Who was Named What?
If I was going to identify the location of Rosa's house in Hicksville , I probably would need to know the name under which she owned it. I was confident that her first name was Amy, and that her middle initial was L. Her birth surname was said to be Allison, but the property might have been acquired using one of her husbands' last names - if she was legally married to him.
With her having had so many husbands, whose names might or might not have been stated accurately, I was not feeling very optimistic. I decided to start with her most recent married name, and to work backwards through her earlier spouses' names only if necessary. In an old New York State Marriage Index, I found (despite someone's having indexed her as Anny, rather than as Amy) an entry for her marriage to Edward Stevens. If she had kept her personal information on the county property register up to date, it would show the owner as Amy L. Stevens.
Of course, circumstances did not allow me to go to Long Island and check the county records; I was limited to using whatever online references I could. Depending on the sources that I accessed online, I would search for one or more of the following people at any given time:
- Amy L. Stevens, aka Madame Rosa.
- George Harper, her reputed past husband / lover
- Amy F. Harper, their daughter
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