Merged identities are always difficult in our research, but it is even more so with women. In the U.S., women have a maiden name and could have several different married names. Ensuring that the correct facts and sources are attached to a woman can be tricky without thorough research. However, using a research log and timeline helps put together a profile for a woman that can separate her from others of the same name.

The Problem

In our DNA work, we generally do descendancy research to find the ancestral couple in common with our DNA match. I had a mystery match we will call Ellen who had no tree and no clue to her identity until Ancestry’s Pro Tools became available. Looking at Ellen’s closest match, I saw that she connected through our common ancestor, Isabella D. Weatherford, and her daughter, Mary Clem Carpenter. Isabella married John Carpenter in 1874  and Mary was born in 1875. John then died or disappeared and Isabella married Robert C. Royston, my second great-grandfather, in 1877.

Isabella had only one child with John Carpenter, and any DNA matches coming through this line would be half-relationships and important to identify. My DNA matches, and I would only have inherited DNA through Isabella, so I could use them to work back on the Weatherford line.

As I began researching Mary Clem Carpenters’ descendants in my Ancestry tree, I noticed hints for Mary’s daughter, Cleo,  as Cleo Zinn, born in 1904. The challenge came with the hints pointing to three husbands for Cleo, two different death dates, and two different birthplaces. Were any or all of these hints correct?

The collaborative FamilySearch Family Tree can be very helpful in descendancy research. I also use it to review relationships and sources, and FamilySearch also provides record hints to help build a person’s profile. Checking there, I found Mary Clem and Albert Carpenter ( she married a man with the same surname) and their daughter, Cleo. However, Cleo had no marriages and few sources attached to her. Looking for a Cleo Zinn, I found another profile that seemed to match. Oklahoma School Records and censuses had been attached with Albert as the father and a marriage to Cecil Wayne Zinn.

This simple descendancy task turned into a small research project that warranted the use of my favorite tool – the research log.

The Solution

I used my Airtable research log for Isabella Weatherford and Robert Royton to sort out Cleo Carpenter. The research log provided a place for details that allowed me to analyze and save the sources. I gradually built a profile for Cleo Carpenter and made sense of the records.

Working From What We Know

I began from the beginning with Cleo’s parents, Mary Clem and Albert Carpenter. She was present in the 1910 and 1920 censuses in their Ardmore, Carter County, Oklahoma, households. Both agreed on a 1904 birth in Oklahoma.

1910 Census¹

Albert L Carpenter 42,  Iowa, U.S., U.S.
Mary Carpenter 33, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, mother of six children, two living
Elton Carpenter 12, Oklahoma, Iowa, Texas
Cleo E Carpenter 16, Oklahoma, Iowa, Texas

1920 Census²

Albert L Carpenter 52, Iowa, US, US
Mary C Carpenter 44, Texas, Missouri, Missouri
Elton J Carpenter 22, Oklahoma, Iowa, Texas
Cleo E Carpenter 16, Oklahoma, Iowa, Texas

Next, I looked at the 1947 obituary for Mary Clem Carpenter, which stated her living relatives.³

Mrs. Mary V. Carpenter
Mrs. Mary C. Carpenter, a resident of this city for many years, died Sept. 21, in Pittsburg, Kan. The body is being returned to Ardmore for services Tuesday at 4 p.m. in the First Methodist church, Dr. William H. Mansfield conducting.

Burial in Rose Hill cemetery will be directed by Harvey funeral home.

Mrs. Carpenter was 72. A member of the First Methodist church, Order of the Eastern Star, Rebekah lodge, American Legion auxiliary and Daughters of the American Revolution, Mrs. Carpenter had lived in Ardmore until recently.

She leaves one son, Elton Carpenter, Ada; a daughter, Mrs. R. E. Zinn, Columbus, Kan.; four grandchildren; a sister, Mrs. G. E. Huntley, Tucumcari, N. M., and three brothers, C. B. Royston, Comanche; O. H. Royston, and Ed Royston, Ivanhoe, Cal.

