Texanna Clough (Rutherford) - First name - Texanna or Texas Anna

Alex,

Thank you very much for the information.

The mix-up and misspellings of the names sounds plausible.

One issue I have with your theory, however, is that on FamilySearch.org, Texanna Rutherford and Indianna T. Rutherford are listed as two different children of Thomas Rutherford and Constance M. Thomas Rutherford. Texanna is listed as having been born in 1843 and Indianna is listed as having been born in 1846. However unlikely it seems, Thomas and Constance may have named one daughter Texas Indiana and the other Indiana Texas.

I have also seen the name spelled Texana like the town in Texas. That community was formed in 1832. It was one of the earliest Anglo-American settlements in the state and was originally called Santa Anna. It was renamed Texana in 1835. During the Texas Revolution Texana became a port of entry for American volunteers. Texana became the county seat when Jackson County was formed after the Revolution. Texana became a ghost town after it was hit by a double-whammy in the mid 1880s when it was first bypassed by Count Teleferner’s New York, Texas and Mexican Railroad in 1883, and shortly thereafter, it lost an election to Edna for the Jackson County seat of government. The site now lies under the Lake Texana reservoir.

Could her family have had some connection to the town of Texana, TX, perhaps connected to the Texas Revolution, prompting her parents to name her Texana?

She may have been named after the town of Texana, rather than the name being a contraction of Texas Anna or Texas Indiana or Texas Indianna. She may have had a sister named Indiana. Over time the two names may have been confused as belonging to one person. Or perhaps the opposite happened and over time the one person named Texas Indiana or Indiana Texas was split into two people.

I will have to investigate the matter further.

I first came across the name Texana (spelled with one n instead of two) Rutherford when reading a book about the lineage of the Rutherfords in my teens in the mid 1970s. My maternal grandmother, Irene Beatrice Alley Howard, had the book. At the time, I was spending the summer with my grandparents to help them with chores because my grandmother was caring for my grandfather after he had a stroke.

My grandmother said she got the book from a cousin who was researching the family history and the connection of my grandfather's, Robert Nelson Howard's, family to the Rutherford family, and through that connection, a connection to Rutherford B. Hayes.

According to that book, Texana Rutherford was my great-great-grandmother. If I remember correctly, the book said something about Texana having attended Oberlin College or Oberlin Conservatory of Music, but that may have been about another woman in the lineage. The most memorable part of the book for me was that it claimed there was some distant and unspecified family connection between my family and the Nobel laureate physicist Ernest Rutherford. This is memorable to me because I was interested in science at the time and I later became a physicist.

Also, stuck in the book was a type written paper outlining my grandfather's lineage back to my 2nd great grandfather, Samuel Howard, who emigrated from England to the U.S., settling in Cayuga, NY in the late 1820s. That paper had some notes on Samuel Howard's son Daniel's journey from Cayuga, NY to Calhoun, MI in the 1840s then to Hanover County, Virginia in the 1870s.

In 1993 after my maternal grandmother passed, when my mother asked me if there were any items from the estate that I wanted, I asked for that book and the typewritten paper it had contained, but no one could find them.

Her name is actually entered as Indiana rather than Indianna in the 1870 Census, unlike in the 1850 Census and the 1860 Census where it is entered as Indianna. In the 1880 Census, the type written information extracted from the record says her name is Tax A. Clough, but the handwritten entry looks like Tex. A. to me.

So, it looks like sometime between 1870 and 1880, she went from using her first name Indiana/Indiana to using her middle name, which may be Texas or Texana or Texanna, or to using a contraction of her first and middle name but in reverse order, leading to Texana or Texanna.

Based on the information I have so far, I'm inclined to think her birth name was Indiana Texas Rutherford, and that when she was in her 20's she decided that she did not like having a name that was the same as a state, so she made up and started using a name that was a contraction of her first and middle name. I do think Texana sounds better than Inditex or Indas. I wonder if she knew about the town of Texana in Texas. If it had been me, I think I would have just eliminated the "In" in Indiana to become Diana T. Rutherford, and never used my middle name, but perhaps she wanted a more unusual name.

