Saturday, February 16, 2008

Great Grandparents Alma and John Guinee

For the last year now I have been seriously working on obtaining some accurate information on my Great Grandparents Alma and John Guinee. Alma had been married since 1906 to Philip Hirschberg and they had four children. In May, 1918, she married John Guinee. An interesting fact came to my attention when I requested the divorce records for Philip and Alma. The County Clerk could only provide me with annullment papers, dated 1920! Apparently the annullment became legal the end of 1921. How was Alma able to marry John if she was still legally married to Philip? I would like to know the answer to that question.
According to the annullment papers, Philip had been previously married and recently divorced when he married Alma. In those divorce papers he was unable to marry for one year, unless he remarried his first wife. Imagine that? Perhaps that was the legal loophole which allowed Alma to marry John. I am attempting to obtain Philip's divorce papers from his first wife.
Vital records are important documents to request if they are available. They give concrete evidence to relationships and important facts and dates. Sometimes they can be costly, but they are worth the time and effort in obtaining them.

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The Family

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. ~Erma Bombeck

Genealogy Pox, author unknown

WARNING: GENEALOGY POX IS VERY CONTAGIOUS!

SYMPTOMS: Continual complaint as to need for names, dates and places. Patient has a blank expressions, sometimes deaf to spouse and children. Has no taste for work of any kind, except feverishly looking through records at libraries and courthouses.
Has a compulsion to write letters. Swears at mailman when he doesn't leave mail. Frequents strange places such as cemeteries, ruins, and remote desolate country areas. Makes secret night calls and hides phone bills from spouse. Mumbles to self. Has strange, faraway look in eyes.

NO KNOWN CURE!

TREATMENT: Medication is useless. This disease is not fatal, but gets progressively worse. Patient should attend genealogy workshops, subscribe to genealogical magazines and be given a quiet corner in the house where he/she can be alone.

REMARKS: The unusual nature of this disease is that the sicker the patient gets, the more he or she enjoys it!