An Abundance of Nathaniels

When my granddaughter Megan visted a few weeks ago she went home with a copy of the manuscript for Long Journeys, to read and offer editing advice.  She texted me the following day asking “Is this the same Nathaniel as in the previous story?” She had caught an error in one reading that I had missed in all the times I have read and corrected the stories of the people who cared for John Comins, Junior’s old book.  To make matters worse, I brushed her off with: “Yes, there is a Nathaniel in every branch of the family.”

To me, everything seemed fine with the Nathaniels.  And yes, there are a lot of them in the Tyler family.  Daniel Moroni had a son named Nathaniel, as did his father, the first Daniel in our stories, whose father Andrews had named his first son Nathaniel, after his father Nathaniel, and he after his father Nathaniel, etc. etc., back to 1611 when I found the first Tyler in our line who didn’t name any of his children Nathaniel.  To make matters a little more complicated all the families were large, with 8 to 12 children each, and every line of every family seems to have had, as well as a Nathaniel, a William, a Daniel and an Elizabeth. 

Last week as I completed one last reading before the manuscript was to be submitted for printing the following morning, I finally saw what Megan was referring to.

In the story about the first Daniel Tyler and his wife I had written, “Their son Nathaniel, who was born while Daniel was on his mission, died at 16 years of age from an illness related to diabetes.”  In the story about his son, Daniel Moroni Tyler and his wife, I had written, “Their son Nathaniel died at 16 years of age from an illness related to diabetes.”

Oh No! The Ebook is already available on Kindle and the paper books nearly ready to order.  How would I fix this?

After a few minutes of panic, I went to Familysearch.org to see which Nathaniel had died at 16 from a diabetes related illness and then I would decide how to correct the problem.

This is what I learned:

Both those Nathaniels died at a young age, though neither at precisely 16.  

Daniel Tyler’s son was born on August 17, 1853 and died April 28, 1869 – at the age of 15 years, 8 months and 11 days.

Daniel Moroni Tyler’s son, William Nathaniel, was born May 31, 1882 and died January 7, 1897 – at the age of 14 years, 7 months and 7 days.

Of even more interest, they both could very well have died from an illness related to diabetes.

I had originally obtained my information from old family histories passed down from my grandmother Emily Tyler Cramer and simply hadn’t noticed that the information was written identically for each of the boys.  In a history written by her about her parents she said of her older brother, “After a few days illness with diabetes, Nathaniel died January 7, 1897.” Family Search has an obituary of the earlier Nathaniel showing he died of gangrene.  In the days before antibiotics an abrasion caused by diabetes could easily turn to gangrene.

I made a couple of small changes to the stories and let them be.

Long Journeys is available now through Amazon Kindle E-Books.  The paper-back version is just a few days away and will be available either from Amazon or directly from me.  The beautiful hard back book will be available in 2-3 weeks exclusively from me. Watch for my next blog with specifics.