Friday's Who Do You Think You Are? episode touched on a number of interesting research dilemmas - including what to do when you encounter conflicting information. In this case, the conflicting information was an obituary for the son of Sarah Jessica Parker's fourth great grandfather, John S. Hodge, which stated that he died en route to the California gold rush in 1849, while his son, John Eber Hodge, was apparently born in late 1850 or in 1851. How could John S. Hodge be the father of John Eber Hodge?

In this situation, the researchers kept digging. Following the "gold rush" trail brought out in the obituary, they discovered a John S. Hodge from Ohio listed in the 1850 census living in El Dorado, California. From there, I'm not sure of the research path they took, but I encountered a clue to John S. Hodge by searching for "John S. Hodge" and "gold" in Google Books. Read more...

Small Nuggets -The Death of Gold Prospector John S. Hodge originally appeared on About.com Genealogy on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 08:39:43.

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