"Find a tombstone with your birthday on it." It could be your birthday as their birthday, or their date of death.
I was born on February 12th -- as was Eliza Jane (Webster) Gibson.
For the longest time, I thought her maiden name was Robinson, due to her sons death certificate. However, when I did my big Gibson Cemetery project in August/September 2021... I realized, I had been wrong.
You see, Nathan Alander Gibson Sr (1828-1899) had a little girl living with him and wife Eliza in the 1860 census... "M.E. Blackburn." There also, living with his parents, was a granddaughter named "Susan E. Gibson" living with them.
Figuring out who Susan could be was easy enough - I found her birth record - 23 Jul 1853 in Henderson to a Nathan Gibson and Mary Webster. Okay - this makes sense. Mary must have passed away during childbirth or shortly after and therefore Berryman Gibson & Susan Duncan (Nathan's parents) were raising her. Not uncommon.
But who is M. E. Blackburn? Could this have been a step-daughter? Had Eliza been a Blackburn prior to marriage to Nathan? I couldn't find anything. So I started to work on Eliza, Nathan's current wife. Verify that her last name was Robinson or Blackburn, if I could.
When nothing, and I mean nothing, was coming up for the last name Robinson, and certainly nothing in Henderson... you know how when the first wife would die, that sometimes the widow would marry the first wife's sister? I decided to look for an Eliza Webster who married a Gibson.... jackpot. I found an index for the marriage of Nathan A. Gibson and Eliza Webster in Mississippi County, MO on November 7th, 1853.
Well, that certainly confirms Eliza's last name ISN'T Robinson unless Webster was her second name or even third (still thinking she could have been a Blackburn at some point). It also made me wonder about any more marriages of Webster's or perhaps this Blackburn last name in Mississippi County, MO.
That's when I stumbled upon the marriage for Marietta Webster and James B. Blackburn in that same county. I found them in the 1850 census in Mississippi County, MO as well-- with a daughter named Mary Elizabeth Blackburn. Jackpot - that's my M.E. Blackburn.
I finally put all the pieces together that the first two wives of Nathan Alander Gibson Sr were Marietta "Mary" (Webster) Blackburn and Eliza Jane Webster. Mary had the one daughter with her Blackburn husband (Mary Elizabeth Blackburn who married Franklin Pierce Sutton), then the one daughter with Nathan (Susan E Gibson who married John O Sutton)... then Marietta "Mary" passed away shortly thereafter (I speculate she could be buried in the Gibson Cemetery).
Then he married Eliza Jane Webster, the younger sister of Marietta "Mary" Webster Blackburn. He and Eliza had at least three sons: Nathan Alander Gibson Jr (also called Alex & Elick -- he married his cousin, Mary Ellen "Mollie" Gibson), William Carroll Gibson (he married Nancy Ann "Nannie" Handley), and Henry Gibson.
Eliza Jane (Webster) Gibson only predeceased her husband by three years. She passed away on June 19th, 1896, and now resides in the Gibson Cemetery in Corydon, KY.
The tombstone photo I'm including was taken by our own David Melton in 2016. His photo is ridiculously better than mine which was photographed in September 2010 on a cruddy old cell phone. So David, thank you for this *much* better photo of Eliza's tombstone. It's very much appreciated.
The next time you're out at the Gibson Cemetery, take a moment to say hello to Eliza, Nathan, and the whole extended family. Nathan was a brother of my 4x Grandfather, John Gregory Gibson, and they're not buried far apart.
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