Talk:Frank E. Butler

Dates All Wrong
This article needs some serious clean up on the dates regarding Frank Butler and Annie Oakley. It's a bit difficult for them to have been married in 1876 when they didnt meet until 1881. They married in 1882.

Actually, they met in 1875. From the Annie Oakley Center Foundation: "In 1875 Annie visited her married sister, Lydia Stein, who lived near Cincinnati. Hotelkeeper Jack Frost, who knew Annie's reputation as a shooter, arranged a match with a professional exhibition shooter named Frank Butler. The match was run according to the regular rules of trap shooting. Frank shot twenty-four out of twenty-five birds. Annie won, killing all twenty-five of her birds.

Frank later would say that he had lost as soon as he saw the pretty and shy 15-year-old girl step to the mark. What is certain is that he had fallen for her. In his professional shooting act he was assisted by a dog, a French poodle named George. Annie fell for George. So Frank courted Annie by sending her letters and cards "signed" by George." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.101.25.78 (talk) 17:32, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Anyone else up to the editing? I am not exactly able to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.57.165.197 (talk) 03:53, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Butler's dates needed work to (now done). His U.S. Passport Application (found on Ancestry.com) states his birth day and year as now edited, with the addition of the location of his birth in county Longford, Ireland, and that of his wife Annie's birth location of Woodlawn, Ohio and date of August 13, 1866 !!! (go figure!).

Ancestry's US Census records for 1860 very cleary show that her maiden-name was Manzy not Mosey - but this is relavant to her not Frank.

At any rate, Irish records being very good in the 19th century do show that there was a Francis Butler born in Longford (the only Francis/Frank for the 1840s or 1850s in that location), but being born in Jan. 30th, 1847 to Michael Butler and Catherine(Whelan)Butler. Frank's passport application also says that his father was a naturalized American Citizen - further searching should help connect this and confirm Frank's actualy birth year, but he was from Longford, Ireland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.153.147 (talk) 16:09, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Excessive use of commas
I won't make any new changes to the article at the present time, but whoever recently edited some of the sentences I posted a while back used an excessive amount of commas which makes them look awkward. They may want to be rephrased in a way so the grammar is more sufficient. Thank you. Mld74 (talk) 18:24, 10 February 2017 (UTC)Mld74
 * Well, I removed a whole bunch of 'em just now but may have missed a few. I found deeper issues, including three possible birth dates and some really confusing statements. Took a quick stab at fixing the worst of it, but it needs a thorough going-over from someone with the time and patience to check the sources one by one, rewriting as necessary. Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   03:44, 16 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, there were three different birthdates sourced which makes things awkward. The 1847 date should be the correct one, which is on file with the National Library of Ireland (subscription site) although it is actually a baptism.  This would mean that Frank Butler was born earlier than January 30, 1847, most likely a week or two before.  Anyway, I placed that back in the paragraph so it supports the birthdate at the beginning of the article, but I marked it as a baptism date after looking at the article for composer Claudio Monteverdi which has a similar format.  I already had it marked in the info box.


 * While speculation, I believe Frank Butler altered his birthdate so as the age difference between him and Annie Oakley wasn't as dramatic. Butler was 13 years older than her.  Oakley did the same thing with her age when she had the rivalry going on with Lillian Smith as Oakley was 11 years older than Smith and didn't want to be looked at as a "fuddy-duddy" when Smith was getting a significant amount of press coverage as Oakley was. Mld74 (talk) 17:48, 5 April 2017 (UTC)Mld74


 * Interesting. Thanks for looking into this more deeply. Elegant solution with the baptism date. Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   04:07, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

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