Did Cornelius Cooley marry Dolly White or.....

From: Michael Cooley <michael_at_newsummer.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 01:49:48 -0700

I have a theory. :)

Consider the following:

Dolly is a nickname for Dorothy.

Arthur Kiergan wrote that his mother, Dorothy Cooley, had first married
the brother of Tink and Benjamin Cooley. He stated that his mother had
three sons from this first marriage. Here's the 1840 census for Cornelius:

Ray County
p 332 Cornelius Cooley, Fishing River Township

    21001-00001
    2 males 0-4
    1 male 5-9
    1 male 20-29
    1 female 20-29

The bio for Mathias Cooley, son of Cornelius and "Dolly," says that he had
three brothers.

1830s - three sons born to Cornelius
1840+ - possibly another son born
1843 - Cornelius died
1848 - Arthur born

Ray county, where Cornelius lived, is next door to Carroll County where
Arthur was born. The whole family should be there in 1850 but I'm not
finding them.

Arthur said his older half brothers were:

Joseph died in CW in 1863
Michael murdered by Mormons in "Eutah"
John William accidentally killed at age 12

But why would Mathias not be known by Arthur? And why did Cornelius
request Mathias be adopted by the Wilsons, especially if he had three more
sons? He was off to Oregon in 1845, three years before Arthur was born.
Arthur might not have known anything about him, particularly if some kind
of family secret was involved. Perhaps this might explain why Don Cooley
and Rick Ernst couldn't find an autosomol match.

The 1840 census for Cornelius gives two sons 0-4. One would have been
Mathias. If there was a fourth son, he could have been born c1840-43.

That Dorothy Cooley (died 1851) could have been remembered as Dolly White
is not surprising, especially since her mother was Elizabeth White.

Am I way out there or does it make sense? I can't find these families in
1850, Carroll county where Arthur was born. They were either not
enumerated or were missed in the indexing. I'll later go through every
page.

-Michael
Received on Wed Jun 20 2012 - 02:49:48 MDT

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