A May December Romance

     Many hours have been devoted to uncovering the identity of the second wife of my fourth-great-grandfather Thomas Garner.  I’m descended from Thomas and his first wife Prudence Lamphere, so why do I why spend so much time on number two?  Several reasons: for one, you never know what will turn up in the records of your ancestor's associates and secondly, I enjoy a challenge. Some people like to solve crossword puzzles, I like to solve genealogy puzzles.

     Back in 2019 I wrote a blog about Thomas in which I questioned who that Laney Garner person living with Grandpa Thomas was, and if she was really his wife or had the census taker made a mistake?  She was a good twenty years younger than Thomas, who was an elderly, chronically ill man without much money, though he did have a War of 1812 pension which may have made him more attractive to Laney.  Today I decided to find all I could about her, which when you’re taking about a female in the early to mid-1800’s is indeed a challenge.

      I already had the 1855 New York State census of Summerhill in Cayuga County showing Thomas Garner age 84, born in Massachusetts and his wife Laney Garner age 59, born in Canada.  Thomas was really 82, but still much older than Laney.  Immediately above them in the census was David Robertson 50 and his wife Catherine 34, both born in New York.

      I knew Thomas had passed away in the spring of 1857 but Laney being twenty years his junior was likely still alive for the next census.  Ancestry has an annoying habit of sending hints for something called, “NY Compiled Census and Census Substitutes…”, containing scant information with no image, when they could just as easily show you the 1860 census.  I have no idea why they do this, but when you see it, it’s time to open another window and do a search of the 1860 census at Family Search.  Which is what I did when they sent me a hint for "Lana" Garner in that odd database.  I found Lana Garner living alone in 1860, still right next to David and Catherine Robertson/Robinson.  In fact, she seemed to be living with them at that point.

1859 map of Summerhill, Mrs. Garner is the 4th name down on the far left D. Robinson is right below her.

     The next logical step was the 1850 census but that presented a problem.  There was no Lana or Laney Garner listed, nor a Thomas Garner for that matter.  He was in Summerhill in 1840 with his first wife but seemed to have vanished by 1850.  Prudence died in 1848 so perhaps Thomas hadn’t yet remarried in 1850?  Since I didn’t know Laney’s surname before her marriage to Thomas, I tried looking up David Robertson to see who was living next to him in Summerhill that year.  His neighbor was Laura Wallace, age 54, born in Canada!  The age was right, the birthplace was right, and the name was very close, could it be that Laney Garner was the former Laura Wallace?

     Going further back in census records was not productive. There were many Wallace families in the area, but only heads of households were named in 1840 and Laney wasn’t one of them, so I struck out there.  Ditto with newspapers and cemetery records.  Reading through Thomas’ pension documents I found that his original pension certificate was destroyed in 1856 by a fire at the establishment where he had left it for safekeeping, forcing him to apply for a replacement.  One of the witnesses to his signature, actually his X, on that application was Laney Garner but it contained no further information about her.  There were still New York land records to be checked at Family Search, if I could find Thomas in 1850 that might hold a clue.  After forty-five minutes of finding nothing for Thomas Garner or Thomas Gardner or other variations I was about to give up.  Discouraged, on a whim I typed “Laney Wallace” into the search box. Bingo!  In 1840 Seth Runnells “demised”, (leased), twenty-two acres in the town of Summerhill to Laney Wallace for the remainder of her life…adjacent to Catherine Robertson!  Laura Wallace was Laney Wallace was Laney Garner.

Seth Runnells to Laney Wallace, Lot 16 Summerhill

     I’m still not sure of Laney’s maiden name, it may or may not have been Wallace.  A marriage record would probably clear this up, but Summerhill was located behind the back of beyond and there were several nearby villages where her marriage to Thomas could have taken place, none of which have online records.  Nonetheless, I'm getting closer all the time...