Be sure to see the "water tower" photo on this cemetery's main webpage; it shows William's upright grave stone in the foreground. This was circa 2002, and the tower has since been removed.
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The online index for William's death certificate in Arkansas shows he died 23 Dec 1916. William was probably laid to rest initially with no stone, and probably didn't receive his until wife Nancy's death or a few years before; this may explain the year difference. Their stones are very similar in makeup, and hand-scratched.
In the 1900 and 1910 censuses, Nancy is shown with the children and without husband William, who seems to be around but somehow not recorded on these two. Nancy is having children up to and just beyond 1900 (Opal born ca 1902). 1900: Warrick Co IN. 1910: New Madrid Co MO (in this latter one, Nancy's listed as widowed). Perhaps they divorced in Missouri; "widowed" was oftentimes "divorced" in census code, so to speak.
Re: William's age: One's age is never so consistently recorded in adjacent censuses as William's was. He appears in the 1850 through 1880 censuses, and his ages respectively are: 1, 11, 21, and 31. He, along with many other elderly people of the time, seem to have experienced the "aging while you age" syndrome (lol), i.e., their expressed birth year ends up being a few years before their actual year of birth. This is also true of William's son, Buel Thompson McKinley (5 years' gap). This may have been influenced by the fact that they married someone significantly older (true for both).
So, with accepting the birthday (January 17), always traditionally kept in memory, William was most surely born in 1849.
-----------------------------------
The online index for William's death certificate in Arkansas shows he died 23 Dec 1916. William was probably laid to rest initially with no stone, and probably didn't receive his until wife Nancy's death or a few years before; this may explain the year difference. Their stones are very similar in makeup, and hand-scratched.
In the 1900 and 1910 censuses, Nancy is shown with the children and without husband William, who seems to be around but somehow not recorded on these two. Nancy is having children up to and just beyond 1900 (Opal born ca 1902). 1900: Warrick Co IN. 1910: New Madrid Co MO (in this latter one, Nancy's listed as widowed). Perhaps they divorced in Missouri; "widowed" was oftentimes "divorced" in census code, so to speak.
Re: William's age: One's age is never so consistently recorded in adjacent censuses as William's was. He appears in the 1850 through 1880 censuses, and his ages respectively are: 1, 11, 21, and 31. He, along with many other elderly people of the time, seem to have experienced the "aging while you age" syndrome (lol), i.e., their expressed birth year ends up being a few years before their actual year of birth. This is also true of William's son, Buel Thompson McKinley (5 years' gap). This may have been influenced by the fact that they married someone significantly older (true for both).
So, with accepting the birthday (January 17), always traditionally kept in memory, William was most surely born in 1849.
Be sure to see the "water tower" photo on this cemetery's main webpage; it shows William's upright grave stone in the foreground. This was circa 2002, and the tower has since been removed.
-----------------------------------
The online index for William's death certificate in Arkansas shows he died 23 Dec 1916. William was probably laid to rest initially with no stone, and probably didn't receive his until wife Nancy's death or a few years before; this may explain the year difference. Their stones are very similar in makeup, and hand-scratched.
In the 1900 and 1910 censuses, Nancy is shown with the children and without husband William, who seems to be around but somehow not recorded on these two. Nancy is having children up to and just beyond 1900 (Opal born ca 1902). 1900: Warrick Co IN. 1910: New Madrid Co MO (in this latter one, Nancy's listed as widowed). Perhaps they divorced in Missouri; "widowed" was oftentimes "divorced" in census code, so to speak.
Re: William's age: One's age is never so consistently recorded in adjacent censuses as William's was. He appears in the 1850 through 1880 censuses, and his ages respectively are: 1, 11, 21, and 31. He, along with many other elderly people of the time, seem to have experienced the "aging while you age" syndrome (lol), i.e., their expressed birth year ends up being a few years before their actual year of birth. This is also true of William's son, Buel Thompson McKinley (5 years' gap). This may have been influenced by the fact that they married someone significantly older (true for both).
So, with accepting the birthday (January 17), always traditionally kept in memory, William was most surely born in 1849.
-----------------------------------
The online index for William's death certificate in Arkansas shows he died 23 Dec 1916. William was probably laid to rest initially with no stone, and probably didn't receive his until wife Nancy's death or a few years before; this may explain the year difference. Their stones are very similar in makeup, and hand-scratched.
In the 1900 and 1910 censuses, Nancy is shown with the children and without husband William, who seems to be around but somehow not recorded on these two. Nancy is having children up to and just beyond 1900 (Opal born ca 1902). 1900: Warrick Co IN. 1910: New Madrid Co MO (in this latter one, Nancy's listed as widowed). Perhaps they divorced in Missouri; "widowed" was oftentimes "divorced" in census code, so to speak.
Re: William's age: One's age is never so consistently recorded in adjacent censuses as William's was. He appears in the 1850 through 1880 censuses, and his ages respectively are: 1, 11, 21, and 31. He, along with many other elderly people of the time, seem to have experienced the "aging while you age" syndrome (lol), i.e., their expressed birth year ends up being a few years before their actual year of birth. This is also true of William's son, Buel Thompson McKinley (5 years' gap). This may have been influenced by the fact that they married someone significantly older (true for both).
So, with accepting the birthday (January 17), always traditionally kept in memory, William was most surely born in 1849.
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