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I got a marriage record between great-great grandfather and his second wife, and his parents were listed as "Henry and Rachel Lastname." Really, you couldn't include Rachel's last name? Would it have killed you?
I got a death record on another man, a great-great-great grandfather, and his parents were listed as "John Lastname" and "Sarah." Again? no one thought the mother's maiden name was important enough???
Oh yeah -- my great uncle's death cert was filled out hundreds of miles from home. Had only the most basic of info -- his name, his rank, where he was being sent and the fact he died. Thankfully I knew everything else.
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Originally Posted by TracySam
I have had some luck and "eureka!" moments just with online records on Ancestry and FamilySearch. Mostly it's a man or woman living with a family in a census, and they are listed as "mother in law" or "brother in law" to the head of the household. Then I can figure out that this was the wife's last name.
Also, beware of parents' names listed on a death certificate! I've been screwed over by a few of those. You gotta keep in mind that when an elderly person died, it was their (grieving or clueless) adult children who were providing the info to be put on the death certificate. If the old guy who died hardly talked about his parents, or just referred to his mother as "mom," when he dies, his adult children will be guessing when they have to fill out the deceased mother's name.
I also learned that you can't always trust what people pay to have carved on headstones. You'd think that if you're paying by the letter, you'd make damned sure your info was correct. Again, I blame it on the cluelessness or perhaps the throes of grief, but I have some incorrect headstones in my family tree too
My great grandmother died in 1896 (I found the record!) and was buried two days after. Maybe they marked her grave with a wooden cross, maybe they didn't... Her husband remarried in 1899, and then died in 1909. They buried him next to my great grandmother.
THEN they made both markers. With the EXACT SAME DATES for her as for him. Which is wrong. So now he looks like he was divorced or worse yet a bigamist. How hard would it be to get it right? And why wouldn't her own mother -- who ended up raising my grandmother -- care enough to make sure the stone was right?
And why -- when the rest of ggf's family have these nice regal granite stones, does my GGF and GGM have these little blobby things that look like cement with dates?
I really wish I could go back and see these people and talk to them. There's got to be some sort of story here. I truly think it's weird as all get out to have a wife die, leave two children to raise (and the father who farmed them out to the grandparents -- which I sort of get) and then have him remarry
and not take back the kids, and then he dies 10 years later when my grandmother (his daughter) was 18, and yet -- when it comes time for me to do the genealogy my great parents are mysteries, because NO ONE TALKED ABOUT THEM. My father didn't know who his grandparents were -- his mother never talked about them. And he grew up with Granny -- his great grandmother who raised his mother. She never talked about her daughter. My grandmother was close with her brother.... who was raised by my great great grandparents on my great grand father's side. They never talked about his father, either. I mean -- what the heck?
So I think there's a deep dark secret here. Or deep dark for the 1890's...
I understand what you are dealing with. I have my own family with a family name stone, then "mother" and "father" on my ggrandparents. Everyone else has flat stones. However, I have the Bible, so I know the dates and the cemetery is active and I have the deed -so it isn't an issue. My husband's family has 8 people in 3 adjacent plots (total of 15 possible graves) -- those empty ones can't be used. It was regraded 90 years ago and lots of stones were lost and some graves unmarked. That section is not used at all now. Some gravestones replaced are incorrect ( MY opinion? I have the Bible scans. They should be correct, written at time of death -- not a generation or two later when the people put up new stones w/ wrong date). We also had 4 people (his gggrands, grand and her sister) in one plot in another cemetery -- all without markers. Why? All died in wars or the Depression. No one had money for stones. We finally put up a stone for all 4 with CORRECT info. The best? The Bible for this family has the births and deaths of children and many other generations, usually with spouses. It doesn't have the spouse of the child in the marriage section! Honestly! I have to go to the town hall and get the record for the date of marriage and confirm the spouse name. (Did it for 8 kids! Every one in that Bible). Another Bible scan lists just the parents, their dob and dod and marriage and all the kids.
My own grandmother? She wrote down each child, time and date of birth, day of the week, weather that day and weight. Nothing more. My other grandmother? The dob, place of baptism ( with address), date and godparents. Go figure.
Me? I put down as much as I could, making sure of full names, of correct dates, of the church, etc. etc. No one will say I missed anything.
I have had a lot of luck searching through old newspapers. I searched for Mrs. John Lastname and Mrs. Jane Lastname in the online archives of a newspaper in the city where I knew they lived. I found a few blurbs about how Mrs. Mary Lastname2 came to visit her sister Mrs. John Lastname or Mrs. James Lastname2 was visiting her sister Mrs. Jane Lastname. That was enough for me to find the obituary for sister Mary and start piecing together the previous 2 generations of the family.
For another family, I did a google books search and found a "history of XX county, State A" (which was a state away from where my family lived). One entry, on Mr. Theo Name, mentioned his wife, Mary, who was the daughter of Nicholas Smith and Sarah Jones, who also had the following children........and Jane, married to John Lastname, of State B.
When you get stuck on the direct line, sideways can be a big help.
I have had a lot of luck searching through old newspapers. I searched for Mrs. John Lastname and Mrs. Jane Lastname in the online archives of a newspaper in the city where I knew they lived. I found a few blurbs about how Mrs. Mary Lastname2 came to visit her sister Mrs. John Lastname or Mrs. James Lastname2 was visiting her sister Mrs. Jane Lastname. That was enough for me to find the obituary for sister Mary and start piecing together the previous 2 generations of the family.
For another family, I did a google books search and found a "history of XX county, State A" (which was a state away from where my family lived). One entry, on Mr. Theo Name, mentioned his wife, Mary, who was the daughter of Nicholas Smith and Sarah Jones, who also had the following children........and Jane, married to John Lastname, of State B.
When you get stuck on the direct line, sideways can be a big help.
Many of those old histories of counties can be found on Google Books. Some contain a wealth of info.
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