Lydia Allen

AUDITED 19 Sep 2026 - [] LYDIA ALLEN, created this day from ONE record, and DELIBERATELY NOT FLAGGED AS [111]'s MOTHER. She is the second person written in dwelling 204, family 223, Washington borough, Washington Co., Pennsylvania, in the 1850 U.S. census (p. 350b, NARA M432 roll 834), aged 52, born ENGLAND, read on the image 19 Sep 2026 (K746). She is entered here as William Allen's wife because she is the adult woman of his generation in his household - which is an inference from position, not a statement by the record. WHY HER LINK TO [111] IS NOT FLAGGED: the 1850 schedule has NO RELATIONSHIP COLUMN. It does not say she is anyone's wife or anyone's mother. And a wife married after 1834 would look exactly the same on this page, so the record cannot exclude a second wife. There is a second, weaker hint in the same direction: Lydia at 52 (b. c.1798) and Mary at 35 (b. c.1815) would make her a mother at about 17 - possible, but it is the shape a first wife's children make. THAT TEST WAS RUN ON 19 SEP 2026, THE SAME DAY, AND IT DID NOT SETTLE IT. The 1880 Arkadelphia sheet was read on the image (K749) and [111]'s own line gives her father's birthplace and her mother's birthplace BOTH AS ENGLAND; the 1900 Decatur sheet says the same twenty years later (K750) and the 1870 sheet marks both foreign-birth columns on her line alone. So her mother was England-born - which this note had treated as decisive and which is NOT. It narrows the question without naming a woman: an England-born wife married to William after October 1834 fits every one of those records, and Mary, 35, b. England, is in the same 1850 household. Owen reviewed this on 19 Sep 2026 and HELD the mother half at UNDERDETERMINED; see [111]'s Audited note for the reasoning and the closing conditions. (This paragraph previously named the 1880 birthplace columns as the thing that would close the question. That was a prediction, it was tested, and it was wrong - so it has been removed rather than annotated.) WHAT WOULD ACTUALLY SETTLE IT: a record naming William Allen's wife BEFORE October 1834, or any record naming Josephine's mother. The Washington Co., Pa. probate of William Allen that this paragraph used to name is WITHDRAWN: it was pinned to a candidate death of 26 Jun 1862 which K756 has refuted - see [3438]'s note. The document to work is the First M.E. Church register at Washington, Pa. (Ancestry coll. 2451, HSP reel 427, the c.1840-1866 volume), which should carry his death on an earlier page and may carry hers. Failing that, a marriage record for William and Lydia, or an English baptism for Josephine. SHE IS INDEPENDENTLY ON RECORD IN 1860, AND AS A WIDOW (K756). The 1860 census of East Ward Washington Borough, Washington Co., Pa. - page 130, dwelling 927, family 914 - enumerates "Lydia Allen, 63, female, born England" in the household of George Murphy, a wheelwright born Virginia, together with "Mary, 45, born England" and "Maggie Radcliff, 16, born Pennsylvania". Read on the image. This is the second record of her existence and the first that is not the 1850 census: her age moves +11, Mary's +10 exactly and Maggie Radcliff's +10 exactly against the 1850 household, and it is Radcliff - a rare surname among Allens - that makes the identification rather than the surname under investigation. The nativity column of that household reads Va., England, Penna, England - four distinct values with the ditto runs resuming correctly - so the England against her name is a written answer and not a clerk repeating himself. WHAT IT DOES NOT DO: it still does not make her [111]'s mother. It shows she outlived William and was England-born, which is consistent with the 1870, 1880 and 1900 statements that Josephine's mother was England-born, and consistency is all it is. The objection that fixed this half at UNDERDETERMINED is untouched - at 52 in 1850 she would have borne Mary at about 17, so an earlier wife has never been excluded, and no record yet calls Lydia anyone's mother.