Is It a Record from the Bible of David A. Newman?

 

It’s one of the loose documents in the Civil War pension application file for David A. Newman. Unfortunately there’s nothing attached to it that indicated what it actually was. The page documents the two marriages of David Newman in Linn County, Iowa, and also contains the dates of birth for several of his children.

Newman married Lucinda Ennis on 31 March 1853 in Linn County with Daniel Albaugh officiating. Lucinda Newman died in October of 1858 and David married Mahala Morris on 27 February 1861 in Linn County, Iowa with Thomas Snyder officiating. Mahala died 22 January 1873. William E. Newman was born 7 March 1854. Lydia A. Newman was born on 17 July 1862. Malinda E. Newman was born 15 April 1866 and Sarah A. Newman was born on 8 November 1869.

The information on the sheet all appears to have been written at the same time. The handwriting appears to be the same and the ink appears to all be the same shade of color. Fortunately a color digital copy of the document was obtained.

Is it a torn out page from the family bible? Is it just a sheet where the information was written? The Pension Department did request information from pensioners on their wives and children in the 1890s. Was the information submitted in response to that request?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I had to be careful reading the document because one time the word “borned” looked a lot like “buried.” And, if it had been a bible record, a funeral date would not have been unusual. The ordering of the information on the page is a little atypical for a bible record. Normally information in a bible record is entered chronologically “as it happens.”

That’s not the way this information is organized. There is information on David’s marriages to Lucinda and Mahala along with their dates of death. Then comes information on the children. That organization would lead me to conclude that this is not a page from the Newman family bible. It may have been copied from the family bible, but there’s nothing to indicate that.

My decision to conclude that this is not the bible record does not mean that I think it is inaccurate. My discussion of that conclusion is clearly made separate from my transcription of this document.

And I spell everything in my transcription as it is here–even that “borned.”

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4 thoughts on “Is It a Record from the Bible of David A. Newman?

  1. If this record was in the pension file application, it is possible it was written at the time the pension was applied for.

    • I’m thinking that it probably was written during the pension application process–possibly from what was in the family Bible or other records.

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