Exploring History Through Genealogy

The Relationships of John Morgan Sage

For my first week of the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks challenge, I am going to highlight one of my more intriguing ancestors, a Mr. John Morgan Sage. The mystery all started out when I was looking for him in the 1910 census. To give a background, I started out with the information that he was married to Clara Kovert in 1913 and together they had six children, of whom one we are descended from. I also knew that Clara's mothers name was Dena.

Now John was born in 1870, so I knew that he had to have been married before, hence why I was searching through the census records. I found him a town over as a widower with two children. To my surprise, I also discovered his future wife, Clara with him as a sixteen year old, her sister with her as well. To add to that, they were both his step-daughters. To find out more on her mother, I went back to the 1900 census and discovered that He was living with a Dena M. Sage, on daughter, Clara and her sister.

I did some more research over the years, eventually finding Dena's name through her marriage to Benjamin Kovert through her obituary. So with her death certificate I started to do some math. Dates and ages just weren't lining up with Clara, John and their first daughter, Oma. Clara was born in 1894, her father dying in 1897. Her mother, Dena, married John on the 16th of November, 1898, when Clara was only four. In 1905, Dena died.

So here is where it gets interesting for me. When Dena died, there were four children alive in the house, Dena and John's two sons and Clara and her sister, Clara being the oldest at nine years of age. John raised Clara as his daughter until 1913, when he married her at the age of 17. These are all facts that have been backed up with marriage, birth and death certificates. None of these dates are at all in dispute. Just the thought of marrying the man you called father makes for interesting gossip fodder, but here is the real kicker.

Their first daughter, Oma, was born in 1912. On her birth certificate, her father is listed as "Jae (sir name unknown), who is supposed to be in Tennessee". There is an entire year in between her birth and her parent's marriage. Given the information on the certificate and the listing of the father supposedly being from Tennessee, I suppose it is possible that another man is the father, and I would like to think that that is a much better option to the alternative.

These revelations came as a shock to those who knew the children of John Morgan Sage. The strange relationships between John, Dena and Clara were never spoken of. If I had a time machine, I would go back to this time and want to meet John and Clara about the time of Oma's birth to find out what their relationship was.