This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Roper, Hay Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/kgDBAEB/724.2.1 Message Board Post: Following my initial Post in this discussion thread, I located the Posted obituary of Margaret Hay ROPER (b 06 Oct 1910, d 21 Dec 2003). This appears to be the widow of Lyle D. ROPER, who appears likely to be the SON of Charles and Emma ROPER. See: "Obit: Margaret Hay Roper" (5 Jan 2004 5:02 AM GMT) http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=message&r=rw&p=surnames.hay&m=678 The RECENCY of this obituary giives us some reasonable basis for hope that the survivors named are living and could be readily located. The obituary mentions a grandsons Steve ROPER of Columbus, Ohio. This is a rather fascinating tidbit as this is precisely where Charles ROPER's brother Joseph (Joshua) ROPER had settled. I am now about 90% confident that Charles ROPER, of Grand, Day, OK, was the Charles ROPER born in Ohio to James Henry ROPER. In considering the information appearing in death certificates, obituaries and Census records, it is very important to consider the REASONS why the reliability of the information might be suspect. In the case of death certificates, information regarding a person's date and place of birth or the names of parents, etc., is typically FURNISHED to the authorities preparing the death certificate by family members. When there are few family members around (as in a case of someone surviving most of their offspring or descendents and in certain instances when a person is institutionalized), the infomration can be esspecially unrealiable. And even when there ARE relatives available who KNOW the correct information, there is a great deal of unevenness in the thorouughness and reliability of those persons who may be called upon to give this report. I am sure you are well acquainted with friends and relatives who occasionally answer quickly and fail to fully apply themselves to ascertain the actual TRUTH of information they are asked to report. SOme people just "wing it", cutting corners and giving a best guess or recollection without consulting others, while others would meticulously call around and investigate to be assured that the information was actually correct. The same is, of course, also true with respect to obituaries. So we must EXPECT that there are occasional errors, misstatements and omissions in both of these records. Census records are very often even LESS reliable. When the Census enumerator came around, the enumerator would tend to speak with whomever was available. Again, there is a high degree of variablilty associated with the competence and reliability of Census enumerators, but this variance also collides with the variability associated with the ready availabilty of the person in each household best able to correctly furnish accurate and precise information. For example, a really conscientious enumerator might arrange to RETURN another time if the head of a household or lady of the house wasn't present, while a less dedicated enumerator might simply interview the children or a friend or neighbor overseeing the children in the absence of the parents. Again, the babysitter might do a GREAT job giving the NAMES of all of the members of the family and might get the children's ages right but merely GUESS at the ages and places of birth of the parents. Or the father might get his age and his wife's age correct, while giving the children's age's erroneously. In many households, mother would probably be generally best able to give the correct information for everybody, but even then questions such as where a spouse's parents were born probably also depend on how well the person giving the information actually KNEW the parents. So in the case of an orphan or someone whose parents DIED well before the marriage, or whose parents moved ! several times, the spouse just might NOT know the correct answer. Which of course finally brings us to the matter of the ready availability of backup sources of familly history knowledge. When a family stays in the same location for several generations, there tend to be more aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. readily available to share and inculcate a general knowledge of the family history. And when a family relocates one or more times to new locations, this reenforcing network of readily available famliy connections just isn't as readily avaialble. One need look no further than the identiified birth locations of the children of Charles and Emma ROPER to see that this was a family of some migration: Illinois to Nebraska to Oklahoma over the course of a decade. And this is BEFORE the moves to Colorado and New Mexico. It is relatively easy to see how there would be an absence of family lore upon which to draw. Bear in mind as well that Frederick A. ROPER, James Henry ROPER's father died very young and the orphaned children were raised in the households of their grandfather and next the wife's second husband (BAXTER). I think that we now already have a pretty good sketch of the family trace. If we could locate one or more of the male ROPER-surnamed descendents of Charles and Emma ROPER, we could readily VERIFY the correctness of the ascription through DNA Testing. The ROPER DNA Study has already rather precisely mapped out not only the basic Y-Chromosomal markers of the earliest ROPERs in America, but also the distinguishing markers of several different ROIPER families. Decendents of David ROPER (b 1744, d 1808) have a distinctive diistinguishing 13th marker that ought to uniquely identity a contemporary descendent as a member of our family line. I do NOT believe that the Charles ROPER (b: abt 1871, Euclid, Cuyahoga, OH) born to Orlando Stewart and Marie (CHURCHILL) ROPER is going to be related. There was a Thomas ROPER (b Mar 1842 - England, d 1923 - Wood, OH) and Jeannette STEWART (b Oct 1840, d aft 1920 - Wood, OH) who resided in Wood County, OH. If I was to GUESS, I would speculate that Orlando Stewart ROPER is of this family. I am fairly confident that Charles ROPER, of Grand, Day County, OK, is going to turn out to be of OUR ROPER family, descended from David ROPER (b1744, d1808) through his son Rev. David ROPER, of Richamond and grandson Frederick A. ROPER.