Subjective Marital Status

In the prior post, we saw the 1920 census entry for Clara Uhl, (ex)wife of Herman Lutter, listing her marital status as widowed.

This does not mean that her husband was dead!  If you do not have a death record for a "deceased" spouse, look for the person in the census anyway.  (Clara had three more years until Herman died.)

Marital Status:  Clara was divorced, not widowed.
Howard was married, but separated from his wife.
Lillian was single, but married John Kuhl two months later.

In this case, I knew that Clara Uhl and Herman Lutter divorced in the 1890s and Herman died in 1923.  In the 1920 census, Herman resided nearby with his next wife, Emma Neubauer.