American genealogists can you help me please?

Question

On the TV program 'Psychic Kids' a little girl supposedly comunicates with the spirit of a boy called Freddie who was murdered by his mother in 1886.

Then the host of the show finds Freddie on the 1880 census, thereby 'proving' that the kid was talking to a ghost.

Terry kindly looked Freddie up in 1880 for me yesterday

1880 United States Federal Census

Name: Freddie Stuart

Home in 1880: Paxton, Ford, Illinois

Age: 8

Estimated Birth Year: abt 1872

Birthplace: Illinois

Relation to Head of Household: Son

Father's Name: Augustus L.

Father's birthplace: Ohio

Mother's Name: Catharine

And I have since found a record of him getting married in 1902 on familysearch.org

Fred E. Stewart

Birth:

Paxton, Ford, Illinois

Parents:

Father: Augustus S. Stewart Family

Mother: Catherine Dolan

Marriages:

Spouse: Grace Burtnett Family

Marriage:

25 AUG 1902 Paxton, Ford, Illinois

I would like to find out what happened to him after that, can anybody please help?

Answer 1

Ancestry.com 1880 US Census entry lists similar data: Freddie (no middle initial listed) Stuart lives in Paxton, Ford, Illinois. Age 8, he was born in about 1872, the son of Augustus L (36) and Catharine (33).  Augustus' birth place was Ohio while Catharine was born in Ireland.  Freddie's siblings are Harry (12), Joseph A. (11), Luna M. (5), Lillie B. (3), and Ernest (2).  A Sarah Dolan (20) also lives in the household.

The Ohio state census in 1919 lists a Freddie H. Stuart (age 39).  This Freddie, also born in Illinois, lives in Lawrence,Ohio.  His wife, Minnie L., was born in Kentucky while his two daughters, Mary Wilfred (age 5) and Bessie Myrtle (age 3) were born in Oklahoma and Ohio respectively.

If Freddie's mother killed him when he was 14, he couldn't have married and fathered children, but without further information, it's difficult to affirm or discredit the tale told by the t.v. show.

Answer 2

If he was murdered in 1886 how the h**l can he marry someone in 1902????

If he's murdered, he's DEAD.  That 1902 record is someone else, surely?  Assuming "Freddie" ever existed in the first place or was murdered.  I don't belive in psychics.  They're a load of rubbish, like astrology.

Answer 3

According to the 1880 Census, Catherine Dolan Stewart/Stuart of Paxton, Ford, Illinois was married to Augustus Stewart/Stuart of Paxton, Ford, Illinois.

The only son they had by the turn of the century legal name of Fred, was a Freddie Stuart/Stewart.   Freddie was probably the nick name for Fred E. Stuart.

The effect of several US Federal laws on the taking of information for census accuracy didn't occur until the 1910 Census.

The spelling of the last name in the case of Stuart/Stewart is irrelevant.  This was common for that era. The town's population back then was only a couple hundred, so it's a 99% match between both records.  

Traditionally, the population of farming communities in America have been low, especially during the 1800's and early 1900's.

Many American last names were phonetically interpretive before the record laws took effect in the early 1900's.  Record researchers run into this alot (example Smith, Smithe, Smythe) The finalization of grammatically spelled last names during the turn of the 19th/20th century was effected by Federal Law.  The odds are very low, given the place, relation of Fred to both Catherine Dolan and Augustus and demographics for that time period that they are different people.

Besides, both Fred's have the same birth year and parents, not to mention the same hometown.

That said, you've found your Freddie/Fred E.

Answer 4

If someone murdered a child in 1876, there would have been much more of a record than a census record from 1870. For starters, Illinois was very good at keeping death records at that point in time, so the Ford County Clerk's office would have a death certificate. Secondly, Illinois was a very civilized land in the 1870s and had excellent daily and weekly newspapers. I would suggest tapping into the volunteer network on the Ford Co GenWeb site and asking someone to research the purported death for you at a Ford Co library. They can also pull any death record from the County Clerk's office for you. http://ford.ilgenweb.net/

It's not far from Chicago, so the odds of there being any lapse in record keeping because of some frontier disaster are less than realistic. The records of a child's death would exist if it actually did happen.