| Notes |
- Sometimes recorded as "William Richard Workman", but the only document we've seen that was filled out in his own hand, his 1918 World War I draft registration card, gives his middle name as "Richmond."
Dates for William Richmond Workman:
Kentucky Birth Records, 1852-1910, on ancestry.com, gives his birth date as 7 October 1875.
Kentucky Birth Records, 1847-1911, on ancestry.com, gives his birth date as 18 Sep 1876. But the handwritten record of 1876 Fulton County births is peculiar. The births are in neither name nor date order, which suggests that this ledger was made well after 1876 by copying a stack of individual records. And while most of the records show the name and birth state of both parents, Wm. Workman's shows only that his father was J. P. Workman.
The 1900 Fulton County, KY census gives his birthdate as "Sept. 1876" and his age as 23.
The 1910 census gives his birth date as "about 1877"; the 1920 census says "abt 1878".
The Hammonds family tree page gives his birthdate as 4 October 1877.
This page, which is primarily about the brief military career of his father, gives his dates as 4 Oct 1877 - 1 Jul 1945. It also calls him "Willie R. Workman."
His Arkansas death certificate gives his birth as 4 Oct 1876 in Fulton, Kentucky.
All of the above notwithstanding, we believe he was born on 4 Oct 1875. First, because that's the date recorded in notes taken by Jeannette Hayden in conversation with his daughter Neville Workman. Second, because that's the date he recorded on his 1918 draft registration document. And third, because the closest census to his birth, the 1880 US census of Fulton County, Kentucky, gives his age in 1880 as 5.
We long assumed that Detroit was his place of death because Patrick's mother recalled, based on conversations with his father's family members, that in later years he came up north and had a small store -- "a little candy store, which could have been a sort of convenience store, in Detroit." Evidently William R.'s wife Kate and his daughter Mildred wouldn't see him, but his daughter Neville would visit him and called him "Papa." A Wm R Workman is listed in the 1928 Detroit city directory, wife given as (Kath), factory worker, home address 6416 Helen Ave apt. B8. This might be him.
But in fact he died in Hot Springs, Garland County, Arkansas, on 1 July 1945, the date stated on that aforementioned page about his Confederate-soldier father Jefferson Porter Workman. The subject of the Arkansas death certificate is absolutely our guy. "Will R. Workman", born 4 Oct 1876 in Fulton, Kentucky, son of Jeff Workman, occupation: retail grocer (!). The death certificate even specifies that he was buried 3 Jul 1945 in Fulton, Kentucky, which matches up to the Find a Grave page for "William Richard "Willie" Workman" buried in Fairview Cemetery, Fulton, Kentucky, under a group headstone which reads WORKMAN - GRACE HORACE WILLIE JEFF SIS. Our William Workman had siblings named Grace and Horace; his father was named Jefferson; and his mother Narcissa was generally addressed as "Sis."
The death certificate also states that he'd been living in Hot Springs for six years, i.e., since about 1939.
The only false note in the death certificate is that he's described as "widowed" when in fact his wife Kate Jacobs outlived him by nineteen years. But this could easily reflect an imperfect understanding on the part of the death-certificate's informant, one W. C. Boyd. Perhaps William R. outlived a subsequent wife, such as the "Kath" who lived in Detroit with a Wm R Workman in 1928.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
1875 - 1945 (69 years)
[5, 6] 