Graveside services are to be in charge of the Eastern Star. The pallbearers will be Tom Chaney,Hardy Murphy, L.L. Lofton, E.
M. Wyatt, George Cleek and Bill Roberts.

I recognized all the living relatives except Mrs. R.E. Zinn, who must have been Cleo E. Carpenter of the census records. In 1910, Mary was noted as having six children but only two living: Elton and Cleo. Mrs. R.E. Zinn had to be Cleo.

Two Cleo Zinns

The challenge came with the records after the 1920 census. Searching on the FamilySearch Family Tree, I found a “Cleo Carpenter” married to Cecil W. Zinn, that also had sources attached that seemed to be for Mary Clem and Albert’s daughter – Oklahoma School Records.⁴ These fabulous records provide the parent, birth date, and age for the children in the family attending school that year. In each instance, A.L. Carpenter of Ardmore gave the information about Cleo. Her birth date was either 10 May 1904, as listed in 1924, or 1 December 1903, as listed in 1918. Cleo’s headstone states 1 December 1904, which combines the two and is probably the most accurate.

Several problems arose when evaluating Mrs. Cecil W. Zinn.

1. The initials C.W. Zinn don’t match the R.C. Zinn in Mary Clem’s obituary.
2. Census records for Cleo Zinn in the Cecil Zinn household show the birth year of 1904 but the birthplace of Indiana.
3. Ancestry record hints found a 1926 marriage for Cleo Carpenter in Carter County, Oklahoma, to A.B. Yeager and his obituary dated 1934.
4. Cleo, wife of Cecil Zinn, resided in his 1930 household. If she was Cleo Carpenter had she divorced Yeager and remarried?

 

Research next turned to A.B. Yeager, and his obituary revealed the previous Miss Cleo Carpenter as his widow.⁵

YEAGER RITES SET FOR FRIDAY
Services for World War Veteran to Be Held at Methodist Church

Delayed pending the arrival of a sister from Miami, Fla., funeral services for A. B. (Lefty) Yeager will be held at the First Methodist Church Friday afternoon. The hour had not been definitely set, but it was thought likely the services would be held at 5:50 in the afternoon.

Yeager, a World War veteran and former professional baseball player, died in the veterans hospital at Sulphur at 1:20 Tuesday afternoon after having been taken to the hospital earlier in the day. Although he had been in poor health for several months, direct cause of his death was said to have been bronchial pneumonia.

Surviving, in addition to his widow, the former Miss Cleo Carpenter, are a sister, Mrs. Charles K. Layler, Miami, Fla., and one brother, George Yeager, Galveston. Other relatives who will be here for the funeral include Mr. and Mrs. O. H. Royston, Apache, and Mrs. R. B. Royston, Duncan; Mr. and Mrs. Pearl Carpenter and family, Oklahoma City; Mrs. Zack Cooper, Sulphur; and Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Carpenter, Tyler, Texas. Carpenter is a brother to Mrs. Yeager.

Yeager was born in Galveston, Texas, Sept. 10, 1901. He was married to Miss Carpenter, the daughter of Mrs. A. L. Carpenter of this city, Oct. 25, 1927. They had no children.

His baseball career was started on the sandlot diamonds of Galveston, Texas. He came to Ardmore when this city entered the old Texas-Oklahoma League, and later, when Ardmore transferred to the Western Association, Yeager continued with the club. During the five years he pitched for the Boomers he was regarded as the ace southpaw. He saw service with Oklahoma City in the Western League and was in the Texas League a short time.

Yeager’s last professional baseball was played with Winston-Salem in the Piedmont League, his retirement coming because of ill health. Last year he was manager of the Ardmore Legionnaires.

Harvey Bros. funeral home will have charge of the funeral arrangements.

