winston and Neshoba Counties, Mississippi. She was married to William Davis STEWART/STUART and never lived in Illinois or Missouri. She’s well documented in Mississippi and was part of that community throughout her life. They are pictured above. 

She is not the same person as Hannah Mariah HOUGHAM, who:

• Married Joseph DELBRIDGE on 1 Jan 1835 in McLean County, IL

• Then Hannah Mariah DELBRIDGE married William STUART on 10 Mar 1850 in Clark County, MO

• And finally married Lewis LOGAN (as “Mrs. Hannah M. STEWART”) on 3 May 1857, also in Clark County, MO

Hannah JONES Stewart, wife of W.D. STEWART, is named in her father, Dudley JONES', will recorded 14 Feb 1863, Neshoba County, MS. Neshoba. Wills 1837-1974, FamilySearch. 

These are two distinct women. Yet many public family trees have merged them into one, which results in a lot of confusion and a loss of accuracy for everyone connected to those trees.

If you have these women combined in your tree, please take a moment to review the sources. Hannah JONES and Hannah HOUGHAM lived in different areas, had different timelines, and followed entirely separate life paths.

This is exactly why I’m writing these posts-to help untangle good people who deserve to be known as themselves, not as a mashup of someone else’s research shortcuts.

Thanks for following along-and if you see this error in your tree, I hope you’ll correct it. Please contact me if you need the source information. HINT: It can be found online at Ancestry and FamilySearch.

Why I’m Back—and What I’m Writing About Now

It’s been about a year since my last post. Life and other responsibilities pulled me away from the blog for a while, but I’ve still been researching-always researching.

Now that I’m back, I’ve decided to take the blog in a more focused direction. Future posts will highlight individuals in my family tree who are well documented-some I even knew personally-but who are being confused or combined with entirely different people in public trees on Ancestry, MyHeritage, and elsewhere.

Too often, I see people copying details from other trees without checking the original records. Two different people-sometimes living in different counties or born decades apart-end up merged into one. It’s frustrating, and it spreads misinformation quickly.

So this blog will now shine a light on those errors. I’ll share the evidence, walk through the records, and show clearly who’s who-and who’s not.

As you read a blog post, and see it relates to someone in your tree, please contact me for more information and sources. 

Let’s bring the focus back to careful, source-based research. It matters.