Perhaps my biggest brick wall is my great-grandmother, Ida May Sargent Trautvetter Miller (1874-1939). The image on this post comes from her 1939 death certificate, although other sources do indicate her mother was a Florence (or Ellen) Butler, who was born in Missouri in the 1850s.
Ida's date of birth (1 April 1874) is given relatively consistently in the records, her place of birth however is not. She has been located in all censuses from 1880-1930, none providing clues as to her parents beyond their general places birth. Her tombstone provides little additional data. Her second marriage application provides no new information either.
Her parents apparently were "dropped" in Warsaw, Hancock County, Illinois in 1880 when they were enumerated in the 1880 census. Her mother "evaporated" a few years later, and supposedly was never heard from again. Her father Ira (as William I. Sargent) married again to Martha Morris in Adams County, Illinois, in 1888. Ira died in 1916 in Limestone Township, Peoria County, Illinois, and has no burial location or stone. The most precise place of birth obtained for Ira has been Canada (although one census does indicate he was born in Quebec). Martha cannot be located in the 1920 census and the one child she supposedly had before her marriage to Ira has never been located. She has no stone at the cemetery where she is buried.
This discussion of Ida is somewhat informal. Records of Hancock and Adams Counties in Illinois have been exhausted in an attempt to locate more on this family. Suggestions are welcomed... mjnrootdig@gmail.com
