Talk:Norah Davis

Date of birth

@AleatoryPonderings and Penny Richards: The author of the Huntsville Historical Review says that she was shown a voter registration card with the date at Madison County Probate Office. I think that we should accept 1861 as a date of birth in the lead and discuss other versions in a footnote or the Life section, what do you think?

• Huntsvillehistorycollection says Born: October 20, 1861 (?) and later There is some debate over the year of her birth. Alabama Biography says 1878 and the Huntsville Historical Review and Ancestry.com say 1861. https://huntsvillehistorycollection.org/hhc/browse-person.php?a=person&pe=Norah%20Clinton%20Davis

• Alabama Authors says 1862 https://www.lib.ua.edu/Alabama_Authors/?p=1051 (Norah Knowles Davis is presumably confused with Noah Knowles Davis in History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography)

Two additional early sources are

• Woman's who's who of America p. 234 (born 1873) https://archive.org/details/womanswhoswhoofa00leon/page/234/mode/2up
• History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography (volume 3) p. 467 (born 1878) https://archive.org/details/history-of-alabama-owen-v3/page/n416

TSventon (talk) 00:48, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

@TSventon:, I think you are right. Unclear why the sources are so divergent on this. American Authors and Books includes a complete date in its entry which I assume came from somewhere but have not been able to track down. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 01:09, 20 April 2026 (UTC) AleatoryPonderings (talk) 01:09, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Ah, I now see that American Authors got it from the Dictionary of Alabama Biography, which I will now proceed to incorporate (except for the date). AleatoryPonderings (talk) 01:11, 20 April 2026 (UTC) AleatoryPonderings (talk) 01:11, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings: I think it is likely that Davis chose to use a later birthdate. The Dictionary of Alabama Biography says it checked facts with the authors and I found bibliographies in Google books from 1910 and 1920 which also say 1878.

The obituary 4meter4 found at https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-huntsville-times-miss-n-davis-dies/195925800/ says she died aged "about 75", which is consistent with 1861. It uses "Nora" rather than "Norah"; both forms appear in the documents on Ancestry.com. It says she "later attended Lebanon school in Ohio", I think that may mean the National Normal University in Lebanon, Ohio, but that is speculation.

Also, can you access the New York Times article dated April 20, 1907, which is quoted by Huntsvillehistorycollection? It might be useful. TSventon (talk) 14:54, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Here is the NYT article, which took a bit of time to locate. It is a lengthy interview. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 02:02, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Skilfully

@Pburka: hi, you corrected "skilfully" to "skillfully" in a quotation from a 1909 edition of an American magazine. I thought it was likely to be a variant spelling, so MOS:SIC (silently correct minor spelling mistakes in quotes) would not apply.

I tried to find some evidence and found an ngram via Stack exchange, which shows that skilful was almost as frequent as skillful in early 20th century American English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=skillful%2Cskilful&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=en-US&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=false

Also an old Webster's dictionary lists skil'ful and skil'ful.ly as variants of skill'ful and skill'ful.ly (from 1919, a few years later): https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.460149/page/n799/mode/1up?q=skillfull

What do you think? (I have written all this because I find it interesting, I know it's not important). TSventon (talk) 00:31, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I think you're right. I thought it was a typo at first, but now I believe it is archaic in American English and still used in British English. MOS:SIC tells us not to change archaic spellings, so we should retain the one-L spelling, I think. pburka (talk) 01:23, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Middle name

@AleatoryPonderings:, hi, I see you have added Clinton to Wikidata as a family name. (I think it is a given name as her siblings (almost) all have different middle names.) It would be good to add it to the article, if you have a reliable source. Is huntsvillehistorycollection.org (HHC) reliable enough? I found the "Alabama, U.S., Surname Files Expanded, 1702–1981" on Ancestry which lists 10.-- Norah ⁶ Clinton Davis b. Oct. 20, 1861. and her siblings and may be HHC's source. Apparently the surname files are collected and held by Alabama Department of Archives & History and are explained on YouTube here. TSventon (talk) 21:17, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes I think this is fine. I trust HHC especially as their information matches up with what the other sources say. If there is a page on the Ancestry website that we could link to we might as well as a supplemental source (even though it is a primary source). AleatoryPonderings (talk) 00:26, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings:, I have tried to make a reference for the Ancestry page, but I am not sure if I removed the Wikipedia Library bit successfully. {{Cite archive}} might work better. Norah is mentioned on page 992 of 1193 of the Davis file.

