I am sure many will respond to this. I have found both incorrect information on death certificates and in the local newspaper. I spent a lot of time chasing my tail looking for my ggggrandfather by the wrong name. It was not until I found out that he went by his middle name almost all of the time. I found out that this was a very common occurrence with my German ancestors. So it is just as likely that one (or both) of your sources are incorrect.(don't we all love genealogy) Since you have the funeral notice of this person, look to see if a church or cemetery is mentioned and look there for records. I have found many, many helpful people at the Troy cemeteries. Another easy way to verify relationships is the city directories. There is probably a year or two were the sons were living at home and working, so their names would show up in the city directories with their parents (since only working persons are listed, along with widows, persons who leave the town and the occasional marriage). If you start looking around the mid 1850's you should see them. Make sure you check every year though, cause the info. you can piece together from them is remarkable. Another place you could look is the state census. They are not indexed (that I know), so its a longer search than the fed Census. If you have an idea what part of town they lived in it makes it easier. On that note, if you know were about in town they lived, you can locate the closest church (of their particular religion) and ask them for help. Good luck. ----- Original Message ----- From: <chripasmith@aol.com> To: <> Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2001 10:03 AM Subject: [Rensselaer] Names don't match > I wanted to put this out there to see if anyone has had the same problem. On > researching my ancestors, my ggrandfather, James (alias John) Gray and his > brother Thomas Lyman Gray were born in Troy in 1842 and 1848, respectively. > In researching their parents, names, places, dates, etc. I found the death > certificate of one of Thomas and it listed his parents as William and Ellen > Gray (no maiden name :( unfortunately) . I was happy nonetheless to find out > names. > > I recently, found his funeral write up, which one on the front page of the > local newspaper (the most exciting thing about this also is that it also has > his PICTURE!!). In the write up it says that his parents were Mr. and Mrs. > EDWARD Gray! > > Now I don't know what to do. I have yet to find them all together in the > Troy census. I looked under William and Edward and no luck. > > Has anyone else had this kind of discrepancy and what should be my next move? > I haven't found any birth certs yet and one marriage cert didn't even ask > for the names of the parents but Thomas' VR(marriage) said William and Ellen. > How would one thing for Thomas have William and then in his obit it says > Edward? > > Maybe the family didn't have the slightest knowledge of their father/husband > parents info? > > Any thoughts? > > Thanks, > > Patti > > > ==== NYRENSSE Mailing List ==== > Barbara's Genealogy Page: http://members.tripod.com/~JeffriesB > Rensselaer County Genweb page: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nyrensse/ > GenConnect Board: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/NY/Rensselaer > GenExchange-Rensselaer Co http://www.genexchange.org/county.cfm?state=ny&county=rensselaer >