Ron Arons

This talk reviews some of the research done on my great-grandfather, who served time in Sing Sing Prison for bigamy and who committed other crimes. Through the years, I've come across records of other people with the same name who were born in the same general timeframe, lived in the same places as my great-grandfather, and who, by some stroke of luck, also found trouble, either in business or with women. With such an uncommon name as Isaac Spier, this is rather remarkable. Through the presentation I show how I untangled and organized all of these documents to determine how many distinct individuals these records represent. (The answer is truly astonishing.) Along the way, I discuss names and name changes, timelines, the genealogical proof standard, and a variety of non-traditional records. So the talk is about methodology and a set of colorful life stories which overlap in many ways.