Trace Your Genealogy

This post is number 8 in the series of the 52 Ancestors Challenge where we blog about a different ancestor for each week of the year.

Alma Jeanette Hartley is the alleged adoptive mother of Borden Hays Baumgartel, Sr.  I blogged about Borden in post six of this series.  Borden is the second husband to my great-grandmother, Mabel L. (Pittman) Roll.  Alma Hartley was born in New Albany Township, Indiana, in 1872.  Here parents were James Madison Hartley and Maria Jane Lewis.  She had four sisters and one brother.

Alma marries Lawson V. Baumgartel on 28 December 1897.  Eight months after the marriage, their son, Henry Madison Baumgartel, was born on 7 August 1898.  Two more children follow, a son, Earl, in 1901; and a daughter, Pearl in 1903.  Borden, Sr birth date is, 7 October 1897, two months before Alma and Lawson get married.

Unfortunately, Lawson dies just five days after Pearl is born in March 1903.  In October 1904, Alma marries Robert  W. Samuels.  There is a New Albany Tribune  newspaper record of their divorce in 1906.  However, both are still enumerated as husband and wife on the 1910 Census. Alma Samuels is listed in the 1911 Louisville City Directory.  Robert is not with her or at the same address. By 1915, she reverts back to using Baumgartel as her last name as recorded in the Louisville, Ky city directories.

Alma owns a boarding house in Louisville by 1920.  She marries one of her boarders, Harvey Samuel West prior to their enumeration on the 1930 Census.  Harvey dies in 1931.  Alma passes away in 1939 and is buried next or with her first husband, Lawson Baumgartel.

So is Borden Baumgartel, Senior, adopted?

Our ancestors were good at fudging dates.  Back dating a marriage date was common to include a child born before the actual wedding.  Alma and Lawson could have done the same when the census taker came around in 1900.  However, Borden has the words “adopted grandson” entered on his line in the census.  They made a statement indicating he was adopted.

Pregnancy Math 101 – We all know how long human gestation is right?

Possible, yes.  Likely, no.  I going to state, that Borden is not Alma’s biological child.  If Alma waited til her wedding night to have marital relations, son Henry, would arrive nine months later, not eight.  Maybe Henry was early, or if he was a 9 1/2 month baby, we can figure out Lawson and Alma didn’t wait until their wedding night to co-mingle.  If Borden is Alma’s son, yes it is plausible that she got pregnant (with Henry) four to six weeks after giving birth to Borden.

It appears Henry was named after Lawson’s father, Henry R. Baumgartel (1835 -1916).  If Borden is their son, why didn’t he get his grandfather’s name. The name Borden does not appear in the Hartley line. My research so far has not turned up a prior marriage for either Alma or Lawson.  I also checked to see if any of the Hartley or Baumgartel siblings had a child they couldn’t care for that Alma and Lawson took in.  No luck in that.

If Borden’s name is a clue, then his birth parents last names could be Borden or Hays. Borden, Sr’s son John changed his last name to Borden because there is a story that was the original birth name.  And, Borden was easier than try to spell Baumgartel and Borden wasn’t a German sounding name in the 1940’s.  I tried looking for marriages and births using the last names Borden and Hays with no luck finding a match.  Borden is a common name in Indiana.

Borden, Sr’s birth certificate was issued as a delayed birth certificate.  The information was supported by Alma’s sister Clara Hartely Biesel, in 1941.  Alma passed away in 1939 and obviously couldn’t provide information.  There is another family story that Borden was the son of a Jewish couple and that his adoptive parents were not going to raise the child in the Jewish faith. Well the Baumgartels and Hartley’s were not members of the Jewish faith.  Lawson died when Borden was five, so I doubt the story started there.  I don’t believe his step father Robert Samuels was of the Jewish faith.  That leaves Harvey West, but he comes into the picture too late in being a parent figure to Borden.

Alma and Laswon lived briefly in Louisville just after their wedding.  Borden, Sr, and Henry were both born in Louisville.  I also looked for people with the last name Borden or Hays that may have lived near Alma and Lawson. Using a theory that they adopted a neighbor’s child, I found no clues. A Baumgartel cousin, Glenn Vogedes; wasn’t able to find a court record or other information on an adoption when he was searching either.

Was there an orphan train that come through the area at this time, a family friend in trouble, or a mother who died in childbirth and left a son behind.  I don’t know, is there a document yet to be discovered?  Or, will this mystery need to be solved by DNA genetics?