Recent corrections
The archive's running log of documented corrections — where what changed, when, and on whose authority. Family memory is treated as a primary source here, and a primary source can be wrong; the trail of correction is itself part of the record. New corrections land at the top.
2026
June 2026 — Thelma's name and Jean's birth date confirmed by primary records; Eesley birth order standardized
Sources of the correction: the 1927 Franklin County marriage certificate and Jean Eesley's 1925 Ohio death certificate (both via FamilySearch), supplied by Chuck Eesley, June 2026; birth order per Roberta Burnes.
Three threads resolved together. Thelma's name, long carried as the disputed "Thelma Z. Haughn," is confirmed by Dale's marriage certificate as Thelma G. Haughn — the Z was a misreading of the G, and the Haughn maiden name is genuine. Jean Goldie Eesley's birth date, previously settled only by GEDCOM, is now confirmed by her Ohio death certificate (date of birth 28 October, Grove City, age 3 years 11 months 15 days at death) as 28 October 1921. And the children of both Charles Leonard and Helen Burnes are now listed in consistent birth order across the site, including the auto-generated sibling and children lists on every person page.
June 2026 — Charles Leonard letter collection now has a documented item, pushing the date range back to 1922
Source: Roberta Burnes, email June 2026 (with the scanned letter).
The Charles Leonard Eesley letter collection had been described on this site as a 1940s correspondence in Charles Leonard's hand — large, almost-indecipherable, never read. Roberta has begun a partial scan pass; the first item is not a 1940s letter at all but the 3 September 1922 letter from Lillie Dale to her son Leonard, written while Len was on a solo cross-country car trip to California. The 1922 date pushes the collection's documented range back nearly two decades and surfaces several new facts at once: an eleven-year-old Will Eesley with a badly broken leg (family memory: a fall off a roof); the California-cousin Chauncey "Chant" Chenoweth as a recurring family-network anchor; and the documentary record of Charles Leonard's mental-health episode and Harding Hospital stay, in the wake of which Lillie took her youngest daughter Helen out west by train and Helen met Chant in person.
June 2026 — Highland Ridge reunion portrait re-dated to c. 1971–1972
Source of the correction: Roberta Burnes, email June 2026.
The labeled Charles Leonard Eesley extended-family reunion portrait at Highland Ridge had been carrying the date c. 1979–1985 based on an estimate of Anne Eesley's apparent age. Roberta — one of the labeled figures and the family's source for the print — supplied the controlling evidence: "Katie was born in '65, and she can't be much more than seven years old in this picture." The frame is now re-dated to c. 1971–1972, which places it at the beginning of the annual Highland Ridge reunion tradition Will and Peggy hosted from 1973 forward (after Charles Leonard's October 1972 death).
June 2026 — Aunt Ota's living-memory chain was wider than the archive had said
Source of the correction: Roberta Burnes, email June 2026.
The Mafry Smith Hyatt page had claimed Mafry was "the only person in this archive's record who knew Sciota in person." Roberta corrected: "Mafry and my mother both knew Ota, as well as all the other siblings in that generation (Len, Will, Don, Mary). Ota delivered my mother at home on January 16, 1924." Aunt Ota's living-memory chain ran through the entire Charles-Leonard-and-Lillie-Dale sibling generation, with Helen Eesley Burnes (Roberta's mother) carrying the deepest set of stories — the X-ray burns, the c. 1929 anatomy lesson with Don, the deathbed narration at the Bexley house on Cassidy Avenue. The full Aunt Ota page now carries those stories.
June 2026 — Verona's maiden name was Dunbar, not Sheppard
Source of the correction: GEDCOM (Dale Eesley / FamilySearch sync, 1 June 2026) plus Robert Earl Wildermuth's 1989 memoir lineage chart.
Verona's page had carried "Sheppard, maiden" from her daughter Sadye's 1976 obituary. The GEDCOM and the memoir chart together correct that: Verona's birth surname was Dunbar, after her father Seth Grosvenor Dunbar of Kennebec County, Maine. Sheppard was a first married name; Kelley was carried as a middle name from her mother Martha Kelley; Fleming came from her marriage to Wesley Fleming. Two new scaffold pages followed: Seth Grosvenor Dunbar and Martha Kelley.
June 2026 — "Andreus" Wildermuth corrected to Andreas Adam, birth date refined to 1745
Source of the correction: GEDCOM (Dale Eesley / FamilySearch sync, 1 June 2026), cross-checked against the Rielingshausen Kirchenbuch.
