Paul: Many thanks for the outstanding documentary find that confirms Mary (Pectol) Smith's (my grgr grmother) marriage to Benjamin Wilson before she md. 3rd Nicholas Conner. Your answer arrived in record of one day after I posted to MOSTEGEN. It does not get better than that! The St. G. Circuit Court item on Benjamin Wilson's affair with Hannah Clinton indeed answers a very big question about her marriage to Wilson (never found in St. G. records), but if they were married, the fact that there was a sworn affadavit by a third party in Circuit Court to the affair suggests that this document was part of a divorce suit for adultry and abandonment. I need to search the marriage records more carefully for the period 1842-1849 and look for an 1848 divorce suit. Her 3rd marriage to Nicholas Conner in 18 Mar 1849 strongly suggests a quick and successful divorce suit. Question for MOSTEGEN: where are divorces for Missouri in the 1840's? At the local level or granted only by a state legislature or state-level courts, as was the case in some other states? Was there a waiting period or none if the abandonment was as definitive as this case? Was she entitled to retore her former name (as in Ohio)? She did not change her names, as she was married to Nicholas Conner as Mary Wilson? Solicit suggestions on where to look. And while on the embarrassing matter, was this Benjamin Wilson a relative of yours? Since this was a time period after the 1840 census and before the more detailed 1850 census, did Benjamin Wilson and Mrs. Mary (Pectol) Smith have any children? I did not find any children born 1843-1848 in the 1850 household of her 3rd husband, Nicholas Conner. If Benjamin and Mary were married there may have been cohabitation for about 5 years (1842-1847) before her remarriage and some children as a result. Many thanks again, George Archer