Based on evidence that Cleo was married to A.B. Yeager in 1934 and widowed that year. I hypothesized that she had remarried and started looking for an R.E. Zinn and found Ralph Edward Zinn and Cleo residing in Harris County, Texas, in 1940.⁶ Cleo had no children, and her address in 1935 was Ardmore, Oklahoma. I had found the right Mrs. Zinn!  The 1950 census found the couple living in Kansas, where Cleo’s mother’s obituary stated her death place. Mary Clem Carpenter had lived with her daughter at the end of her life.

Cleo outlived Ralph who died on 10 December 1974 in Harris County, Texas. She died on 25 November 1987 and was buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery, Carter County, near her brother, Elton, and her parents, Albert and Mary Clem Carpenter.⁷ The record on FindAGrave had also conflated the two Cleo Zinns and showed this cemetery as the burial place for Cleo married to Cecil W. Zinn.

Curious as to why anyone thought the Cleo married to Cecil had the maiden name of Carpenter, I concluded that records hints for a Cleo born 1904 in the household of Mary Clem and Albert Carpenter led previous researchers to confuse the two women. The Zinn surname in Mary Clem’s obituary certainly made a case for the conclusion, and what is the probability of two Cleo Zinns, born in 1904, living in Oklahoma and Kansas?

The final piece of the puzzle was finding the maiden name for Cleo, married to Cecil W. Zinn. Newspapers held the answer. I found a newspaper article about the marriage of Cecil W. Zinn and Miss Cleo Redman.⁸

Mystery solved. With this final fact, I could correct the profiles for the two Cleos on my Ancestry tree, the FamilySearch Family Tree and Find A Grave. Corrected profiles: FamilySearch: Cleo E. Carpenter and Cleo Redman.

As a bonus to the research, I discovered the identity of my mystery DNA match, who descended from Cleo’s brother, Elton J. Carpenter. Cleo had no children, so all matches on Mary Clem Carpenter’s line come through Elton.

Tips for Separating Women of the Same Name

• Use a research log to capture all the records for both women
• Through analysis begin to separate the identities
• Seek out all possible records: census, marriage, newspapers, obituaries, etc.
• Look for other family relationships that prove the identity of each woman
• When finished, correct online trees and state reasoning to help other researchers

 

Best of luck in all your genealogical research!

 

 

 

1. 1910 U.S. Census, Hale County, Texas, population schedule, Justice Precinct 1, Plainview Town, enumeration district (ED) 115, sheet 1A (penned), dwelling 5, family 5, Albert L Carpenter household; digital image, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org: accessed 25 August 2016); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll: 1553.
2. 1920 U.S. Census, Carter County, Oklahoma, population schedule, Ardmore Ward 1, enumeration district (ED) 40, sheet 10 B (penned), dwelling 208, family 244, Albert L. Carpenter household;digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 25 August 2016), citing NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1454.
3. “Death Record: Mrs. Mary V. Carpenter,” The Daily Ardmoreite, Mon, 22 September 1947, p. 2; Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com/image/902105060/ : accessed 13 February 2025).
4. “Oklahoma, School Records, 1895-1992”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2KY-H86R : Mon Jan 13 12:33:55 UTC 2025), Entry for Cleo Carpenter and A L Carpenter, 1924.
5. “Yeager Rites Set for Friday,” The Daily Ardmoreite, Wednesday, 13 June 1934, p. 1; Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com/image/871795715/ : accessed 13 February 2025).
6. 1940 U.S. Census, Harris County, Texas, enumeration district (ED) 101-3K, sheet 61B (penned), dwelling 115, line 71, Ralph E. Zinn; digital image, “1940 United States Federal Census,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/ : accessed 13 February 2025).
7. Rose Hill Cemetery, Carter County, Oklahoma, entry for Cleo Carpenter Zinn, died 25 Nov 1987, Oklahoma Cemeteries (https://www.okcemeteries.net/carter/rosehill/z/zrosehill.htm : accessed 14 February 2025).
8. “Redman-Zinn, Council Grove Republican, Kansas, Saturday, 6 March 1926, p. 2, col. 1; Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com/image/343683489/ : accessed 15 February 2025