Existential Mysteries in the Family Tree

There are the usual unanswered questions all over the family tree -- dates, locations, cause of death, etc. But a few relatives are especially stubborn and downright mysterious.

Take my great grandmother, for instance. She and my great grandfather, Jesus Cota, had five children by the time of the 1900 census. But she does not appear on the census. Jesus says he is married, and only one of the children has a birth certificate that I have been able to find. Michael, my grandfather, got a delayed birth certificate for his 1900 birth in 1936, likely to apply for the newly instituted Social Security Act. His sister vouched for him, and the birth certificate says his mother's name was Jesus Chacon. But that is the only time I see the name. Meanwhile, three of her children used the name Martinez as a middle name, the way many Hispanic families use the mother's maiden name as a middle name. So perhaps her name was Martinez. Jesus Cota's mother was Elena Martinez -- were the children using their mother's last name as their middle name or father's mother's last name as their middle name? Is the mysterious "Jesus Chacon" a mirage? Several women? Someone had those children! Who was she?

Then there's Patrick Towey, my husband's great grandfather, who arrived in the U.S. from Ireland in the late 1880s or early 1890s. He married Nora in 1896 and they had ten children and several farms in Nebraska that were perhaps not entirely successful. In 1925, for unknown reasons, the family broke up, with everyone leaving the farm. The children were mostly grown up by then and not one became a farmer. Most of them moved to Omaha, the city where Patrick and Nora had married. But Patrick did not return to Omaha. He disappeared. He turns up in 1927 on a return ship from Ireland -- he had gone back to the old country for a visit apparently. And then he stayed with his sister in Tarrytown, New York. But then he disappeared again. Maybe he went back to Ireland yet again. He did not reappear for any of his children's marriages or for the death of his oldest daughter. Where did he go?

My favorite for being mysterious is George, my own grandfather, who was born in Mexico in 1892 or 1893 or 1894 or possibly 1895. He arrived in Texas around 1903 with his mother and sister. He started playing around with new names in his twenties, styling himself as George Leele, then as George Lee Monsive. As far as I can make out, he was born Marcos Leal, so the Leele and Lee are easy enough to see, and George is a bit of a stretch, but since no one else on earth had ever called himself Monsive before, I would sure like to know how he settled on the name. He started a dynasty with the name, since he married at least six times, maybe seven, and had at least six children, most of whom also had children and grandchildren. Some of the marriages were conducted simultaneously, so George had a lot to keep track of. I can only theorize that George and Marcos are the same person, there is no paper trail.

Mysteries all. Will I ever crack these cases?