Talk:Elizabeth Freeman

message: Freeman was the great-grandmother (by marriageher daughter Betsy was 2nd wife to his mother's the blood great-grandfather) of the historian W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois claimed Freeman as his great-grandmother (without fully disclosing the relationship) and she likely had an influence on his life through his parents and grandparents. It is not clear to me that this is important enough to include in this article, but if we do, we should be clear that it is not a blood relationship. Jojalozzo 19:13, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: What exactly is the relationship?  Was she the stepmother of one of Du Bois's grandparents?  Unless that's it (in which case I'm not sure "great-grandmother [by marriage]" is an accurate term), I'm not sure how one can be someone's mother, grandmother, or great-grandmother without being a blood relation. Monkeyzpop (talk) 06:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. Freeman was the second wife to his blood great-grandfather and stepmother to one of Du Bois' grandparents. A little research would tell us which one and how old the grandparent was when she married into the family. I agree that "(by marriage)" is a poor choice of words and would usually be interpreted to mean Freeman was his spouse's blood relative. It was not a blood relationship but Du Bois brought it up often, sometimes explaining it and sometimes not. Jojalozzo 15:58, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Piper and Lewinson clarified this for me. Freeman's marriage to Du Bois's great-grandfather is highly unlikely. Perhaps her daughter Betsy married into his family and was step-mother to his mother's father. No record of any marriage between members of the two families has been located. Jojalozzo 16:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Relation to W. E. B. Du Bois

message: The MOS for possessives has several options all of which are acceptable. The only MOS requirement is consistency. Given that W.E.B. Du Bois pronounced his last name to rhyme with "voice" I am ok with the proposed Du Bois's form. Jojalozzo 17:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possessive form for Du Bois 

message: I reverted an edit that puts the target of Hannah's aggression as sister Lizzie instead of daughter Betsy. The main source of this being Lizzie is Sedgewick which is a second hand report, reworked as an illustrative story in a magazine article. Piper and Levinson's research on this topic is authoritative: no such person as Lizzie has been shown to have existed. Sedgewick's report likely reflects the social norms of the her time where a daughter out of wedlock was better framed as a younger sister. Jojalozzo 18:22, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hannah/Bett/shovel event 

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
*Support this is likely the primary topic. (I objected to the speedy move because I think any primary topic change should have a full discussion; the disambiguation page appears to have been in place since 2005) -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: Substituted at 14:21, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: It seems that the page should be reorganized to improve clarity. Would breaking up the Biography section into smaller subsections on Early Years, Freedom Lawsuit, Later Years, etc. be useful in improving the structure of the article? Reshmijpatel6 (talk) 01:04, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Organization