Alternate commonly cited birth date for Ada Harriet Miser Kepley, recorded in several reference sources as February 11, 1847, in Somerset, Ohio.
Many biographical and reference sources, including major encyclopedic entries, record Ada Harriet Miser Kepley’s birth as occurring on February 11, 1847, in Somerset, Ohio. This alternative date reflects a long‑standing historiographical discrepancy regarding her exact birthday.
Older biographical compilations on women in law and temperance, as well as modern databases summarizing women’s history, list the February 11 date and place her birth firmly in Somerset. These accounts emphasize her later move to Illinois and marriage to attorney Henry B. Kepley, after which she would become a pioneering figure in American legal education, an outspoken temperance advocate, and a Unitarian minister. The persistence of the February 11 date in reference works illustrates how biographical data for 19th‑century women often rests on limited or conflicting documentary evidence.
For historians and researchers, this contested birth date underscores the challenges of reconstructing women’s lives when official records are incomplete or inconsistently reported. It has prompted close comparison of local histories, denominational biographies, and cemetery and family information to clarify her origins. While the precise day remains debated in the secondary literature, the February 11, 1847 entry is itself notable as a widely circulated data point that has shaped how generations of readers have understood Kepley’s chronological place within the first wave of American women entering professional fields.