Clearly I could have saved last week’s topic for this week … The Neal family is one big challenge – even worse than my disappearing Holborows and troublesome Hallidays!

(And, yes, technically I’m late with this prompt. Sorry about it.)

I recently had a message through the site from a family member regarding my 3 x great-grandmother, Mary Payne (nee McMillian). She married Sanford Dehaven Payne (ne Tisdale). They were the parents of Robert Boone Payne, who I wrote about five years ago (FIVE?!), and Mary disappears completely. In the spirit of this prompt, and thanks to the nudge from Kim, I thought I’d have another rake over of the coals and see what turned up …

The only things I know for certain is that Mary and Sanford were living in Steuben Township, Warren County, Indiana in 1850, where he was a farmer and she was – presumably – ‘keeping house’ for their family of 8 children. They are both listed as being born in Kentucky, the children all born in Indiana. Ten years – and four additional children – later, the family are in Macon County, Illinois, somewhere around Maroa.

The 1865 Illinois census has an entry for a Sanford Payne at Friends Creek, Macon. His line entry shows a household with 1 male aged between 50 and 60, 1 female aged between 50 and 60, and two females between 10 and 20. This seems to add up. So we can infer/assume that Mary was still on the scene in 1865. By 1870, Sanford is alone with the children: Mary is nowhere to be found. He is still in Friends Creek. He dies in 1871, and Mary isn’t mentioned in Sanford’s will or probate. The 1870 census doesn’t record marital status: it is more interested in “race” than marriage.

On a great many trees online, it is shown that Mary died in 1885 in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky. This seems to come from a burial there of a Mary Ellen Payne, with an associated headstone )on Find A Grave) that states simply M. E. Payne. No date of birth or age is included, nor a date of death on the stone itself, but a biography has been created to state that this is Mary McMillan Payne. Zero corroborating evidence is included. However, there is a Mary Payne/Paine who appears in some Kentucky burial records, aged just 4 years old at time of death. The 1880 census also shows a Mary E Payne, aged 13, living in Jefferson who I can’t trace forwards.

In which case I find it hihgly unlikely that Mary left her family, moved back to Kentucky and died there in 1885. A Mary of the right age doesn’t appear on the 1870 or 1880 census returns. Consequently I think it more likely she died in Friends Creek between 1865 and 1870. Sadly Illinois death records are virtually non-existent before 1877 so its unlikely an exact date of death will be found.

Maybe some challenges are made to be … unfinished.