Outsmarting the Census Indexes - Callie Sauley Patrick

Callie Sauley was born in 1872 in Spalding County, Georgia, married William Patrick in 1892 in the same county, and died in 1967 in Butts County.  Her death certificate gave her parents as Warna T. Sauley and Emily Tucker.  However, the information was provided by her grandson and the name was unusual enough that extra verification was needed. 

With the 1890 census missing, the only census that she would have appeared with her parents was 1880.  However, searches in Spalding county were fruitless.  I searched on Warna, War*, W. T., Emily, Callie, and did a Soundex search on Sauley.  No results that looked like her.  So I did a search on Spalding county, female, born 1872, born in Georgia. If this had not worked, I would have extended the search a year in each direction.  However, I very quickly spotted Caroline Sanley in the list, parents William Z and Emerly.  Pulling up the record, it was obvious that the surname was in fact Sauley and probable that the Z should have been a T.   There is no other record of Callie's name being a nickname for Caroline, but that could have been a census taker error. 

Using Emily and the names of the older children in the census, I went back to 1870 and 1860, where the father was listed as W. T. and Thomas respectively.    I then found a record for a civil war soldier named William Thomas Sauley who enlisted in Pike County, which is the neighboring county from Spalding.  Using his death date from that record, I found an obit for him in 1921, which did in fact list his daughter Callie Patrick.  It's hard to imagine where the grandson got the name "Warna" from the very common William but it does look like he was wrong.