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| Rhoda Caroline Richardson? |
Earlier I blogged about obtaining Rhoda Caroline Richardson
Womble’s death certificate in an effort to find out the names of her
parents. While getting the document was
worth the money, I don’t feel that it answered my question due to
misinformation from the informant. So
I’m back to the drawing board with this project!
I haven’t spent a lot of time researching the women in the
line I’m working on primarily because it hasn’t been that difficult until
now. Normally, I’ve at least been able
to find small scraps of information that have satisfied my curiosity such
as, the names of their parents and what
state they were born in.
Some books I read on getting information about ones female
ancestors suggested searching through probate records for someone with the same
last name mentioning the female in question in a will. I searched through some digital images of
wills online at FamilySearch.org and didn’t find anything. This was a bit discouraging, so I decided to
think about other avenues for learning more about Rhoda.
I don’t have much to go on.
The family story if you can call it that, says that she was born in
Indiana and then moved to Tennessee as a girl.
Most of the documents I’ve found about her support that she was born in
Indiana and since she got married in Tennessee, she must have moved there at
some point after her birth.
Her marriage occurred in Nashville, Tennessee just after the
Civil War, and my guess has always been that she may have been living there
during the war and that’s where she met her husband, John Washington
Womble. I looked at census records for
1860 for a female with a similar name to Rhoda’s, who was born in Indiana. I found a couple of young women who were
named either R C or Caroline, but I was unable to figure out if one of them was
who I was looking for.
I looked through the Nashville City Directory trying to find other people with the same last name, but at this point was unable to find a way to tie them to Rhoda.
My strategy is to try to pursue church records in Nashville
because they might give me more information about her life and lead me to
members of her family or the identity of her parents. Rhoda and John W Womble were married by a Justice of the Peace,
so I doubt that this will lead me to a church. The person who co-signed the marriage bond with John W Womble was name H F Mijers and I couldn't figure how they could be connected to Rhoda. I did find a H F Myers listed in the 1866 Nashville City Directory. He had a clothing store or tailoring business. John W Womble was a tailor, so he could've worked there, but does that mean that his employer would have co-signed a marriage bond. That seems unlikely to me.
I came up with the idea to get a listing of churches in
Nashville during the time when Rhoda lived there. Not only did she perhaps live there during the Civil War, but
also later on from about the mid-1880’s until she died in 1904. Then the plan is to find a churches near
where Rhoda lived and try to find out what records exist that could help me in
my search.
The other idea I had was to obtain marriage certificates for
her children to see if I could determine the name or denomination of church
where the wedding took place. I
examined Albert’s (Rhoda’s son) marriage documents and wasn’t able to learn the
denomination of the person who married them.
I know from the marriage announcement for Albert and his bride that they
were married in a relatives home (the bride’s maternal grandfather). The person who married them is listed as E T Brantly V D M on the marriage certificate.
I looked up in a dictionary online as to the meaning of the acronym V D
M and learned that it’s Latin for Verbi
Dei Minister, which means Preacher of God's Word. I still have no idea as to what denomination of Minister would
use this acronym.
My next course of
action is to pursue obtaining Rhoda’s daughter, Maude B Womble’s marriage
certificate. Perhaps the infamous Maude
B. Cudworth will actually be able to help me with my research instead of being
a detriment.
