UPDATE, January 30, 2021: this post was the second-ever post on Clark House Historian. It represented what we knew at the time about Mary Turck, the daughter of Peter Turck and Rachael Gay, wife of Jonathan M. Clark, and mother of the eight Clark family children. This original post was pretty accurate, and I’m leaving it here for reference. But we have learned a lot more about Mary and her Turck and Clark families in the intervening almost-5 years. For the most up-to-date info on Mary Turck Clark, please go the the revised version of this biographical sketch. Thanks for reading!

Mary Turck Clark. Photograph courtesy Liz Hickman.

It is a commonplace of genealogical and historical research that women and their stories are the “forgotten fifty percent.” In most North American societies it was, and in many places remains, the custom that upon marriage the woman took her husband’s surname. Some documents that recorded marriages, births and deaths might include a place for the woman’s surname, and sometimes the names of her parents, but this information was often left blank. After a generation or two, the woman’s name and those of her parents and grandparents would be completely forgotten, even by her closest descendants.

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