*Probably.
My paternal 2nd great-grandmother Fannie May Grace disappeared from the record after the 1900 census. And, because of a mistranscribed surname, I didn’t realize she was an ancestor until I noticed her parents living next door to her and her husband.
Ambrose Grace, Fannie’s father, fought in the Civil War in the Tennessee Union Mounted Infantry from 1861 to 1862. He was born around 1842 in Overton County, Tennessee. He bought a farm and moved to Anna, IL, soon after mustering out. Then he married Rachel McGinnis in 1874. She was born Rachel Caroline Boyt about 1851.
Anna, Illinois, a small farm town of 1300 strung along the train tracks in the far south of the state, was widely known as a sundown town, which is a community that does not allow Black people to be out after dark. In fact, the town sent all the Black people out of the county in 1874.
The couple had twin boys, Willard and Willis, and Mary McGinnis, Rachel’s daughter from her first marriage, lived with them when Fannie was born in December 1875.
Fannie would have four more siblings by the time Charlie, the youngest, was born in 1887. But by then, they lived in Stoddard County, Missouri, just 70 miles southwest of Anna.
Fannie married Edward Romine “at bride’s residence” in 1894, and had two children by 1898: Mary Cordelia and Albert Clayton. The small family appears in Elk Township, Stoddard County, Missouri in 1900. She wasn’t the only Grace to marry a Romine: her older brother Willard married Edward’s younger sister.
Unfortunately, she probably didn’t get much time with her young children. She likely passed shortly after the 1900 census was taken. I haven’t found a grave or a death certificate, so i don’t know for sure that she died. But Edward married another woman, Luella Cunningham Rayborn, in Stoddard County in September 1901. And on Clayton’s death certificate years later, his half sister named Luella as his mother, which indicates to me that Fannie hadn’t lived long enough for him to know her. However, Clayton himself named Fannie as his mother on his application for Social Security so I know the death certificate is wrong.
It’s possible that the couple divorced and that Fannie remarried. Edward remarried so quickly, there are no records indicating he was ever a widower. And I looked into the women named Fannie in the area and none of them seemed to match Fannie Grace’s stats.
Fannie could also have abandoned the family. Abandonment is a strong pattern in this line of my tree. But Clayton’s acknowledgement of her on his SSA makes me think there’s no ill will there.
*The bolded names in this article indicate my direct ancestors.
- US Federal Censuses, 1880 & 1900, Anna, Union, IL and Elk, Stoddard, MO. Accessed on Familysearch.org and Ancestry.com
- Missouri Marriage Records, 1805-2002, Stoddard County 1888-1895, E.T. Romine and Fannie F Grace (transcribed “Gran”). p 375 in record; p 445 in database. Accessed on Ancestry.com
- Michigan Certificate of Death, County of Wayne, File 4860. Personal records. Received from Michigan Dept of Public Health, 26 Aug 2016.
- Application for Social Security, Personal Records. Received from National Archives via FOIA.
- Photos sourced from Chronicling America and Stoddard County Missouri history website (stoddard county history.com)
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