Hi Sue and all, Hmmmm, maybe it depended on the era, or perhaps the area where the newspaper was printed, but the norm that I am familiar with, is that once a woman was widowed, she was then reported as Mrs. JANE Smith instead of Mrs. JOHN Smith (sorry, I had to get off the Simpson reference here, lest we "hex" poor Marg & Homer!!!). I've used this reference LOADS of times to get a time frame of when to look for the husband's obit, and have yet to disappointed!!! If I find Mrs. JOHN Smith listed as a survivor in an obit from 1920, and then Mrs. JANE Smith listed in another obit from 1925, I start hunting that five year span for the obit of JOHN!! My family tree is loaded with references such as, "probably died between 1920-1925", as a result of such obit listings. Since divorce was not something that happened too often "back then", it was almost a guarantee that the difference lied in the death of the husband, but divorced women were also usually listed as Mrs. JANE Smith. If memory serves, this was one of the reasons the term "MS" was created....to distinguish between a divorced woman and a widowed woman!!! According to my 4th grade daughter, she was recently taught that MS signifies a divorced woman, although I guess an awful lot of people never got that memo!!!! I think ALL of this has gone by the wayside now though, and pretty much ANYTHING goes!!! Happy Hunting! Joan In a message dated 4/16/2003 11:24:22 AM Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes: > The way I remember it is that even a widowed woman's social name remained > her husband's (Mrs. Homer Simpson, in this case) even tho Homer himself may > have passed on. > It was only if she divorced and kept her married surname that she became > Mrs. Marge Simpson. > These things were much more complicated back then, but the social > conventions were a good way to satisfy our ever-present pre-occupations > about what our neighbors are up to! > Sue Mearns >