The Weddingest Months in His Family Tree

February 14, 1861 marriage of Adaline Steiner Sigler and John Dome in Crawford county, OH

My husband's family tree has one Valentine's Day wedding, among 25 marriages that took place in February. But February isn't the month with the most weddings in that family tree.

Valentine's Day Wedding

Above, the marriage license of Adaline Elizabeth Steiner Sigler (1837-1912) and John Dome 1824-1902). Adaline was my hubby's 2d great aunt, the sister of his great-grandfather Edward George Steiner.

Addie's first marriage was to Albert Sigler (1833-1858), who sadly died at the age of 24, just three months before their only child was born.

When this child was nearly three years old, Addie married for a second time. She and John Dome applied for the license on Thursday, February 14, 1861, and were married the same day. This was two months before the official start of the Civil War. John did register for the draft in July of 1863, but he was not called to serve.

By the time great-great-aunt Addie died, she was widowed again and a grandmother several times over.

August and December, the Weddingest Months

In my husband's family tree, the most weddings took place in August and December. According to the anniversary list I generated using my RootsMagic7 software, 40 couples were married in each of these months. By comparison, only 25 couples were married in February.

On the first day of August, 1722, Andrew Allen and Abiah Lovell were married in Barnstable, Massachusetts. Andrew and Abiah were my husband's 5th great-grandparents. This is the earliest August wedding in the anniversary list.

There were three New Year's Eve weddings on the anniversary list. On December 31, 1863, John N. McClure and Rebecca Jane Coble were married in Wabash county, Indiana. John was my husband's 2d great uncle. They were part of the McClure contingent that left Indiana to try farming in Emmet county, Michigan.

My husband's great-great-grandpa William Madison McClure, part of the contingent, briefly farmed in Little Traverse, Michigan before returning to Indiana. One of his four children was born in Little Traverse. That child was Grandpa Brice Larimer McClure, born on December 29, 1878. The other three were all born in Indiana.

I wrote this post for Elizabeth O'Neal's Genealogy Blog Party, February 2020 edition!

52 Ancestors #7: Valentine's Day Marriage of Adaline and John

For this week's Valentine's theme in the #52Ancestors Challenge (thank you to Amy Johnson Crow for this theme), I consulted my RootsMagic calendar to see what happened in my husband's family on February 14. I found one member of his mother's Steiner family had a special event on that day.

Adaline Elizabeth Steiner (1837?-1912) married John Dome (1824-1902) on Thursday, Feb. 14, 1861. Adaline was a daughter of Jacob S. Steiner (1802?-1860?) and his wife, Elizabeth (1802?-1864), the brick-wall great-great-grandparents of my husband.

Adaline's Valentine's Day wedding was her second marriage. In July of 1857, when she was just 20, she married her first husband, Albert Sigler (1833-1858). Their Ohio marriage record is shown here.

Sadly, Albert died only 6 months later. The next time I found widowed Adaline Elizabeth, she was living with her widowed mother, Elizabeth, in the 1860 Census, as shown at top (occ: Sewing). There are other siblings in the household. And the last person in the household is "Albert J." aged 2.

On Valentine's Day of 1861, Adaline married her second husband, John Dome. By this time, Valentine's Day was a thing. I want to hope they chose the day for romantic reasons!

By the time of the 1870 Census, Adaline and her 2d husband, John Dome, were living in Jasper, MO. At right, an excerpt from that Census. The two children listed at the end, Ora and Laverne, were born to John and Adaline.

Since John and Adaline were married only 9 years earlier, the first three Dome girls listed in this census (Mary, Ida, Eva) can't be Adaline's daughters.

But below these three girls, "Sigler, James A" aged 12 is shown in this same household. That is almost certainly James Albert Sigler, who I believe was born to Adaline two months after her first husband Albert died.

Remember Albert J, the 2-year-old listed in the Steiner household during the 1860 Census? Bet it was Adaline's son from her first marriage. Since she was widowed, where else would she go but back home?

True, I don't have absolute proof that James is their son--his death cert shows "Unknown" for mother's and father's names (excerpt shown here), because a non-family member was the informant.


James Albert was very likely Albert James. Multiple family trees from other researchers show James as the son of Adaline and Albert, but until I see the actual documentation, I can't put the QED on this. Still, the evidence strongly favors that interpretation.