FamilySearch Family Tree Hints

FamilySearch has a fairly new feature where they will email you document hints. I got an interesting one today. 

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This hint really intrigued me because as far as I knew, I have no connections to Mexico at all.  I clicked the Review My Relative's Hints button and I got this:

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Slade is definitely one of my surnames but I didn't recognize James Jeremiah so I clicked the View Relationship button:

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 [Please note you must be logged in to FamilySearch to see the linked documents below.]

I couldn't get the entire chart in a single screenshot. Mary Richardson Grantham is my 2nd great-grandmother. She and James Jeremiah Slade were 4th cousins. That makes Jeremiah and I 4th cousins, 4 times removed. 

I then opened up James Jeremiah's page.  There is a Mexican marriage record attached as a source that is tagged to James's name and gender. You can see the record here when you are logged in to FamilySearch. It the marriage of James J. Slade to Consuelo Farías in El Sagrario, Teziutlán, Puebla, Mexico on 28 March 1900. James is listed as being 30 years old and his parents are James J. Slade and Lila B. Slade. 

So this marriage record belongs to James Jeremiah's SON. It was attached to James's page because he is named on the document as the groom's father. James Sr. married Leila Birchett Bonner (see here when you are logged in to FamilySearch), The names match their son's marriage record so this appears to be correct information. But why was their son James Jr. in Mexico?  The Slades were a Georgia family. Time to take a closer look at James Jr. 

I opened James Jr.'s page in the Family Tree. He has 13 attached sources which makes me happy. There is one document source that explains it all.  James Jr. went to Mexico the first time in 1896 and stayed until 1914. He was there for business purposes (lumber business) and he apparently met and married his wife during that time. In 1917 he went back to Mexico. The researcher has several other very interesting documents attached including James Jr's. death certificate (Mexico) which confirms his middle name as Jeremiah, his place of birth in Georgia, and again confirms his parents. 

Am I going to add all of this data to my file? James Jr. is my 4th cousin, 5 times removed so I don't see an immediate need. Even so, I really enjoyed learning more about James Sr. and James Jr. and reading these interesting documents. I was also able to confirm that the document match that FamilySearch emailed me was a legitimate match even though I didn't immediately see the relevance. 

Michele Simmons Lewis, CG^® is part of the Legacy Family Tree team at MyHeritage. She handles the enhancement suggestions that come in from our users as well as writing for Legacy News. You can usually find her hanging out on the Legacy User Group Facebook page answering questions and posting tips.