I recently received a certificate for 15 years of service at work. As I was looking at it, I thought about how someone looking at it in the future might think I had worked there for the last 15 years.

So when you are looking at old documents, the whole story might be more complicated than you think. An example might be that you come across a marriage certificate that lists the bride as widowed. So you might think that she was married once before and her spouse died.

There are actually more possibilities than that. She may have been married more than once. If she lived at a time when divorce was considered wrong, she may have divorced but is telling people she is widowed. A third possibility is that she either left her husband or he left her and no divorce happened. Checking census records, you might find a couple living in different states and both being recorded as single or widowed when they were clearly married in the past. Especially when you have people who have had multiple spouses, it can be hard to keep track. In this post I covered a step-great-grandfather who was married several times.

An Example of the Whole Story

So this is a bit about my work history. In March of 1991, I started work at Riley Hospital for Children. At the time, it was part of Indiana University. In January of 1997, Riley, Indiana University Hospital (also part of the University) and Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis merged to become Clarian Health. I continued to work at Riley until September of 2001.

I left and held a couple of other jobs. In 2016, I was working as a bus aide for our local school district. I had been looking for something full time for a bit. I came across a job working at Riley providing safety education and low cost safety products. So I applied and got the job. At the end of May 2016, I started working for Indiana University School of Medicine, where I still am now.

So I had almost 6 years the first time around with Indiana University and almost 5 years with Clarian the first time around. This time around, I am over 9 years so far. Hence the 15 years total, but not in the straight forward way you might think.

It pays to check out the details to see what you can find. Someone years from now might find that paper and put in a family history program that I was working there for fifteen years starting in 2010.