My friends - As we wind down toward the end of this week, I'll throw out another Skills Puzzler for you this evening. Before doing that, however, and just as an aside, I'll pass on to you that the Yellow Fever File turned out to be the most requested item in JP List history - 149 requests, and a few are still coming in. I had expected this one to be popular, but it exceeded my expectations considerably. In the past, we have devoted a few of these Puzzlers to record analysis - trying to determine which - if any - records were available, what priority and credibility should we assign to them, and what deductions can be drawn from that. This Puzzler addresses this same subject. The scenario is as follows: about 17 years ago, I was asked for some help from a young lady who was trying to get into the DAR on her paternal lineage, which traced back to a Revolutionary soldier. She had all of the proofs she needed, except one. Her problem was with her great-grandfather, Josephus Snurd(names changed to protect the guilty<g>). This man was born in 1849, served in the Civil War in 1864-65, and married, in 1871, Penelope Poltice, by whom he had 5 children, namely James, Jackson, Mary, Edward, and Lucretia. His first wife died in 1889, and he remarried, in 1890, to Sarah Scrimshaw, by whom he had 3 other children, Mariah, born in 1892, Franklin, born 1894, and an infant, born shortly after Josephus' death, but which did not survive beyond three month of age. The problem arose from the amazing number of different dates which the researcher was uncovering for the death of Josephus Snurd. It seemed almost too easy, in the beginning, because the researcher's grandmother(Mariah), had told her several times that she well remembered the day her father(Josephus) died. As the grandmother put it, "It was on my fifth birthday, and Mama was going to bake a cake for me, but because Papa died that day, I did not get my cake". Seems straight forward enough. This would have pegged the death date of Josephus as 30 March 1897. However, while checking the estate settlement, a document from the widow was found, dated July of *1898*, in which she stated that her husband had "...recently died...". Beyond that, a search of newspaper files did not turn up an obituary, but there was a short piece in a column by the newspaper editor, dated 20 September 1897, in which he mentioned his "...good friend, Josephus Snurd...", who was obviously still living at that time. There were no vital statistics records in this time frame that might have assisted. At this point, the researcher turned to the possibility of their being an application for a widow's pension, since Josephus had served in the Civil War. Sure enough, one was found, dated 1931. The date of death for Josephus was given as 30 March 1896(!). So there were, at this point, all these different years of death for Josephus. The researcher turned to burial records at the church. A record for Josephus was found, but indicated that the burial occurred 4 April 189- (the last digit was blank). Josephus headstone was not readable in the area in which the death year was carved. This apparent group of contradictory years caused her lineage society application to be sent back for further clarification. We did determine, however, the correct year of Josephus Snurd's death. The clue is in the narrative above. Our quest here is to find the clue and indicate how we should proceed to determine what year of death is actually correct, working only with what is presented above. If you would like to opine on this one, you can send your thoughts to the List or to me privately. I'll be back sometime over the weekend with the solution. As is customary, there will be no data posts per se over the weekend. But I hope to drop by with another file offering if time permits. -B ============================================================