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So much awfulness was perpetrated on Aimee through her life. Her courage and perseverance is admirable!

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Sep 10Liked by Lori Olson White

Very interesting. Too bad they did not have DNA tests back then. I asked "Brave's Leo" when were blood type first used to establish paternity and it came back with "The first use of blood testing for paternity in the United States took place in the 1920s, following the discovery of human blood typing." So how was maternity established back in the 1920s.

Besides legally attempting to establish maternity, Aimee was battling the internal legal system since Mary Martha was not only married to a lawyer, but from your footnotes, he was also a judge. And with most professions I suspect lawyers and judges stick together to support one another. Additionally, Mary Martha and, I am guessing, Judge Taylor have substantial finances with which to battle against Aimee's accusations (no matter what the real truth might be) and unfortunately in circles of power money talks and welds lots of power. I hope her lawyers have a strong backbone and will not be swayed by payoffs to drop the case.

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Genetic genealogy would have been a game-changer, for sure, but other things like just having easy access to records would have changed her lived experience, as well. A great example is her misguided belief that Allen Rice was her father. Today a simple search reveals he died nearly two years before she was born, but in 1912, Aimee had no easy way of finding that information. She could have visited a local newspaper and gone through old copies hoping to find a reference, I suppose, but what a long and tedious process! Instead, she took what Amelia remembered as fact.

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The cliffhanger ending has me eager for the next installment.

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Just a heads up, from here on out everything is a cliffhanger haha. I remember thinking I was in an episode of 24 when I was doing the initial research 🤣

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Well, when you serialize a long story, it works to keep bringing the reader back for more!

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I eagerly await your posts every Tuesday (and those in between)! Just a hint about New Brunswick; the capital is St. John. Newfoundland’s capital is St. John’s.

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Duh. I made an error. It is Saint John, NB. I'm defaulting to my own version of a lazy Maritimer, who, by the way, often call themselves 'Timers. Just saying.

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Thanks! I think i got all them changed 🤞🏻

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What a lovely thing to say - thanks! As to that darn apostrophe- I KNOW that, I have a sticky on the wall and I STILL get it wrong 🤦🏼‍♀️

Interestingly, in the 1928 court case, Aimee and her attorneys inadvertently confuse the two towns, as well - saying the church in one burned down when, in fact, it was in the other!

Thanks for the reminder - I’ll go back and double check everything again 😉

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