Apology and Correction: Henry Branham

New Information Identified Concerning Henry and Wiliam Branham's "stage persona"!  See the new information section below.

The Correction:

Last week in one of our blog updates we discussed the fact that government records show the Branham family (including William Branham) to have made several changes to their identities for some unknown reason.  Winford Branham, who was convicted of murder in the first degree, was born in 1909 according to the 1910 United States States Census.[1]  William Branham, who was born in 1907[2] according to several historical records, assumed his brother Winford's birth year after Winford died,[3] and Winford's name was changed to Edward.[4]  Then, until William Branham's face was published in the newspapers, he appears to have been holding revivals using his brother Henry's first name and other key elements of Henry's identity such as his boxing career.  (Read more here)

In the article, we mentioned that Henry married Leslie Davis, which appeared to have been the daughter of Roy E. Davis.  Roy, William Branham's mentor and high-ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan, had abandoned multiple wives and children, had brought multiple underaged girls across state lines in violation of the Mann Act to protect underaged girls from trafficking, and was at the center of one of the biggest church scandals in American history when he trained William Branham.  One of the daughters that he abandoned was Katherine  (or Catherine), but they reconnected.  Katherine moved to Louisville with Roy Davis in the late 1920s and was present at one of his many court hearings.[5]  When William Branham performed the marriage between Henry Branham and Leslie Davis, and the newspaper mentioned (a single Miss) Catherine Davis, we assumed it was the same mother.  As it turns out, however, Catherine was the daughter of another Davis besides Roy, possibly related.

That same day, a researcher questioned the Branham-Davis family connection, so we investigated further.  As it turned out, the Clark County Courthouse now has many records now digitized, and we were able to find several additional documents that we did not previously have.  One of those documents was the marriage certificate between Henry Branham and Leslie Davis, which is the reason for the retraction.  We confirmed that Henry's mother-in-law was not Roy's daughter.  The next day, that piece of information was removed from several videos and pages that had been submitted to the search indexes.  Fortunately, the change was made very quickly and did not enter fully into circulation.  As of this afternoon, all updates have been made.

New Information - William Branham's Marriage and Divorce Claims Overturned:

The new digital records are very helpful for a variety of reasons.  As we've mentioned before, a person or persons continually tears pages out of the courthouse record department (in violation of federal law) making them more difficult to find.  Second, it is much easier to search now that they are digital.  Third, because William Branham's personal life did not match his stage persona, there are many new details that begin to emerge when comparing these records.

Such is the case with William Branham's "Marriage and Divorce" doctrine.  Branham claimed that an "angel" met him on May the 6th, 1946,[6] and this is when he became the alleged "Messenger for our age".  Cult leaders overlook all of the civil, criminal, unethical, and un-Christian parts of Branham's life before this alleged visitation, and say that his life and doctrine became "pure" after this visitation.  

Henry Branham's marriage to Leslie Davis shows quite the contrary.  Though Branham claimed to be strongly against remarriage after divorce until his 1965 sermons "Marriage and Divorce" (which allowed men to remarry but not women[7]). According to Henry Branham's marriage license — for a ceremony that William Branham performed — Henry had divorced the year before.  William Branham was still performing remarriages after divorce after his 1945 tract, "I Was Not Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision" and reinvention of his stage persona to include an "angelic commission".

Link to a downloadable copy here and image below:
https://william-branham.org/site/resource?key=703f29cc-9e71-4365-a45c-9929f390a121&parent=henry_branham 

"But now just to say, 'I…Brother Branham, I got married and my wife's an unbeliever, and here's a sister over here I can marry. I'm going to leave this one and marry that one.' Oh, no! No, indeedy! Your vow is until death you separate, and there's nothing else in the world will permit you to marry (in the Bible) until your companion is dead. That's right. Their only grounds! There's no remarrying nowhere at all, except a dead companion. That's all. See? You can't make It contradict Itself. So just read the verses before and after, and you'll catch then what he's talking about. Now, this means here, not…See: Does this mean a sister or a brother is free to remarry? No, sir. See, he explained that first. See: …unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband:…(See?) There's no such things as any believer ever being reconciled to remarriage again, with a living companion. Now, here is another one. The second is like this:"
- Branham, William. 1962, May 27. Questions And Answers (62-0527).