My husband's grandmother Floyda Mabel Steiner McClure died 77 years ago this week, on November 2, 1948. She was 70 years old then, and had been married to Brice Larimer McClure for more than 45 years.
But 20 years ago, when I first ordered their Ohio marriage license from 1903, I learned this was Floyda's second marriage. That sent me on a long quest to learn what happened.
Old way: Phone, send $3 for photocopies
When I first tried to find Floyda's Ohio divorce, I called a couple of courthouses in her area, and was advised to try showing up in person. Not logistically good for me, being in New England. I called back a few years later and spoke with the Clerk of Courts for Wyandot County, Ohio. She kindly listened to my brief explanation and told me to call back in 15 minutes, giving her time to check through the files for the relevant names and dates.
I waited a full 20 minutes before calling back. Eureka, the clerk found an entire file on this divorce from 1901! I could have photocopies for a grand total of $3 plus snail-mail postage. When the envelope arrived, I was excited to learn the story of how Floyda's first husband was verbally abusive and threatened harm, so she initiated divorce and won alimony too--very unusual and rather courageous for a young woman of that time.
New way: Full-text search for Floyda
With the full-text search capabilities of Family Search, this week I decided to search again for Floyda among the many, many unindexed digitized documents. My search term was Floyda Steiner (her maiden name) and I filtered by dates 1878-1948, her birth and death dates.
Wow! On the first page of results, up popped her divorce papers, among other key documents digitized but not indexed from Wyandot County, Ohio probate and court records. At top, a screen shot showing the handwritten ledger on the left and the AI transcript on the right. The ledger is what the court clerk photocopied and sent me for $3. Now it's freely available through Family Search's full-text search and who knows what else I'll discover! Divorce documentation can be challenging to locate so this was a real surprise. And, as Lisa points out in a comment, finding these documents allows me to have a specific online source I can link to my family trees.
Full-text search is giving me lots of clues and documents to add to my knowledge of family history. I've been working my way through hubby's family tree and my family tree, plugging in names and dates and places to see what unindexed records might show up. Wishing you luck as you try your searches!