I think Tex Anna, Tex A., Texas Anna, and the like, arise from people hearing the one name Texana as two names, a first name and a middle name, and assuming Tex is short for Texas.

Given the timing of her starting to use Texana/Texanna being around the time she was married, I wonder if she officially changed her first name to Texana/Texanna when she changed her surname from Rutherford to her married surname Clough. It would be interesting to see how she actually signed her name on official documents before and after she was married.

Here is the information with citations that I have found so far:

In the 1850 Census, there is an entry for Indianna T. or F. Rutherford. The script letter for the middle initial looks like it could be either a T or an F. To me, it looks more similar to the F in the sex column than the T in the entry for Thomas, but it does not look exactly like either of them. Indianna's age is listed as 4, which would make her birth year 1845 or 1846 depending on where her birthday fell relative to when the census information was taken.. There is an 8 year old Mary F. or Mary T. Rutherford listed, so her birth year would be 1841 or 1842. There is no child listed that was at an age such that they could have been born in 1843, which is the birth year listed in some entries for Texana/Texanna/Texas Anna/etc. Citation: "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M8DS-W7T : 23 December 2020), Thomas Rutherford, Goochland, Goochland, Virginia, United States; citing family , NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

In the 1860 Census, the entry is clearly Indianna T. Rutherford, age 14, making her birth year 1845 or 1846. (BTW, Mary's middle initial is clearly F. in this census record.) Citation: "United States Census, 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (ark:/61903/1:1:M41N-RR8 : Wed Apr 05 08:52:17 UTC 2023), Entry for Thomas Rutherford and Constance M Rutherford, 1860.

In the 1870 Census, the entry is clearly Indiana T. Rutherford, age 25, making her birth year 1844 or 1845. Citation: "United States Census, 1870", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFG9-SCT : 29 May 2021), Indiana T Rutherford in entry for Thomas Rutherford, 1870.

In the 1880 Census, the type written information extracted from the record says her name is Tax A. Clough, but the handwritten entry looks like Tex. A. to me. Her age is listed as 33, making her birth year 1846 or 1847 Citation: "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MC5N-TGB : 15 January 2022), Tax A. Clough in household of Saml. N. Clough, Jackson Twp, Louisa, Virginia, United States; citing enumeration district , sheet , NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm .

In the Louisa County, VA, District No. 2, Register of Births, p. 221, for 1878, Edmonia Clough's mother is listed as Texana Clough. The person listed as giving the information was the father S.N. Clough. Note that the script T in Texana looks similar to a script L in the handwriting of whomever was recording the information in the register. This is probably why there is an entry in Virginia, Vital Records, 1715-1901 for the marriage record of Harland Howard listing Edmonia Clough's mother as Leanna. Citation: "Virginia, Vital Records, 1715-1901", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6JLW-MRYG : 11 April 2023), Edmonia N Clough in entry for Harland Howard, 1901.

A pop-up on FamilySearch.org said I would have to go to a FamilySearch center or affiliate library to access the image of that record, so I have not viewed the original record.

In the Louisa County, VA, District No. 2, Register of Births, for 1875, Thomas O. Clough's mother is listed as Texasia Clough. The person listed as giving the information was the father Samuel N. Clough. Citation for that record: "Virginia, Library of Virginia State Archive, Births, Marriages, and Deaths 1853-1900", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHN-G3YN-T8RM?cc=4231103 : 2 May 2023), > image 1 of 1.

In the 1910 Census, in the household of Hancock K. Clough, she is listed in the typed information extracted from the entry as Leeana, but the handwriting in the image of the record looks looks to me like Texana. The script T was confused with a script L, and the script x was confused with a script e - probably the person extracting the information from the handwritten record thought the loop on the script e was just not closed. Note that some other records say that Hancock's middle initial is R rather than K. I can't tell which it is from the handwriting in the image of the record. Her age is listed as 65, making her birth year 1845 or 1844. Citation: "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MPLT-DWS : accessed 25 June 2023), Leeana Clough in household of Hancock K Clough, Beaverdam, Hanover, Virginia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 23, sheet 11A, family 213, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 1631; FHL microfilm 1,375,644.

