Talk:Mary Ramsey Wood

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[edit] Possible source for more info

Transactions of the Forty-First annual reunion of the Oregon Pioneer Association. Portland, June 19, 1913. 1916, Contains the Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth Grand Encampment of Indian War Veterans of the North Pacific coast. And, other items of historic interest including information and photo of Mrs. Mary Ramsey Lemons Wood (1787-1908). Reference to this publication found here: http://www.woodenski.com/2neat/state/oregon.htm Katr67 20:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Mention of Wood in 1907 publication: http://www.endtime.org/library/knott/reverence.html Katr67 21:16, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mary Ramsey Wood

I see several problems with the decision to close the matter concerning my 4th great grandmother, Mary Ramsey LEMONS WOOD.

No mention of Oregonian newspaper's investigation which confirmed her birthdate.

lost censuses for 1790, 1800 and 1810 for Tennessee.

No one bother to contact my family (we found out about this through Wikipedia by accident), even through we are well known on Internet and easy to locate.

Personally I've been indexing many censuses over different years and did notice the women DO tend to state lower age than actual while men tend to state their age older than they actually are.

The main reason? to keep themselves at marriageable age. Not only that, there are quite a large number of those who reached 100 years of age by 1850, 1860, particularly in the Southern states.

Omitted facts: Mary (Ramsey) Lemons Wood did NOT come with her daughter Catherine. She came with TWO daughters and their families - Catherine with her husband James Burnett Southworth and their 2 children plus 6 from James' previous marriage. Catherine had 7 more while in Oregon. Divorced and remarried 2 more times and had 2 more children by 2nd marriage. The older daughter, Nancy married Charles Bullock in Missouri, came with Mary and sister Catherine, with her 2 children, had 6 more while in Oregon. Mary's oldest daughter, Mary did not come west. Stayed in Missouri. Lived to 98 years, died 1904, wife of Mr. Branham. I have photo of Nancy Bullock's gravemarker, saying she was born 1816 (I have to find that photo because I personall took photo of it to be sure since the last visit was in 2000.) She died 1870. Buried next to Mary in Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery. I visited the cemetery. Catherine is buried nearby in her family lot. Nancy's gravemarker is one that is throwing money wrench in case against Mary.

The gravemarker that is on this site is not the original one. It's a replacement. The original marker was a full grave length and listed all the details. It is gone but the information is on the record at Washington County Historical Society.

Mary came from a family of 9 children (not 10) and Mary is 5th, not 6th. The lore about the parents from England disproved. No evidence exist to support the claim of England, probably because the Ramsey family is of Melungeon origin (Ramey/Ramsey, Gann/Gans.) Catherine is known to have been born in North Carolina.

The family NEVER went to Georgia (owing to the mistake between Murray County Georgia and McNairy, Tennessee - where the record of Jacob Lemons is found, 1820 census showing the family in McNairy County. I already checked. They did have slaves.

And the Lemons family of Oregon is notorious for longevity. In fact Mary's 3rd great granddaughter reached 90th last December and is living in Forest Grove, just "few" miles from Hillsboro (my aunt)

BTW, the paragraph in which the photo of her with her grandson, John Wesley Lemons Sr) is an impossibility. Never heard of that story. Only that John did NOT come alone, he came with his widowed mother (wife of William Isaac Lemons) and 1 brother and 2 married sisters and 1 unmarried sister in 1870.

Will be hard pressed until that family bible is located (it is mentioned in Oregonian newspaper, conviently omitted from the Wikipedia article unless the link is checked.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Samuelsenwd (talk • contribs) 07:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're telling me all this. I'm just one editor who worked on the article and tried to uphold the Wikipedia concepts of citation of reliable sources and neutral point-of-view. The people who wrote the article did the best they could with the sources they had. You can see the article's page history for everyone who worked on the article. Anyhow, this is better discussed on the article's talk page, which is where I'm going to copy this. Thanks for contacting us. If you have reliable sources for any of the above information, feel free to contribute it to the article. Katr67 (talk) 07:18, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The above was copied from User talk:Katr67

OK, family person. First, most of what you have said is what we call original research, as in it is not published. This has been a very persistent problem with this article. The biggest issue is there was someone claiming to be a longevity researcher who said they disproved the claim. Me, hell if I know and frankly at this point hell if I care. But I will say this: A grave marker proves nothing. A letter from a family member confirming the entry in a bible proves nothing. If you give me a few days I can produce both a gravestone and a letter confirming I am 576 years old and the father of George Washington (maybe longer I'm not sure how long it takes to order a headstone). As to other errors, that goes to the newspaper writers, as nobody here interviewed Mary (though at age 576 years old I guess I could have). So, if you want anything corrected, you need to provide reliable sources as defined by WikiPedia such as newspapers or magazines (click here for more info). I would suggest hiring a genealogical researcher and contacting a newspaper to have a story done on the results. Also regarding your BTW, what are you talking about? There is no picture of her in this article, nor is there a mention of a grandson. As to conveniently missing, it was not needed to begin with when there was no dispute as to her age, but has just never been added. But as I pointed out, it doesn't prove much. Lastly, and trust me when I say I hate to side with the old person researcher, but why would she lie about her age at the 1900 census? You can not honestly tell me she was trying to get a man at that age, and then shortly after decided come clean that she was really 22 years older? Aboutmovies (talk) 08:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe the photo being referenced is the first one in the external links section, one that I added without any judgment about its contents. Any problems with the text accompanying the photo should be taken up with the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, as Wikipedia has no influence on it, as it is, like most things on Wikipedia, a third-party source. I like Aboutmovies' suggestion, one which I also made to the longevity researcher, to get some research done and have a newspaper report on the story. I'll repeat for all concerned that none of us has a stake in this one way or the other. Katr67 (talk) 17:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Samuel, thanks for offering your perspective, but as Aboutmovies says, Wikipedia articles are only as good as the reliable sources that support them. Your reference to an Oregonian study would be useful if you can give a date. I'm pretty sure no such study has been published since 1988. I found three Oregonian stories that aren't yet cited:
  • PIONEER HOLIDAY TRADITIONS ENDURE AT OREGON TRAIL CENTER, November 27, 1997, by DENNIS McCARTHY.
  • Metro West Neighbors, December 27, 2007, by Elizabeth Suh
  • VANDALS WRECK HILLSBORO GRAVES, August 17, 1995, by HOLLY DANKS
They don't look like authoritative studies, just republication of other sources. Though the grave vandalizaiton should definitely be included.
Like Aboutmovies and Katr, I don't have any stake in whether she was or wasn't 120 years old at her death. If there are sources we have missed, I hope you will help us find them. I'd like to see this article be as accurate and authoritative as possible. -Pete (talk) 08:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a official policy on Wikipedia that deals with this issue specifically: Exceptional claims require exceptional sources: "Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality reliable sources; if such sources are not available, the material should not be included." Please understand that we are trying to build a reliable encyclopedia and we can't just take some random person's account of (what may or may not be) their family history. Cacophony (talk) 08:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)