Changing Names, Changing Places: The Mixed-Up Macbeths
William H. Macbeth: 1855-1931 (Maternal Great-granduncle)
Zella Helen Macbeth: 1888-1951 (Maternal First Cousin 2x
Removed)
Catherine Macbeth: 1888-? (Maternal First Cousin 2x Removed)
Several years ago, I was conducting some family history
research at the Blue Earth County Historical Society in Mankato. The Society maintains
a wonderful archive of local newspapers from the 19th and early 20th
centuries, and a card catalog-type index of surnames. Among the names I was researching
were my great-grandfather Walter Macbeth’s numerous siblings, including William
H. Macbeth. When I searched for him, I discovered an amazing set of news articles
about the elopement of a young woman, Catherine Macbeth, in 1906. Catherine was
listed in the articles as the daughter of William H. Macbeth of Broad Street in
Mankato, Minnesota. She had run off with a calliope player in a traveling
carnival. Her father did not react well to his little girl running off with a
carney. The press had a field day. The society volunteer who was helping me
print the articles was reading them and laughing, saying this was far more
entertaining than the usual articles she helped researchers print! I had to agree!
I took my treasure trove of articles home, eager to research
wild young Catherine Macbeth. But I immediately hit a snag. My great-granduncle
never had a daughter named Catherine. His daughter’s name was Zella. She was
the same age as the mysterious Catherine, and my William and his daughter Zella
lived on Broad Street in Mankato on the 1910 census. I could only find one
record for Catherine Macbeth: her marriage license. Then she simply vanishes in
the records.
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| Marriage License for Arthur Franklyn and Catherine Macbeth, dated July 13, 1906 |
I was baffled. Were there two young women living on Broad
Street in Mankato with two different fathers named William Macbeth? Had the
newspapers made a mistake about the young girl’s name? Did the Calliope Man
falsify her name on the marriage license, along with her age? (He told the
county clerk she was twenty, but she was barely seventeen.) I threw up my hands
and made a rookie mistake: I added both Zella and Catherine to my tree, listing
both as the daughters of William H. Macbeth. I probably led multiple other
researchers down a bad path if they copied my tree. This year, I was determined
to find the truth about Calliope Catherine and fix my big mistakes.
I started by looking for birth records and found them confusing. I could find no birth records for a Catherine Macbeth anywhere in Blue Earth County, Minnesota from 1880 to 1900. However, FamilySearch had an indexed birth record for Zella Macbeth, showing the birthdate of November 11, 1888 and a birthplace of Blue Earth County, Minnesota. This date corresponded to the birthdate on her death and burial records. However, the parents were listed on the index as August and Celia Macbeth. Who were they? I couldn’t find either parent anywhere on any Blue Earth County records, or anywhere else in Minnesota. I suspected a transcription error, so I went in search of the actual record image. I had to scroll through 1,957 microfilm images on Family Search to find the hand-written birth records for LeRay Township in 1888. I discovered the children’s names were written on one page of the ledger, and the parents on the facing page.
 |
| Zella's 1888 birth record |
The
microfilms of the facing pages didn’t match up perfectly, so the indexer had
connected the wrong parents to Zella—William and Nettie’s names appear above
August and Celia’s, whose actual surname seems to have been Bescue. I finally
had proof that Zella Macbeth had been born to William and Nettie Macbeth on
November 11, 1888.
 |
| William and Nettie appear above August and Celia in birth ledger facing page. |
Next I needed to prove that William, Nettie and Zella Macbeth lived on South Broad Street in 1906. Property and residence records were also confusing. William and his wife Nettie seem to have moved back and forth from rural Blue Earth County to Ward 4 in the city of Mankato. The 1895 Minnesota State Census shows William and his family, including Zella, living in Mankato’s 4th Ward. Yet the 1900 census has them living back on their farm in LeRay township. The 1904 Mankato City Directory lists William as living in rural Eagle Lake/LeRay Township. But by 1906, when Catherine/Zella elopes, they are living at 326 South Broad Street in Mankato’s 4th Ward.
 |
| 1910 Census record showing William, Nettie, Zella and sons Ralph and Donald living at 326 South Broad, Mankato, MN |
The 1910 census still has them on Broad Street, but now William’s occupation
has changed from farmer to real estate agent. Perhaps they owned both the farm
and the Broad Street property, and moved back and forth, or perhaps the
extended Macbeth family owned one or both properties. But I was able to confirm
that William was on Broad Street in 1906.
I found the final piece of proof that Zella Macbeth and
Catherine Macbeth were the same person when I found newspaper articles
reporting her divorce from Arthur Franklyn/Franklin, the calliope man. The
article states that following her divorce, “she is allowed to resume her maiden
name of Zella Macbeth.”
I discovered that I had made further errors in Zella’s entry
on my Ancestry tree. I erroneously linked her to second and third husbands in
Wisconsin, when the actual wife of those men was a different Zella Macbeth—I made
the mistake of thinking her name was fairly unique, when in the early 1900s it
was not.
I determined that Zella did remarry once, and had a
daughter, but since she and her husband Herbert Williams moved frequently and
lived abroad in both Canada and England, I didn’t find the expected census and
birth records in the United States.
Zella Macbeth’s entry on my tree now has correct information.
I have proved that despite several newspapers claiming the name of the bride was
Catherine Macbeth, Zella Macbeth was the actual seventeen-year-old who eloped
with a carnival calliope player she’d met just days earlier. William H. Macbeth
had only one daughter—Catherine Macbeth did not exist.
Zella’s full story is well worth writing about, so I will
provide the details of this age-old story of impulsive love gone bad in my next
blog post.
Sources:
Marriage License Arthur Franklyn and Catherine Macbeth. July
13, 1906. "Blue Earth, Minnesota, United States records," images,
FamilySearch
(https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939Z-B2SW-1D?view=index : Apr 4,
2025), image 1931 of 2144; Minnesota. County Court (Blue Earth County).
“Married in Haste.” (Article detailing Zella Franklin’s
divorce.) Minneapolis Journal. Minneapolis, MN. June 26, 1908 edition.
Accessed via Newspapers.com.
