Effie E Commer is the daughter of Mary Jane Allen and Thomas Wesley Commer and the granddaughter of Isaiah Spencer Allen. Effie was born December 1884 in Mississippi and died 21 August 1950. She married Ambrose Augusta Guthrie on 19 December 1900 in Winston County, Mississippi. She had several children.
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Effie E Commer in FamilySearch
Effie’s FamilySearch profile had eleven sources. Even so, it is always good to review the sources to ensure the vital dates agree with the sources. A close comparison showed the original death date of 16 August 1948 had no sources. The entered marriage date was a license date, which was an easy correction.
The attached sources’ images reveal more about Effie’s story. The 1900 U.S. Census recorded Effie’s birth date as December 1884 in Mississippi, which would make her about 15 years old at the time of the census.1 The succeeding census records mostly correlate this birth date, which was recorded in 1885 as her birth year.
The interesting twist is Effie’s marriage to Ambrose Augusta Guthrie was on 19 December 1900 in Winston County, Mississippi. Effie would have been about 16 years old at the time of her marriage. And yet, her marriage record stated she was 18 years old. The line in the marriage record reads:2
This day personally appeared before me, Thos. P. Metts, Clerk of the Circuit Court in and for said County, A. Guthrie, applicant, who, upon oath, deposeth and saith that the parties applying for License to marry have arrived at the statutory age prescribed by law 21 and 18 years, respectively, and that there is no legal cause to obstruct the marriage of Mr. A. A. Guthrie and Miss Effie E. Commer for which license is asked.

Mississippi had a minimum marriage age law, and Effie was too young. In other words, she lied on the marriage license to marry Ambrose Guthrie. Technically, it was Ambrose who lied, knowingly or not since he was the primary applicant. This is not an unusual thing to find on marriage records, whether intentional or not. It would be interesting to find out how many people were caught for lying about one’s age on a marriage record. It would be much more difficult to do so today because marriage licenses require identification and verification.
Find A Grave
Effie E Commer’s FamilySearch profile had a death date, but it was unsourced. Ancestry provided a record hint for her Find A Grave memorial with a different death date, but it matched the date on the headstone with her husband Ambrose. Find A Grave memorial information is generally unsourced, but a photograph of a headstone is at least a better source than not having one at all. The death date on the headstone was 21 August 1950, and I updated the FamilySearch profile with that date and the link to the memorial.3
Contributors to Find A Grave will often link the memorials to family members, and that was the case with Effie. Several of her children had Find A Grave memorials, including a memorial for an infant that was born and then died on 9 April 1904. This child was missing from the FamilySearch Family Tree, so I added the child. Each of Effie’s children will need to be looked at carefully to make sure their profiles are also complete on FamilySearch.
The Find A Grave memorial was missing a death location. FamilySearch has two Mississippi death record collections. One collection only goes to 1943 and the other to 1921, so neither would have evidence of Effie’s death in 1950.
Future Research
- Carefully review each child of Effie E Commer on FamilySearch and complete their profiles, including adding any other missing children.
- Search Newspapers.com for an obituary for Effie E. Commer to see if the obituary mentions a death place. An obituary may also provide further evidence for the death date.
Sources
- 1900 U.S. Census, Winston County, Mississippi, population schedule, Beat 5, enumeration district (ED) 102, sheet 3A (penned), dwelling 43, family 45, T. W. Commer household; digital image, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 21 December 2024); citing NARA microfilm publication T623. ↩︎
- “Mississippi, County Marriages, 1818-1979,” entry for A. A. Guthrie-Effie E. Commer, 8 December 1900, Winston County, Mississippi; digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 21 December 2024). ↩︎
- Find A Grave, database with images (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 21 December 2024), memorial 70669898, Effie E. Guthrie, (1884-1950), gravestone photographed by Finding My Roots, member 47738206. ↩︎