Sarah Slater's will

[Susan Higginbotham]

(09-24-2015 02:17 PM)BettyO Wrote:  Susan - I have ordered documents from the NY Vital Statistics and I found they were pretty quick - about a week turn-around-time.

Don't know why ladies lied about their ages so. I found Mary Branson, Lew Powell's girlfriend, claimed that she was the younger daughter. It was always stated in most histories of the assassination that she was the younger of the two Branson sisters - not so! Her christening record gives her birthday as December 7, 1828 while her death certificate dated January 15, 1871 gives her age as "40." If the christening records are correct (and why wouldn't they be?) She was approximately 43 years old when she died and 37 years old when Lew Powell (age 20) was courting her. She must have been a pretty well-preserved cougar....

Mary's sister, Maggie's christening records give her birth date as August 1834 - and her tombstone in Towson, Maryland states the same -

NY cashed my check about three weeks ago--still no death certificate!

I suspect a lot of ladies took the attitude that if they could plausibly pass for a few years younger than their true age, they might as well turn back the hands of time a bit. Not very nice for modern-day researchers!