Robert Earl's 1990 Heritage spelled the deepest documented Wildermuth direct ancestor as Andreus and estimated his birth as ~1748. The Rielingshausen parish register has him as Andreas Adam Wildermuth, born 30 November 1745, died young at 25 on 1 June 1771. The Andreus page now carries the corrected name and date plus two additional generations recovered above him (Johann Adam 1720–1768, Johannes 1682). Robert Earl's open-question note ("I have not attempted to go back any farther than Andreus") is preserved on the page; the correction sits next to it, not over it.
June 2026 — Ottilie Wildermuth's connection to this branch resolved
Source of the correction: Wikipedia plus the Wildermuth-Gymnasium history sheet, June 2026.
The Ottilie page had carried "Whether Johannes David is a direct ancestor of the Marietta Wildermuths or a collateral relative is not yet established in this archive." June 2026 desk pass resolved it: Ottilie connects to the Marietta line by marriage, not descent. Her husband Wilhelm David Wildermuth (1807–1885) was born in Pleidelsheim, one of the three Marbach-district villages the 1990 Heritage names as Wildermuth heartland. The two American branches (the Tübingen line Ottilie married into, the Marietta line Johann Michael founded in 1847) are extended cousins through the Rielingshausen clan documented from 1521. The Tübingen Wildermuth-Gymnasium and the Marbach Wildermuthstraße are named for that branch; the Marietta line is the other American twig of the same root.
June 2026 — Jean Goldie Eesley's dates corrected and the car-crash story added
Sources of the correction: GEDCOM (1 June 2026) settled the dates; Roberta Burnes's June 2026 email supplied the cause-of-death story from her mother's memory.
Mary Bean's 1985 register had carried "b. Oct. 28, 1912, Grove City Ohio. d. died 1924, Columbus Ohio," making Jean twelve at death. The GEDCOM has 28 October 1921 to 13 October 1925 (age 4) — nine years off from the 1985 register. Charlie's 1965 12th-grade autobiography said "my Aunt Jean died from a childhood accident when she was five years old." Roberta's June 2026 email puts a clinical picture on the accident: Jean was thrown from the family vehicle in a crash, hit pavement, suffered a concussion, appeared stable for hours, then died overnight from what reads as a delayed brain bleed. Aunt Ota was the family physician who treated her.
June 2026 — Mill sign was not from a 2026 visit; the family hasn't been there yet
Source of the correction: Chuck Eesley, June 2026.
The Plainwell Eesley mill page
had attributed an Eesley Mill sign photograph to a visit. Chuck
corrected: the sign photo was not from a visit; he is hoping
to visit Plainwell in November 2026. The place page was rewritten as a
forecast (status: unreached) rather than a visit account.
June 2026 — Vietnam letters re-dated to 1969–1971
Source of the correction: Chuck Eesley, June 2026.
Several pages and the collection doc had carried 1970–71 for Charlie's tour. Charlie shipped to Vietnam in October 1969 (NCO school summer 1969, deployment that fall), and rotated out in 1971. The dates were updated across the letter docs and on Charlie's page.
June 2026 — Lijie's Chinese name confirmed as 周丽婕
Source of the correction: Chuck Eesley, on behalf of Lijie, June 2026.
Earlier instances of Lijie's Chinese name had used an incorrect second character; the correct form is 周丽婕. Corrected across the Zhou-side person pages and the bilingual sections of the Family threads essay.
June 2026 — Li Xun's Chinese characters corrected to 李恂
Source of the correction: Lijie via Chuck Eesley, June 2026.
Earlier instances had used 李迅 for Lijie's mother. The correct form is 李恂. Corrected across nine pages with a single sed pass.
June 2026 — Will Eesley's death year corrected from 1979 to 1986
Source of the correction: Chuck Eesley, June 2026.
A draft version of the Will Eesley page and several pages that referenced him had carried his death as 1979. Will died 2 June 1986; corrected throughout.
How the correction trail works
Three principles run through this log:
- Corrections are documented in place first. When a date or fact changes, the prior reading and the correction trail stay on the page where the original claim appeared. This log is the aggregation, not the substitute.
- The source of every correction is named. Whether the correction came from a family-member email, a GEDCOM sync, a German Wikipedia entry, or Chuck's own memory, the source is on the page and on this log.
- Earlier readings are preserved, not erased. Mary Bean's 1985 register entry for Jean Goldie is still recorded on Jean's page next to the corrected GEDCOM dates; Robert Earl's "Andreus" spelling is still on the Andreas Adam page next to the parish-register name. The archive treats earlier sources as primary sources too — even when they turn out to have been wrong about a date.
If you have a correction to submit, the easiest route is the contact page on Chuck's site. New corrections that arrive after this log was last updated will appear at the top with the same fields: date the correction was made, what changed, source.