The Mystery of Lovica White

She was born around 1790 in Saratoga, Albany, New York.  Some say 1788 and one source even has her at 1784.  We know she married George Albro and they had a full life together, parenting 4 children and eventually having a rather large posterity.   She died on March 18, 1860.  But, going back to her birth, Who are her parents?  

The federal census shows a Sanford White that lived near her in-laws at the time she would have been 10 years old.  Could it be that she and George were neighbors or childhood sweethearts?  Nothing else can be found about Sanford, leaving us to question if that is her father.

Then I discover a Lovica White on a web site devoted to the Burdick Family.  This Lovica had the parents of Harvey White and Eliza Brown  (Harvey’s mom was a Burdick, in case you are wondering).  Could this Lovica (“the Burdick one”) be our Lovica?  It does not show any dates for her birth.  The only date associated with this family is that of her grandmother Mary Burdick’s death in 1831.  If this Burdick Lovica were our Lovica, it would mean that her grandmother died when Lovica was about 40 years old.  That’s plausible.  Then I check the location to see if geography can be of any help.  Eliza was from Troy, that’s in the neighboring county to Saratoga, just to the east; and Harvey was from Brenton, and that’s in the neighboring county immediate North of Saratoga.   Boy and girl are about 60 miles apart and they get married; then a daughter (fourth child, actually) is born just about in the geographic middle of where they are each from.  Still seems plausible.

Then I discover a possible wrench.  Remember the Burdick Lovica has one Harvey White and Eliza Brown as parents.  Well, a Harvey White and Lovica Brown show up on a marriage certificate down in New York City as parents of the groom.  The groom is one Albert White.  Checking with the Burdick records, it does show that Lovica had a older brother named Albert.  Seems okay at first, but what’s wrong with this picture?  The marriage certificate lists Alberts birth year as 1851.  Oops. 

Are Albert, Harvey, and Eliza from this marriage certificate the same parents and brother of the Burdick Lovica?  Or does there happen to be another family with a Harvey White married to Eliza Brown with a son named Albert in the state of New York just a few years after another family with the same names.  Seems unlikely.  Maybe the Burdick Lovica is not ours after all.  

Hmmm.  Where to look next? I need to prove one or the other or neither.   I still need to exhaust my research of Whites and Browns in and around Saratoga County around 1800 to see if I can find Harvey or Eliza’s parents, siblings, or cousins.  Perhaps they went to Saratoga to live with a family member on either side and Lovica was born there. 

Good thing I’m working with some pretty rare surnames: White and Brown.  It’s not as if I had to pour through the ton of records associated with names like Kammerman or Kempton. Whew!