Thea, I'll be interested to read what others think about the official date of divorce, because I found a somewhat similar situation for a divorce that occurred in Minnesota. In that case on 9 September 1896 the wife's attorney filed a Note of Issue and requested that the case be entered on the Court's calendar for the September 1896 Term, which began on Monday, 21 September 1896, as reported in the local weekly newspaper on 25 September 1896. The divorce was set for "trial by court" [as opposed to "trial by jury") on Saturday, 26 September 1896, as reported in same issue of the newspaper. The Judge announced on that Saturday morning that a recess would be taken until December 8 and that all the court cases were continued until that time, as were a number of jury cases, as reported in the newspaper on 9 October 1896. It is unclear from this account whether the court was recessed on 26 September or 3 October. However, the last paragraph states that the divorce I was interested in wa! s granted. Perhaps some cases were tried early Saturday morning, before the recess was declared. The Minnesota Historical Society, which has custody of the county's District Court records of that period, reports that no Decree of Divorce or similar court Order was found in the divorce file or in the judgment book for the September 1896 Term of Court. For me the newspaper accounts are the only evidence I have that the divorce was granted, so I'd advise you to read the local papers carefully to see if you can glean additional information about the relevant dates. As an aside, the reporter who wrote the articles provided all the juicy details about another case that was heard during the same Court session. Unfortunately his doing so left little space to elaborate on my ancestor's divorce :-) Linda Johnson