Revisiting an old record - deserter? clerical error? both?

[BCS1973]

Sheeron - On October 2, 1903 MARY E., daughter of Catherine and the late Patrick Sheeron. Relatives and Friends, also St Agnes's Ladies B S A are invited to attend the funeral, on Tuesday morning, at 8:30 o'clock, from the residence of her mother, 4656 Edmund st. Frankford. High mass at St Joachim's. Interment at St. Dominic's Cemetery.

Thanks. I hadn't seen that, but yes, Mary was the child born in Oct of 1865 and that is her obit. They had 7 total together. I still need to do find a grave entries for Mary and the three other children that are all buried with Catherine.

 

[lupaglupa]

My theory that he quit to support the coming child gets a bit stronger with that fact. October of 1865 - he must have really been feeling the pressure!

 

[BCS1973]

My theory that he quit to support the coming child gets a bit stronger with that fact. October of 1865 - he must have really been feeling the pressure!

One of my theories was that perhaps he met his wife during the Jan-April stretch on detached duty in Kingston and she made him a better offer than Uncle Sam. I can't find a reason for him to furlough in Kingston, or for that matter a reason he would have been stationed up there in the first place. His wife had two namesakes in the area that existed, but I can't prove anything about who they were other than one was a widow and the other one was still in Kingston after the family lived in Philly.

 

[lupaglupa]

I've done several upstate New York cemeteries and profiling the Irish immigrants who moved to New York (and other areas) is very challenging. There's a narrow range of given names, wide variation in family name spellings, and few property and probate records. In one group I got to where I wished they had had problems with the law because at least then they left newspaper records!

 

[Benji]

My wife's GG grandfather was listed as a deserter until about 10 years ago. The family lore has it that he was a farmer and when he was informed that the war ended on 9 April he figured he can still get some crops in the ground if he hurried so he left without mustering out and was therefore listed as a deserter.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

My wife's GG grandfather was listed as a deserter until about 10 years ago. The family lore has it that he was a farmer and when he was informed that the war ended on 9 April he figured he can still get some crops in the ground if he hurried so he left without mustering out and was therefore listed as a deserter.

Likely he was far from being the only one who had that idea and decided to make the best of a bad situation. No point in staying around when you knew the game was up…

 

[lupaglupa]

Likely he was far from being the only one who had that idea and decided to make the best of a bad situation. No point in staying around when you knew the game was up…

From what I've seen this was more common in the Confederacy. In the North a fair number of men were still at home to help with heavy work on the farms. But in the South nearly everyone was drafted and if men didn't get home to help crops didn't get planted.