On This Day in Family History - April 1

John Anderson died 01 April 1886

John Anderson was a Civil War soldier, a sergeant in the Illinois infantry. 

He was the husband of Elizabeth Evans. 

Photo: Elizabeth Evans Anderson with daughter Rosetta.

John and Elizabeth Evans Anderson were married Jul 11, 1858. They were parents of six children -- Franklin, Evaline, Alice, Rosetta, William, and Thomas.

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I'm updating this post because I got into a great big tangled mess trying to figure out exactly how this Elizabeth Evans is related to our family. I went to FamilySearch to try to find records on the family of my great-great-great-grandmother Jane Evans Carter. That great big tangled mess took me ALL DAY yesterday to finally sort out. The problem was that Jane was listed in two different families, both with the father Thomas Evans with first wife Sarah Bishop and second wife Elizabeth (one gave a last name Sitten, the other gave no last name), and a whole bunch of children with both wives. Those two Thomases had different ID numbers on the website. I was only finally able to separate them because one of those families was in England and one was in the USA. Jane Evans is listed in both families -- with the same spouses that match our family records. However, she does not belong in the Thomas Evans family in England. The only question that still remains is whether her mother was Sarah Bishop or Elizabeth Sitten -- and that is a headache I'm going to save for another day. 

You have to keep in mind that FamilySearch is a lot like Wikipedia, in that anybody can add information to the site, and that information may or may not be accurate. FamilySearch is still an invaluable tool that I've used a lot -- and probably the largest and most accurate collection of genealogy information to be found anywhere (for free, anyway). You just have to know that there is room for error, and check to see if there are any official documents corroborating the records or not. There were no official documented sources for the Thomas Evans family in England.

Now, back to John Anderson...

His wife Elizabeth Evans was a SISTER of my great-great-great-grandmother Jane Evans Carter (not her daughter Martha Elizabeth, which is a whole 'nother story...)