The Hive Mind: Eliminating 1880 as Possible Birth Year of Harold Blaine White

In a comment on my last post, yesterday, Janice M. Sellers suggested that the possible birth year of 1880 might be eliminated from consideration by assuming that Harold White's second wife, Cora Diamond, did not know of his previous marriage to Blanch Stockmyer.  Janice's suggestion works out mathematically, too.  Assuming Cora did not know about Harold's first marriage, we take his age of 43 on the 1930 census and subtract 25, his age at first marriage; the result shows he and Cora had been married 18 years.  1930 minus 18 comes out to 1912, the probable year of their marriage.  This is consistent with his age of 25 at first marriage being in support of an assumption on Cora's part that his marriage to her was his first.  Using Cora's age at first marriage as 18 works out mathematically to the same conclusion: 36, her stated age on the 1930 census, minus her age at first marriage, 18, works out to 18 years of marriage, and again that comes out to 1912.  A marriage date of 1912 is inferred from the fact that their first child was born in 1912.  The baby might have been a little "early."  I now need to seek support for 1912 being their year of marriage in documents such as their marriage license applications (and again, I bless Indiana for taking such thorough information on those documents!) and either a divorce record for Harold and Blanche Stockmyer, or her death certificate.

The enumeration date on the sheet of the 1930 census on which Harold White was counted was 19 April, before his birthday.  Subtracting 25 from 1912 (on Cora's assumption that their marriage was his first) yields 1887 as Harold's year of birth; the same year results from subtracting his age of 43 on that census from the census year of 1930.  But as he was enumerated before his birthday, that makes his age 44 on that birthday in 1930, putting his birth year at 1886.  Now we have three documents that lend some support to 1886 as being Harold's year of birth: the 1930 census (assuming Cora did think his marriage to her was his first), the 1930 census (a simple subtraction of 44 from 1930), and their daughter Maxine's birth certificate.  This still leaves 1885 as the most probable year of his birth, just by the greater number of documents supporting 1885 over the other years.

This also greatly lessens the probability of 1880 being his birth year.  We may even eliminate 1880 from consideration based on the mathematical proof of 1886 being his birth year,  referring to the 1930 census.  However, mathematical proof is not genealogical proof, so 1880 can remain marginally possible, but improbable.

The Hive Mind works!  Thank you, Janice!