• With <ref name="Surname Files">{{cite web |title=Norah Clinton Davis |url=https://www-ancestryinstitution-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/search/collections/61266/records/43081 |website=Alabama, U.S., Surname Files Expanded, 1702–1981 |publisher=Ancestry.com |access-date=23 April 2026 |quote=10.-- Norah 6 Clinton Davis b. Oct. 20, 1861.}}</ref>
• Without <ref name="Surname Files">{{cite web |title=Norah Clinton Davis |url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61266/records/43081 |website=Alabama, U.S., Surname Files Expanded, 1702–1981 |publisher=Ancestry.com |url-access=subscription |access-date=23 April 2026 |quote=10.-- Norah 6 Clinton Davis b. Oct. 20, 1861.}}</ref>

TSventon (talk) 01:12, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. The more I look at this the less certain I am that it is reliable. Totally unclear where the information is coming from ... it is page 21 (see bottom page number) of some document that is .. what? and sourced from what? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 01:46, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings:, "Page 21" seems to be one of eight pages from a family tree of the Davis family (pages 986 to 993). Generation 1 is Sir John Davis of Glamorgan, Norah is generation 6. It is not obvious who wrote it, or when. (P. 994 looks like the handwritten source of the first paragraph of p. 986, but that also seems to be anonymous.) The "document" doesn't look particularly reliable, but at least if you see it you can draw your own conclusions. It might be more suitable for Wikidata than Wikipedia.

HHC say where they got most of their information and the only (available) source they mention which has the middle name and full date of birth is Ancestry. The "Davis Family Tree Feb 2020" on Ancestry uses the Surname File for Norah's father's profile. Norah's profile includes "Clinton", but as far as I can see, the profile's sources don't include her middle name or exact date of birth.

I don't know where the information came from, but I think that the first few paragraphs may have come from a Daughters of the American Revolution column in The Montgomery Advertiser, published in Montgomery, Alabama on 5/28/1905 https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-montgomery-advertiser-davis-genealog/187156431/ . I can't read it as I am not registered. I think the first photo at https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LB7Z-Q4Z/william-davis-sr-1700-1763 is related. TSventon (talk) 21:03, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 01:22, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Norah Davis reportedly based one of her novels on a bigamy trial? Source: The plot of "The Other Woman," a dual personality story by Norah Davis, is said to be based on a case which Miss Davis watched in a federal court ... She saw a man convicted of bigamy and sent to prison, though he was entirely innocent of any intent to do wrong.
• ALT1: ... that novelist Norah Davis recommended hypnosis as a treatment for amnesia? The facts ... undoubtedly point to a case of ... amnesia ... Have the lad thrown into a deep hypnotic trance
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Chocolatiere
  • Comment: On review, I am inclined to recommend alt1 as opposed to the original hook because while digging through new sources () it appears that the statement, while it appears in one newspaper account, is not clearly right. She says in one place that it was based on a trial she attended while working as a stenographer, but also claims in another place that she personally knew the man. These could both be true but it seems a tad suspect. Also, the novel in question was also turned into a movie, but that fact is not very interesting I don't think.

Created by AleatoryPonderings (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 23 past nominations.

AleatoryPonderings (talk) 01:34, 22 April 2026 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Hello! I noted a few citation issues & close paraphrasing above. Also, I prefer ALT1 hook, and I suggest revising it a little: ...that novelist Norah Davis once recommended putting a boy in a hypnotic trance to treat his amnesia? Chao Garden 🌱 (hi) 09:08, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

• Chao Garden, thanks for the review. Have a look at this diff, which should address your comments. The article is largely based on material in the public domain (hence the use of {{Source attribution}}) so there is no need to avoid paraphrasing in places where the PD material is used. But I removed that one line you identified because on reflection it is not very meaningful. I added cites to the end of each sentence except for one graf in the Wallace Rhodes section which is entirely based on one source. I am fine with the revised alt1 above. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 23:02, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

• Thank you AleatoryPonderings, could you also add a citation to the first paragraph in the Norah Davis#Work section? The one that begins: Davis wrote three novels in quick succession between 1905 and 1909... Chao Garden 🌱 (hi) 00:28, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

• @Chao Garden: that is a summary of what the rest of the section says. See WP:CITELEAD - it is a lead section for the subsections that follow and does not require citations itself. I moved it into the lead as it may be more helpful to the reader there. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 02:19, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

• Hello AleatoryPonderings, please note that in the page you linked, WP:CITELEAD, the first two sentences read: In Wikipedia, the lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents. It is located at the beginning of the article, before the first heading. Anything beyond the lead (first) section should be cited. Thank you for making those changes! Chao Garden 🌱 (hi) 04:07, 23 May 2026 (UTC)
• Approved ALT1 ... Also I just realized you didn't take my suggestions for ALT1. I highly recommend at least specifying that she's a novelist (no one knows her by name). I guess I'll just leave my preferred revision here? ...that novelist Norah Davis once recommended putting a boy in a hypnotic trance to treat his amnesia? Chao Garden 🌱 (hi) 04:15, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

• Yes I agree with those changes to the hook. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 12:05, 23 May 2026 (UTC)