What Does That M. Stand For?

[walkitout]

Albert L. Battenfield applied to Guion Miller and was rejected. He says his father was Joseph Monroe Battenfield, died in September 1904.

I have a Find a Grave entry, with a picture of the headstone, for Joseph M Battenfield, who served in the confederate forces. He died in 1905 according to the headstone (but I've got other lying headstones in my family records).

There appears to be a confederate pension record application for him, giving his death date (in an index, so we know how accurate those are) as 18 Oct 1903. A user of ancestry has helpfully supplied his middle name as Matlock.

A helpful user of ancestry has supplied his middle name as Metcalf, for an index entry for a Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Record for him.

This is clearly one of _those_ families.

ETA: Also, Albert Lafayette gave his birth year as 1878 for the old man's draft for WWI. Seriously. This is one of those families.

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

1843 could turn into 1878 fairly easily. Or are you saying Albert gave his own birthdate as 1878?

Metcalf was Joseph's mother's previous husband's name, so it seems somewhat unlikely as a middle name for a son by her second husband. I wouldn't be surprised if some genealogist thought Metcalf was Olive Hubble Metcalf Battenfield Lee's maiden name.

where did 1843 come from?

[walkitout]

Albert L. Battenfield was born in 1881. (He said so on a Guion Miller application.) And he gave his birthdate as 1878 on a WW1 draft card. (Which there is a fairly obvious motivation to lie about.)

I know nothing at all about the second paragraph.

Re: where did 1843 come from?

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Okay, gotcha. 1843 is the birthdate I saw for Joseph M. Battenfield. At one point even people who were far too old had to register (my grandfathers both have World War II draft records, despite being born in the 1880s/1890s), so I thought it might have been something like that. I was forgetting that he'd been dead some time by WWI, duh. Not NEARLY enough coffee. (Lately I don't think there's enough coffee in the world. Menofog, they call it...)