In Part 1 we learned the basic and easy to find stuff about John Hubert Christopher. In this post we’ll learn how tricky it was to find and connect John to his parents, grandparents and siblings. As I stated in the previous post, we didn’t know if he had any siblings or who his parents were. There was a hint listed on the application for his third marriage with Lillie Torbush. On it he stated his parents were John H Christopher and Mary Stone, but exhaustive searching through census, marriage, death and other records from the 1900s, ’10s and ’20s came up with nothing.

Early this year (2015) a letter was discovered in the belongings of John’s youngest son, James Hubert Christopher. The letter was dated 15 Jul 1950 and in it he was asking James to fill out some paperwork for a judge. In this letter he states that his birthdate is 11 Aug 1901, his father is John H Christopher and his mother is Maurisia Stone. Take a look at the excerpt from his letter and see if you can come up with any better spelling!

Searching for any permutation of  Maurisia came up with nothing useful, so that was set aside for now. After hours upon hours of searching, I took a step back and looked through the earliest documents for John Hubert and there it was. On the bottom of his WWI draft card. His closest living relative. Something Christopher. And they’re living at the same address, 300 B St, Hunstville. My very first clue hiding in plain sight.

I rushed back to the 1920 census and John and Pauline are living with a Milton O and Lizzie M Faulkner at 332 B St, Huntsville, right next door to the address on the WWI draft card! An idea began to form: was John living with a relative in 1920? Perhaps a brother? Who was this Faulkner guy? So he needed researching too. It turns out that his name is Milford Oliver Faulkner (b. 1896 – d. 1974) and Milton is a mistake the census taker made on the 1920 census. At the time I could not find his parents, and it seemed like no other Ancestry or FamilySearch user submitted tree had any idea either. On his WWI draft card he lists two dependants: a wife (Elizabeth M Porter) and a sister. A sister? Perhaps John Hubert has a brother and a sister? I traced Milford’s family to some living relatives, contacted them, but no returned emails or phone calls. The odd thing again was that there was no trace of Milford in the 1910 or 1900 censuses, the same issue I ran up against with John, another frustrating dead end.

What if the names John, Christopher, and Milford were searched for together through the 1910 Census? There was a hit, and in Madison County, Alabama, exactly where John and Milford are living 7 years later, but it was still very confusing.

In this household we find John R and Missouri Christopher; Fannie, Bessie and Lillie White (listed as step-daughters) as well as Milford, John and Carrie Scott (listed as grandchildren) . No marriage record could be found for a Missouri and John R Christopher, but I was able to locate a marriage record of a CJ Scott and Missouri Christopher marrying each other in Calhoun County, Alabama on 24 Aug 1902. Comparing this record to the 1910 census above, the marriage date is before Carrie Scott was born, but well before Milford and John Scott were born. ARRGH! I had a hunch that the 1910 Census was a very important find for this case, but there was no solid evidence yet.

I followed up on Carrie Scott and found some info on her, but nothing connecting back to John Hubert. Following up on John R Christopher led me to discovering who the White sisters were. In the 1900 Census he was the head of household and his sister, Ella White, was living with him along with Ella’s four daughters. Fannie and Bessie White from the 1910 Census are two of those daughters. So the three White sisters in the 1910 Census are John R Christopher’s nieces, not his step-daughters. This tells me that John R Has a history of taking in family members. Further research into John R didn’t help connect him to John Hubert Christopher

I pulled out that letter John Hubert wrote in 1950, re-read it and it hit me. John H was illiterate (as surmised by “his mark” on his WWI Draft Card), he didn’t actually write the letter, so he must have dictated it! I’d bet that John Hubert had a very thick southern accent and the transcriber phonetically spelled out his mother’s name as John Hubert had pronounced it! Maurisia Stone was actually Missouri Stone! Could the Missouri Christopher in the 1910 Census be John’s mother? Her age is about right, however she’s listed as his grandmother. In his letter John Hubert says his father is also a John H. Could the John R in the 1910 Census be the person he’s referring to?

The 1910 Census now has provided the following circumstantial evidence to connecting up with John Hubert:

• A boy named John who is about the same age as John Hubert would have been
• Residing in Madison County, Alabama, the same county John Hubert was living in 1917 and 1920.
• The Christopher surname
• That unusual first name, Milford
• Milford and John have a sister, Carrie. Remember Milford listed a sister as a dependent on his WWI draft card?
• Missouri Christopher is living in the same household. Could this be his mother?
• John R Christopher is the head of household. Could this be who John H referred to in his 1950 letter?

At this point I’m suspecting that John Scott (in the 1910 Census) and John Hubert Christopher are the same people. Additionally, I’m theorizing that Milford Faulkner is the same Milford Christopher in John’s WWI draft card and the same Milford Scott in the 1910 census. To get to this point has taken dozens upon dozens of hours and I feel I’ve exhausted what online records can tell me about John. In the downtimes between record searches, I began to track down living relatives of John Hubert. And I found them in Alabama!

In Part 3 I’ll get to meet with the descendents of John Hubert, find out what they know about John’s family and discover if DNA tests will be able to shed light on this case.