Laura Myrtle (Cooper) Dickson 1890–1979

Result: ONE STRONG CANDIDATE, OPENED, AND GRADED POSSIBLE - NOT ASSERTED, AND NO ENTRY MADE. "Myrtle Cooper", 19, SINGLE, BOARDER, b. Texas, SALESWOMAN in MILLINERY (wage earner), Justice Precinct 3, Burnet Co., Texas, ED 0119, sheet 19b (coll. 7884 rec. 27755213). INDEX TIER - the plate has NOT been downloaded. THE HOUSEHOLD IS WHAT MAKES IT A CANDIDATE: head WILLIAM A. STARR, 62, with wife Dora A. 53 and children Bernett H. 19, Annie C. 17, Nonnie B. 15 and Ollie C. 12, plus three boarders - Della Kincheloe 26, this Myrtle Cooper 19, and Almeda L. Hallmark 26. ⇒ A 19-year-old Myrtle Cooper boarding in a STARR household, when her own mother is Sarah Harriett STARR Sarah Harriett (Starr) Cooper and her grandmother is Margarett A. Starr [D.722], is not a coincidence one should pass over. FOR: the given name; AGE 19, exact for a 25 July 1890 birth on the 15 April 1910 census day; SINGLE, as she must be two years before her marriage; born TEXAS; MOTHER'S BIRTHPLACE TEXAS, which is right for Sarah H. ([D.722] gives her birthplace as Texas); and the Starr surname. AGAINST: the FATHER'S BIRTHPLACE is given as MISSOURI, and Joseph Benjamin Cooper Joseph Benjamin Cooper was born in Warren Co., NEW JERSEY [G.130]. Burnet Co. is also a long way from Bosque. BUT THE PARENTAL-NATIVITY COLUMNS ARE DEMONSTRABLY UNRELIABLE FOR THIS FAMILY IN THIS CENSUS, and that is not special pleading - it is on the catalog's own plate. [D.676], her brother George W's 1910 row, gives his father's birthplace as OHIO and his mother's as MISSOURI. BOTH ARE WRONG: the father is New Jersey and the mother is Texas. ⇒ A wrong "Missouri" in a father's column is exactly the error this family's 1910 enumerations already contain. AND IT WAS SETTLED THE SAME HOUR, OUT OF A RECORD THE CATALOG ALREADY HELD. [D.721], the 1870 Polk Twp, Cass Co., Missouri household of Soloman Starr, 53, and Margret, 43, lists their children: WILLIAM, 22, born MISSOURI - so born about 1848 - then Walker J 20, Joseph 18, Sarah H. 16 (= Sarah Harriett (Starr) Cooper, this woman's mother), Charles 14, John 12, Edgar 7 and George 1. ⇒ WILLIAM A. STARR OF BURNET CO., 62 IN 1910, IS SARAH HARRIETT'S ELDEST BROTHER - THIS WOMAN'S MATERNAL UNCLE - on age, given name and birth state together. The girl was boarding with her uncle while working in a hat shop. THE GRADE IS THEREFORE RAISED FROM POSSIBLE TO PROBABLE, and the one piece of evidence against now has an explanation rather than just an excuse: in a household whose head and whose own children are Missouri-born, an informant answering for a boarding niece giving "Missouri" for her father is the commonest kind of 1910 nativity error - and this family's 1910 sheets already contain two of them on [D.676]. STILL NOT ASSERTED, AND DELIBERATELY SO: the plate has not been downloaded or read, no entry exists, and this file carries no 1910 residence from it. Under RULE ZERO-C none of it may be transcribed as fact until the image is filed and read on stitches. That is the todo. THE PLATE WAS PULLED AND READ LATER THE SAME DAY - the todo is closed and the entry is [D.829]. The image is filed at (archive file) and every recorded value was read on census_stitch.py stitches. THREE THINGS CAME OUT OF THE READING THAT THE INDEX DID NOT SAY. (1) THE GIVEN NAME IS MYRTLE AND THE INDEX IS NOT SURE OF IT. The record carries "[Marth Cooper]" and "[Martha Cooper]" as alternate names. At 8x the plate is unambiguous: M-y-r-t-l-e. ⇒ Had the search been run on the alternates she would have been missed, and had the plate read "Martha" this candidacy would have collapsed. It reads Myrtle. (2) THE FATHER'S-BIRTHPLACE CELL SAYS MISSOURI ON THE PLATE, not only in the index. The question this row left open - "the plate may or may not agree with the index" - is ANSWERED, and it answers against the easy explanation. The discrepancy is the enumerator's, not Ancestry's. The grade is UNCHANGED at probable, because the reason for discounting the cell was never that the index had mangled it: it is that this family's 1910 sheets contain two demonstrably wrong parental-nativity cells already, on the catalog's own plate [D.676]. That argument stands exactly as well against a wrong cell written by the enumerator as against a wrong cell typed by an indexer. But it is now a known error rather than a suspected one, which is worth saying plainly. (3) THE DWELLING AND FAMILY NUMBERS ARE ILLEGIBLE - "3[?]4" twice, the middle digit crossed by an ink stroke from the row above and unresolved at 16x. The neighbours run 363 and 365, so 364 is obvious; it is not written down as 364 because obvious is not read (RULE ZERO).

Result: 99ZS-2N2 Laura Myrtle Cooper, 26 Jul 1890 Iredell - 28 Sep 1979 Irving; m. Robert Lee Dickson 15 Jun 1912 Meridian; parents Joseph Benjamin Cooper and Sarah Harriett Starr.

Result: FOUND: memorial 107742543, 'Myrtle C "Laura Myrtle" Cooper Dickson', 26 Jul 1890 - 28 Sep 1979, Mount Olivet Cemetery, Fort Worth, plot 11 Abiding Love; panel: parents Joseph Benjamin Cooper (15136843) and Sarah Harriett Starr Cooper (42112842), spouse Robert Lee Dickson (107742614), children Myra L McSpedden, Frank William Dickson, Mary Elizabeth Dickson Zellers. Parser report Death/Find-a-Grave/Myrtle C “Laura Myrtle” Cooper Dickson (1890-1979) [107742543].yaml.

Result: Not run.

Result: Not run.

Result: Not run.

Result: FOUND: 1920 [D.684], 1930 [D.685] (indexed under son Frank W. with mother 'Myrle L'), 1940 [D.686], 1950 [D.687]; death certificate 76228 via Ancestry [F.324]; Texas Death Index 1964-1998 and SSDI (index only, no images): d. 28 Sep 1979 Dallas Co.; SSDI last residence Irving, b. 26 Jul 1890. NULL: no 1910 census row found for her; no marriage record indexed (only her children's records name Robert L. Dickson as husband).

Result: NULL - no record matching name and birth year among the candidates.

Result: FOUND (index rows only): 'Laura M Dickson', Fort Worth, Texas, 1950, 1960, 1969; spouse 'Robert L Dickson'.