HIS MIDDLE NAME IS NOT "LOENI"

THE TROUBLE WITH GENEALOGY ON THE INTERNET IS ….

….once something is put on the internet and it turns out to be incorrect, it is absolutely, positively impossible to ever get it corrected. Today I am going to try one more time to correct an honest error made by someone many years ago – and hope that anyone who wants to know about Thomas Loeni Bradley will find the truth here if they do a Google Search.

In 1932 a lady named Mrs. Minnie Alverson of Moberly, Missouri had in her possession a family record of the birth of the children of Leonard Keeling Bradley and his wife, Mary Boone Bradley. This lady said in a letter to researcher Bess Bradley that she believed this record was written on old sheepskin parchment and she believed it to be the original record. At this time Bess Bradley had a copy of this record and was trying to get Mrs. Alverson to send her a notarized copy of the information it contained. I have no idea whether this every happened. Nevertheless, Bess typed up the record and shown below is what it says:

Mary Boone was born March 7, 1766 and was married to Leonard Keeling Bradley on the 20th day of June 1785, by Eli Cleveland, Squire, at Boone’s Station about one o’clock in the afternoon.

Terry Bradley, first son of Leonard K. Bradley, and Mary Bradley was born April 16, Sunday night in the year of our Lord 1786.

Elizabeth Bradley was born about 10 o’clock Monday morning on the 22nd day of October, 1787 and departed this life April 27th 10 o’clock in the morning, 1819.

Elizabeth B. Moore was born the 10th of September, 1810.(*) Samuel Bradley was born January 30th in the year of our Lord 1790, Saturday morning.

Thomas Bradley was born October 1st in the year of our Lord, 1792, Monday morning
Keeling Bradley was born September 22nd in the year of our Lord, 1794. Monday, 12 o’clock.

Edward Bradley was born February 10th, in the year of our Lord, 1797, one o’clock afternoon of Friday.

Levi Day Bradley was born on January 28th, in the year of our Lord, 1799. Monday morning, about four o’clock.

Squire Boone Bradley, the seventh son and eighth child of Leonard K. Bradley and Mary Bradley was born on Thursday morning about daybreak, March 10th, 1801.

Milton Bradley, son of Leonard K. Bradley and Mary Bradley, was born on Monday, the 7th day of March, 1803. His mother being that day 37 years of age. The fiftieth year of age of L. K. Bradley, his father.

Newton Bradley, the tenth child and ninth son of Leonard K. Bradley and Mary Bradley, was born on Thursday night at 11 o’clock and thirty minutes afternoon, on 14th day February, 1805, and departed this life on the 12th day of March, 1805, about 10 o’clock in the morning.

Lura Bradley, the daughter of Leonard K. Bradley and Mary, his wife, was born on Tuesday, August the 26th, 1806, about 9 o’clock in the afternoon.

Calvin Bradley was born August 26th, 1811, at 11 o’clock in the night. He being the twelfth child of Leonard K. Bradley and Mary, his wife.


*This Elizabeth B. Moore is the child of Elizabeth Bradley who married William Moore. The baby lived to adulthood and married Mathew David Oliver.

Now because Leonard Keeling Bradley (LKB) fought in the Revolutionary War, there is a nice fat pension file for him at the National Archives. Included in this pension file is a handwritten letter to the Commissioner of Pensions dated 24 March, 1844, signed by his living heirs. Those signing were Milton Bradley, Calvin Bradley, Loura (x) Dry, Terry Bradley, Samuel Bradley, Thomas Bradley, Levi D. Bradley and Squire B. Bradley.

At some subsequent time, the Bureau of Pensions filled out a form for someone asking for a statement of the military history of Leonard Bradley. A copy of this form was put in the pension file. The person filling out the form gathered information from two sources. The top of the form contains information from LKB’s military pension records, and at the bottom under “Remarks,” he or she copied the names of the heirs listed on the bottom of that handwritten letter sent to the Commissioner of Pensions. I am sure this was an honest effort to provide information for the inquirer, but a mistake was made in the names and that mistake has taken on a life of its own. Take a peek.

Now the names of Milton, Calvin, Terry, Samuel, Thomas are correct…..but right there is where the confusion is. If you look at the original handwritten note by the heirs, you will see that Levi D. Bradley didn’t have very good handwriting. However, the person copying these names did not put a comma after Thomas’ name, and furthermore translated Levi D. as Loeni O. This person wasn’t sure he got it right, indicated by the question mark he put after the O. So for all the world it looks like Thomas is really named Thomas Loeni O. He isn’t. He never was.

But all these years, anyone requesting a copy of LKB’s pension papers will get one showing Thomas as “Thomas Loeni” Bradley. (And of course on this form poor old Levi D. didn’t even show up.)

Since Thomas Bradley is my great-great-grandfather, I have accumulated a whole bunch of material on him, both primary and secondary source information, and NONE ever show him with a middle name. That name “Loeni” was nothing more than a guess made by a government employee of what the name below Thomas was, and although that person carefully put commas between the other children’s names he or she failed to do so between Thomas and Levi D., consigning forever the middle name of Loeni to Thomas.

There is no way to undue such a mistake in the pension records, and I am sure if one were to do a google search on the name “Thomas Loeni Bradley” it would be clearly obvious that as I stated before, it has taken on a life of its own.

I am hopeful that by putting this in my blog, at least those who are diligent researchers will find this information and delete the “Loeni” after Thomas and restore poor Levi D.s name to him.

Incidentally, Leonard Keeling Bradley’s wife, Mary “Polly” Day Boone, was a daughter of Samuel Boone (Daniel’s older brother) and his wife Sarah Day Boone. Sarah’s father was Levi Day.