She is listed as Texas A. Clough, age 74 (making her birth year 1845 or 1846), in the household of Arthur W. Jamison in the 1920 Census. Citation: "United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MJJM-N1P : 4 February 2021), Texas A Clough in entry for Arthur W Jamison, 1920.

How Geni says I am distantly related to Rutherford B. Hayes through Indiana Texas Rutherford Clough:

Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States is your first cousin thrice removed's husband's great uncle's wife's second cousin once removed's husband.
You
→ Virginia Irene Redman
your mother → Robert Nelson Howard
her father → Edmonia Nelson Howard (Clough)
his mother → Indiana Texas Clough (Rutherford)
her mother → John James Rutherford
her brother → Maggie L.R. Salmon
his daughter → Charles Napoleon Salmon
her husband → Eugene Beauharnais Salmon
his father → Ann L. Salmon
his mother → Jacob B. Fowler
her brother → Nancy Harrison Fowler
his wife → James W. Ware
her father → Capt. John B. Ware
his father → James Ware, M.D.
his brother → Lucy Catherine Mcguire
his daughter → James Webb
her son → Lucy Webb Hayes, First Lady ("Lemonade Lucy")
his daughter → Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States
her husband

Correction: In an earlier post I wrote "the Nobel laureate physicist Ernest Rutherford" but Ernest Rutherford's Nobel Prize was in Chemistry rather than in Physics.

I did, however, learn about his work on atomic structure in my Physics classes.

How Geni says I am distantly related to Ernest Rutherford, but interestingly, it is not through Indiana Texas Rutherford Clough:

You
→ Virginia Irene Redman
your mother → Robert Nelson Howard
her father → Lillian Thomas Sears
his sister → Carl Newton Sears, Jr.
her son → Diane Lewis Cauthen
his wife → Mattie Virginia Douthat
her mother → Mattie Brittle
her mother → John Brittle
her father → John Jeremiah Battle, IV
his father → Elizabeth Frances Bryan
his sister → Captain John Gibson Bryan, I
her husband → Sarah Bailey
his sister → William "Flea Buck" Bailey
her son → Thomas James Bailey
his son → Isham Bailey
his son → Maryann Moriah Baily
his wife → Anne Elisabeth Fairhall
her sister → Benjamin Fairhall
her son → Albert Oliver Fairhall
his son → Vivien Ethel Rutherford
his daughter → Raymond Arthur Rutherford
her husband → Arthur Raymond Rutherford
his father → Ernest Rutherford, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1908
his brother

Alex,

I agree with you that the entry on FamilySearch with two daughters, one named Indianna T. and the other named Texanna, is incorrect since only Indianna/Indiana T. shows up in the census records, and then after about 1870 only some form of Texanna/Texana/Tex Anna shows up in the records.

I think that most likely her birth name was Indiana Texas Rutherford. Perhaps Indiana was misspelled on her birth records as Indianna, but I have not found her birth certificate yet to be able to determine whether or not that is the case.

Misspellings on birth certificates do occur. It happened to me.

My middle name is supposed to be Carroll like the middle name of my father and his father. My birth certificate, however, has Carrol on it.

Despite that, I always write my middle name on official documents as Carroll, even for those documents requiring me to submit a copy of my birth certificate for identification.

Never has anyone else even noticed the spelling difference. My parents didn't even notice the spelling difference until I pointed it out to them. My mother replied that she had told the doctor it was spelled with two r's and two l's, but he still got it wrong.

That's true about doctor's handwriting. The more old original records written in cursive that I see, the more I think that bad handwriting is more prevalent than good handwriting, and the more I think that it is a leading cause of many errors in the records.