Duncan Livingston's first marriage

So my husband has an ancestor named Duncan Livingston.  And he is really hard to pin down because the dates of his birth and immigration from Scotland keep changing with every census.  I did have his marriage to Ida May Cook (who is another problem, at least for her birth record) proven with a record but beyond that and the census, not much.  From the census (and family information) I knew he had been married before Ida but the family really didn't seem to have much information.  I had been searching around for a while, looking for a marriage record without any luck.  Then I happened upon a death record for Kate Livingston who died in 1898.  The name of the reporter was given as D. Livingston.  Not much to go on really but it did seem like a good fit.  So I kept looking for the marriage record without much luck.  But there were two useful things on this death record.  One was that Kate Livingston had 1 child and Kate had been born in Canada.

I followed the child lead and actually located a marriage record for Ella Livingston in 1903.  Her birth fit with the possible marriage date for Duncan's 1st marriage and Ella's parents were given as Duncan Livingston and Kate Mc Intire.  (Yep, the death record did give Kate's father Michol Mc Intyre.)  But the really exciting information was the witness named Ida M Livingston!  Oh yeah, this was a really good fit!  But Ella had a daughter too and at her marriage, Ida M Livingston again was listed as a witness!  So know I had the names of three women that had been lost!

It does make you wonder how this information was forgotten until I found the death records for both Ella and her daughter Kathleen.  Kathleen died in 1929 from Ilaus with contributory induced abortion.  And Ella died in 1930 from a strangulated hernia after a surgery.  Duncan didn't die until 1945 so he had already lost his entire 1st family.

But I still had to find his marriage record to Kate Mc Intyre.  And that is when the born in Canada helped out.  Because what if they didn't get married in Michigan, where Duncan lived but in Canada where Kate was born?  So Family Search helped out again with marriage records from Canada.  Of course these records where divided by province and I didn't have a clue where to start.  So I picked the closes province to Michigan, Ontario.  And the very first record that showed up was the marriage record of Duncan and Kate in 1882.  Case closed!