One of the more interesting projects I embarked on this week was that of Mary J Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Gordfrey-Gray-Lindley-Crowther-LePage. Yes, that is eight married names and sadly, no maiden name.[i]
I initially found her in a newspaper article on the GenealogyBank database while searching for other newspaper clippings for a blog article I was writing for them. Of course, I thought this would be interesting to research.
Usually, women who married multiple times can be difficult to trace, because they change their names every time they get married. If you don’t know who the husband(s) are, you don’t know what her last name was. It’s tricky to find a marriage record if you only know the name of one party.
This article about Mary J. is a genealogical goldmine, as it lists every husband she ever had and provides an approximation of when each marriage occurred.
By extracting a general timeline from the article, I was able to come up with the following research plan:
- Search for the marriage of Edward Wakeman and Mary J around 1884. She was in Danbury, Connecticut, at the time, but might have eloped considering her young age.
- Seek out annulment records in Connecticut around 1884 for Mary J and Edward Wakeman.
- Search for the marriage of Henry Saunders and Mary J Wakeman; they likely married around 1886 in New York.
- Search for a death record of Henry Saunders around 1890. He was a traveling salesman, so he could have died anywhere.
- Search for the marriage record of Joseph Powers and Mary J Saunders in New York.
- Search for the death record of Joseph Powers in New York.
- Use city directories to find Mary J Powers’ boarding house in the 1890s; she opened it around 1893, most likely in New York.
- Search for a marriage record for John Godfrey and Mary J Powers around 1893 in the place where her boarding house was.
- Search for a divorce record for John and Mary Godfrey around 1895 in New York.
- Search for Mary J Godfrey or Gray in the 1895 New York state census.
- Search for Mary J Gray or Lindley in the 1905 New York state census.
- Trace Mary J in city directories to determine when her surname changed from Godfrey to Gray to Lindley.
- Find the marriage record for Mary J Godfrey and William Gray in New York.
- Find the divorce record for Mary and William Gray in New York.
- Find the marriage record for Mary J Gray and James H Lindley in New York.
- Find the divorce record for Mary and James Lindley in New York.
- Find the marriage record for Thomas Crowther and Mary J Lindley around 1903 in New York.
- Find the divorce record for Mary and Thomas Crowther in New York.
- Find the marriage record for Mary J Crowther and William LePage in 1906 in New York.
- Trace William and Mary LePage forward in censuses.
- Search the death indexes for Mary J LePage to determine if she died with that surname.
How accurate was the information in the newspaper article? It’s hard to say before researching to verify it. The article I found was originally from a New York newspaper and was reposted by a Pennsylvania newspaper. Clearly, the story was sensational in its time. The article reported how Mary J was unhesitating, suggesting she may have liked getting attention from the newspapers. Would someone like this have given an accurate account? Or would she have exaggerated details to make her story more sensational?
[i] “Oft-Wedded Dame Gives Her Recipe,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA), 16 December 1906, pg. 9, col. 4; imaged, GenealogyBank (https://genealogybank.com : accessed 5 August 2025).