The Problem

I have been working on my genealogy for over 30 years now and I have been searching for clues about my great-grandma's mother, Nora Stollings, since the beginning.  I knew my great-grandma Mae very well growing up as well as her brother Kenneth, whom I knew as "Uncle Bud".  I was blessed to have them share stories with me here and there but over the years I noticed they never spoke of their mother.  I was an adult by the time I realized this and Grandma Mae was, by that time, aged and frail, living in a nursing facility, and wasn't able to share stories with me anymore.  I worked at a senior citizens' center in my area and often delivered meals to the elders in the neighborhood.  One day while dropping off Uncle Bud's lunch to him, I thought to ask him about his mother.  He simply said, "We lived with Daddy.  We didn't have no mommy," and he left it at that with a smile. Great Grandma Mae passed away in 2003 and Uncle Bud left us in 2012.  With both of them gone and their cousins supposedly clueless about their mother's existence, I was left with nobody else to extract clues from.  The only way to figure things out is by combing through documents and using context clues while hoping my DNA gets a match.  

Documents with her name are very few and most seem to lead to women who are not her, more often to a particular cousin.  Some researchers have even combined these women with another cousin whose name isn't even Nora.  Anytime a hint for Nora pops up on Ancestry, I click on it only to find it leads to the cousins.  Many researchers online seem to have a problem distinguishing the difference between them and combine them into one person.  Here I sort out the information and highlight the facts that will make these three women distinguishable from one another in hopes to help other descendants of these women connect themselves to the correct one.

Nora A. Stollings

I found my family again in the 1920 Census.[2]  By that year, Perry had started working as a wagon driver in the coal yard.  Luemma still had no occupation nor did any of the children.  My Great-grandma was 18 when the census enumerator visited the home on January 3, 1920.  Because she was 18 and not 19 yet in the month of January, her birthdate would have to be later than January.  This supports my theory that her birthday must fall after April 20 (when the 1910 Census was taken).

Nora E. married Opie Clyde Conley on July 3, 1924 in Boone County, West Virginia.[5]  Nora and Opie's children were:  Aeola Avis Conley, James Darrell Conley, Delmer Paul Conley, Dael Conley, Harold Hugh Conley, Linda Lou Conley, and Carol Sue Conley.  This Nora is buried at Stollings Cemetery in Big Creek, Logan County, West Virginia.[6]

1940 U.S. Federal Census; Gordon, Boone, West Virginia [7]

 Norma E. Stollings-The Other "Nora"

The third lady who tends to get confused in the mix is a distant cousin of both Nora Stollings but her name isn't Nora, it's Norma.  When you look through marriage records for "Nora Stollings" on wvculture.org you will find marriage records for all three women: the one who married Millard Blankenship, the one who married Opie Conley, and the one who married Raymond Douglas Rayburn.  The one who married Rayburn was actually Norma.

Norma E. Stollings and Raymond Rayburn Marriage Record [8]

According to her marriage record Norma E. Stollings was born in 1904, the daughter of Loy Oley Stollings and Nancy Barker.  This Stollings family also lived in Boone County, West Virginia not too far from the other homes of the other ladies.  The 1920 U.S. Federal Census for Norma show her living in the home of her parents along with her brother Hallie.  

1920 U.S. Federal Census; Washington District, Boone County, West Virginia [9]

Conclusion

Nora A. Stollings, Nora E. Stollings, and Norma E. Stollings are three separate individuals and should not be confused in family history compilations.  The three women are proven to have different birthdates and, despite living in the same county, the three women have been proven to be alive and living in three separate households on the very same date in 1920 when the census enumerator visited the homes.  They also are proven to have totally different parents and no evidence of an adoption (legally or otherwise) has surfaced.  They also have been proven to have mothered totally different individuals with no gray area of confusion clouding those facts.  I have made sure to trace all three lines in my trees and documentation.  I urge fellow researchers to make note of these details and sort them accordingly in their own records.  After all, what is the point of spending years of your life researching your linage if you have spent that time connecting yourself to the wrong people?  You end up no closer than where you started at finding out where you came from.