Madness Monday 1st edition

Well here is our first edition of Madness Monday. Click on the title to see all the criteria, but Thomas summed it up best with “mad ancestors or elusive ancestors that drive us mad”

Mary Jane (Vest) Hayes

I have chosen for this edition to write about my maternal 2nd great grandmother. She is a serious brick wall I am trying to break now and I have been for four years. Really she is a brick wall because I have almost no information to start with. Believe or not I have NO dates for her other than the date her son, my great grandfather Martin Hayes, was born. And only through photos and his birth certificate do we know her name. That's it! (well that was until about 30 minutes ago when I tried a different spelling of the Hayes name (Hays) and found them in the 1910 census. Hey it's a start!)

I hope to discover places and dates for all the vital events in her life, birthday, marriage and death. Heck I'd even be happy if I could find her and the family in a census record. No I haven't even found one yet!

What I do have is this:

• According to the 1910 census Mary (Mollie) is 42 years old, so that would put her birth at about 1868 and it states she is married in MO.
  
• James Martin Hayes married Mary Jane Vest about 1899 (this is based off of data from 1910 census.)
  
• 1907 - Martin Hayes is born to James Martin Hayes and Mary Jane Vest on the April 4th in Homeney, OK. He is my great grandfather.
• 1910 the family is in Black Dog, Osage, Oklahoma. They have her name as Mollie, not Mary, but the rest of the family fits and I was able to determine that for both James and Mary this is a second marriage. (children listed below for Mary)
  
• Martin has three sisters, Gloria, Pearl, and Opal. He also had three step siblings, Anna Knott, Nannie Knott and Charlie Knott. So Mary was first married to a man by the last name of Knott.
  
• According to my Aunt Mary Jane (yes who was named after Mary) and my Aunt Dawna, Mary lived to be about 104 and died somewhere in OK in the 1980's.
  

Research I have done that doesn't fit her is:

• I've looked in the Social Security Index on line for and Mary hayes that died in Oklahoma, only to find none of them wer 104 years old and many of them where born too close to the time her son Martin was born therefore ruling them completely out.
• I've searched the census records for her husband (and her) from 1900-1930 in OK, TX and CA. If they were in any other states I don't have that, but I also did search nation wide just in case. Until about 30 minutes ago when I spelled the Hayes name as Hays and finally after four years found them in the 1910 census as James and Mollie Hays. Mollie is either a nickname or a mistake.
  
• I posted her photo on Dead Fred and recently had a possible hit from a Vest family member who thinks Mary looks a lot like her family. My draw back is that they are from AL and AR. We were told that she was German. I'm thinking now that means she is of German descent. But still I have her as born in MO, her father born in IN and mother in KY (all from 1910 census). So I still don't see a conection at least not yet.
  
• I've looked on Find-A-Grave for a burial/headstone, but no luck there either.
• I've looked online for a marriage records of her marriage to James Martin Hayes, but no luck.
  
• I do know that Annie married a Clark (ironicaly there is a Clark family on the 1910 census. I'll pursue that later), and that Opal married a Haile, but I know nothing more of their family or spouses.

Research that I still need to do but haven't done:

• My Aunt Dawna is looking for a funeral card that she believe was in my grandma's things for Mary Jane Hayes. I hope that will lead to more informaiton, especially around her death.
• I will now go back and research other records using the alternate spelling of Hayes as Hays.
• I need to find Mary's first marriage as well to Mr. Knott, and I'd like to find James' first marriage that I didn't know about until now.

Well this went from a complete brick wall to one that is crumbling just in the time it took me to type this up. I hope some of you have just as much luck.