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Who writes obituaries? - family members we assume.
We have an obituary that creates a conflict with what we know about the person. We hoped the obituary would "confirm" we had the right person.
The obituary said they were a preacher for 40 years and a Southern Baptist for 35. We know 100% accurate they were Presbyterian for 7 years. Based on birth and death dates there is no time frames for them to be Baptist for 35 years and Presbyterian for 7 years. The 40 or the 35 in the obituary has to be an error.
Who writes obituaries? - family members we assume.
We have an obituary that creates a conflict with what we know about the person. We hoped the obituary would "confirm" we had the right person.
The obituary said they were a preacher for 40 years and a Southern Baptist for 35. We know 100% accurate they were Presbyterian for 7 years. Based on birth and death dates there is no time frames for them to be Baptist for 35 years and Presbyterian for 7 years. The 40 or the 35 in the obituary has to be an error.
Sometimes it's the family who does write the obituary, and sometimes all they do is provide basic info and the undertaker writes it. The question becomes this: which family member or members provided the info? Some families are so close, spend a great deal of time together, so exact information is known. But there can be other close family members who only know certain things, or these things stick in the head and the rest is forgotten.
For example, I'm very close to my aunt. I know she grew up Methodist and is now a Congregationalist. I think there was something in between. But the info I'd use for her obituary wouldn't include that "in between". So, perhaps whoever supplied the info for your conflict only knew about Southern Baptist, never knew about Presbyterian, and that's why there appears to be a conflict in info.
While obituaries and gravestones can be a helpful tool to either appear to confirm known information or provide new leads, neither is a primary nor secondary source and cannot be considered good information. Obituaries are a place where families can embellish a loved one's life or purposely leave out skeletons in the closet or in grief supply incorrect info.
It could have been some sort of typo also. I've seen corrections to obituaries posted at a later date. If you stopped looking after you found the original obituary, you would never know there was a correction.
Who writes obituaries? - family members we assume.
We have an obituary that creates a conflict with what we know about the person. We hoped the obituary would "confirm" we had the right person.
The obituary said they were a preacher for 40 years and a Southern Baptist for 35. We know 100% accurate they were Presbyterian for 7 years. Based on birth and death dates there is no time frames for them to be Baptist for 35 years and Presbyterian for 7 years. The 40 or the 35 in the obituary has to be an error.
And, sometimes the family member who provided the information are so grief stricken over a sudden death that they are not "thinking straight". I know someone who had a large family who forgot to include the names of some of the grandchildren (their nieces & nephews) in the original obituary. It was not a deliberate slight, but in the rush to get the obituary to the paper before the deadline, just overlooked the newborn baby & toddler that one brother & SIL had and the step-children that another sibling had (they lived out of state and had limited contact with the rest of the family). It was corrected in the next day's newspaper.
For the most part, most obits I've read have been fairly accurate...but then I have also collected several that could be classified as "fine works of fiction". Clearly nobody would have suspected anything otherwise, (due to lies being reinforced again and again) but when any intelligent person looks at dates of death, birth and death again, they would see a glaring problem.
Don't get me wrong...obits are great, but they are almost always written by 2nd and 3rd parties, which could account for selective memory on the facts.
There are other errors in the obituary and since they are not a relative of ours we have to ask others. One child was spelled Jon, when it was supposed to be John. Another was Floyd but it was spelled Floy.
I'm dealing with a similar situation. My great aunt passed away recently. Her son, my first cousin once removed, put my great aunt's stepfather down as her father; my great aunt's stepfather, my blood great grandfather, didn't raise my great aunt and my great aunt was extremely proud of her blood father, which made my cousin's decision all the more puzzling as he knew all of this. Given that my cousin and great aunt had some problems, I think this was my cousin's last ditch way of "revenge" on his mother. But, alas, the obituary, which is online, remains incorrect. I, however, maintain the proper documentation of my great aunt's lineage in my family tree, which is also available online.
I was thinking the same. However some people are really into genealogy. So in many ways, for future generations, it is good to have an accurate obituary.
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