PrenticeNet :: John Prentice of Sparta, Noble Co., IN

John Prentice and Alta Stark of Sparta, Noble Co., IN
By Linus Joseph Dewald Jr., Editor
Winter 1999 and Revised 3 Mar 2004

John Prentice and Alta Stark are the parents of Marvin Arthur Prentice who was b. 27 Mar 1889 in Indiana.

We do not know John's birth date, but we now know from Matt C. Smith's email of 16 Apr 2001 that Alta Stark was b. 3 Oct 1871 in Stark County, OH. (Fn. 1) From that we can infer that John was likely b. c. 1868-71. We also know from that email that Alta Stark married George Kern on 20 Jan 1891 in Noble Co., IN only 2 years after Marvin Prentice was born.

We are now attempting to identify John's ancestry, but are finding a lack of information. Their marriage does not appear in Noble County marriage records, so they apparently were married in another Indiana county, or perhaps another state. Neither do Noble County cemetery records show any death record for them in Noble County.

We also checked our U.S. Marriage Index, the IGI and the Ancestral File with negative results.

We are also attempting to determine the names of any other children of John Prentice and Alta Stark.

A Theory as to John Prentice's Parents

In our Winter 1999 Prentice Newsletter we have an article about Russell Earl Prentice of Kendallville, Noble Co., IN . Russell has a son, John F. Prentice who was b. Feb 1868 in MI. John appears in the 1900 Elkhart, Elkhart Co., IN census with his wife, Beatrice, b. Nov 1869, IN. John and Beatrice were m. 25 Oct 1894 in Lagrange Co., IN. John was then almost 25 years of age.

A theory: John either married Alta Stark about 1887 or 1888 or had a relationship with her. Marvin was b. 27 Mar 1889. John and Alta then either separated or were divorced. John then m. Beatrice on 25 Oct 1894 in Lagrange Co., IN. That would explain the reason why Marvin was unable to identify his father's birth place in the 1920 census (see Fn. 1).

Correspondence: If you have any information about the folks mentioned in this article, please send your information to us at the Prentice Newsletter. Be sure to give the full title and date of this article in the Subject line of the email.

Caution: If you don't use the above email link, your email to us may be deleted as spam by our email filter.


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