Certificate of Insanity, William Duer, May 1852; digital image, FamilySearch.org: Accessed 27 December 2020, citing Common Pleas Court civil records, 1825-1901 ; civil index, 1825-1900 Miscellaneous, 1846-1873 Miscellaneous (alphabetical), pre-1900 Depositions (chronological), 1886-1901. Film # 008271767, image 921 of 2904.
Usually, I’m happy when I climb over a brick wall but sometimes the find provides harsh reality of what the individual was experiencing. I recently had such a discovery and in all honesty, I put off writing about it for a month.
I’ve made a lot of progress on my John and Jane Duer line lately although several mysteries remain, like where is John buried, why does Jane’s tombstone say “wife of John Duer” when he was married to someone else at the time of Jane’s death and why does Jane’s youngest children, who were adults when she died, not tell their own children about Jane as evidenced by their death certificates stating mother is unknown?
My working theory is, among other reasons, because of the sad discovery I made regarding one of John & Jane’s children.
William Duer (1828-c. 1852) was the oldest son and oldest surviving child of John and Mary “Jane” Duer; he relocated with the couple from Trumbull County, Ohio where he was most likely born to Killbuck, Holmes, Ohio where he is shown residing with his parents and siblings in 1850. That census shows that William and his closest aged sibling, Thomas, was working on the farm with father John.
For years, I had difficulty discovering what became of William as he was not shown with the family in the 1860 census in Mercer County, Ohio where they had relocated, nor was he found in any census anywhere. He seemed to have disappeared in thin air as nothing was found for him anywhere. Until now and thanks to the images on FamilySearch.org.
My search for William took the usual path over the years – checking all the online sites, family trees and connecting with known relatives. I thought he had perhaps died in the Civil War which wouldn’t explain where he was in 1860, but I also had another missing brother from the 1860 census so I figured they may have been together somewhere and missed the enumeration. That brother, John B., eventually ended up in Adams County, Indiana. William was never found again. Until now.
I decided to look through the images for Common Plea Court Civil Records, 1825-1901, for Killbuck Township, Holmes, Ohio where the family lived to see if a record may exist for anyone in the family. That’s where I discovered the Certificate of Insanity for William Duer.
From the medical report, I learned that William was age 23 and free from infection. In March 1852 William complained of “feelings in his head” that lasted 1-2 weeks. He was last reported sane on 12 April 1852.
Apparently, insanity must have been shown for at least 30 days before the courts could be contacted. The physician diagnosed William with melancholy that was not related to hereditary or epilepsy. He was not violent. His past medical history showed bleeding and blisters but it does not clarify the cause.
Interestingly, the physician noted William had received “no education” and “worked hard” and had “no amusement” yet he was not “disappointed” by his life. The education information is verified by Historical Collection of the Mahoning Valley which stated “the public schools were few, with little interest taken in public education until 1840, when a new impulse moved the settlers” (p. 484). William’s early life was in Trumbull County which became Mahoning County.
The Justice of the Peace had also visited William at his home and found him insane. Since he was a resident of Killbuck, he was sent to the Ohio Lunatic Asylum to undergo treatment. His condition had been the case for less than 2 years. The reason cited for committing William was that “his being at large would be dangerous to the safety of the community.” Although this clearly conflicts with the physician report stating that William was not violent, father John Duer attested the same.
I do not believe William every survived the commitment. I suspect he is buried on the asylum grounds where there are numerous unmarked graves. I will be following up with an organization that holds the records which is currently closed due to the pandemic.
I hadn’t expected this would be the reason for the brick wall.
From searching through images, prior to this find, I discovered a letter to the courts regarding another community member’s request for an insanity hearing in the preceding year. The request was denied, not because the woman wasn’t insane, but because the county had already used up all of their bed space in the asylum. I have no idea from the records what the county’s allotted number was but it is telling that there were more community members who needed mental health assistance then there was available treatment for them.
This find leads me to a new working theory about William’s mother, Jane, that I will explore in more details next time.
What do you do when you’ve looked for a deed in all the usual places – county property appraisers office, FamilySearch.org or other online database of deed records, and even probate files but you come up with nothing? I was fortunate to find deed records in an unlikely place and you just might find this useful…
What do you do when you’ve looked for a deed in all the usual places – county property appraisers office, FamilySearch.org or other online databases, and even probate files but you come up with nothing? I was fortunate to find deed records in an unlikely place and you just might find this useful.
I wanted to locate a deed record for my John Duer (1801-1885) because I was trying to discover which wife might be named on it. John married Mary “Jane” Morrison (1804-1866) on 29 July 1827 in Trumbull County, Ohio. The couple would go on to have 11 children together and relocate first to Killbuck, Holmes County, Ohio by 1840 and then to Liberty, Mercer County, Ohio by July 1860 when they are found together living two residences away from one of their married daughters, Maria Duer Kuhn.
The census does not state if the residence was owned or rented. The couple owned property both jointly and separately when in Holmes County. I’m not exactly sure when they relocated but the last deed of sale I find for them in Holmes was 27 April 1854.
I began to look in Mercer County, Ohio for deeds between 1853 (when they sold another piece of land in Holmes-I figured they may have relocated then but couldn’t sell the other lot they owned until the following year) and 1864 when I knew John had remarried. I tried all the usual places but came up with nothing. The property appraiser site found no John Duer. The site doesn’t say how far back the records go but one of the options for age of buildings is 1800. I then looked for old deed books at the various online genealogy sites and found nothing for Mercer County, Ohio. I even tried the Familysearch.org image search that I blogged about two weeks ago but came up with a big zero.
Sometime after July 1860 and before 11 December 1864 John and Jane split up and John remarried widow Margaret Ann Martz Searight. They had a child together, Charles Edward, born in February 1866.
Since emigrating from Germany, Margaret lived first in Hardin County, Ohio but relocated to Adams County, Indiana, perhaps after her husband, George Washington Searight died 8 April 1863. John and Margaret, after their marriage, lived together in Adams County, Indiana.
My next search was for property in Adams County, Indiana as I knew, from John’s will made in August 1884, that he was leaving Margaret the property. That meant she had not been a co-owner. He possibly bought the land prior to their wedding or for some other unknown reason, decided to buy land separately from his second wife as he had done in Hardin County, Ohio with his first wife.
His will states, in the case of Margaret predeceasing him, the property would go to some of his children (why he selected only 3 children in his will I do not understand. He names the two children he had with Margaret and one of his children, Angeline, he had with Jane. Angeline had married and was living in Adams, Indiana. What is odd is two of his sons, John B. and James William, were also living in Adams. Why he excluded them from his will I hypothesized in my last blog, Missing Tombstones.)
The Adams County, Indiana property assessor’s office website is not very user friendly and I got lost in the clicking. I eventually found that “NEW! Electronic Records” were available but there is no link to where. Trying to click on what appears to be a link stating “Adams County is now ready to electronically record all your documents through e-recording.” also didn’t work. In small print, there is a note that the records are from 1990 to present. Oh well!
I continued to click and thought maybe “History” would be helpful but it was just a few facts about the 12 townships in the county. Under “Residents,” I decided to click on “Genealogy.” I was taken to INGenWeb for Adams County. I was so excited to find a search box so I entered “Duer” and found 59 items.
At this point I had to decide, did I want to derail my search for a deed, which I figured wouldn’t be placed here, or just get more info about the Duer’s who had lived in Adams County. I decided to stay focused but to do a new search for “John Duer” hoping that it would eliminate all of the other Duers except for John’s son, John B., known to also be living in Adams. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the search results were for 53 items.
What immediately caught my eye on the first page (10 items show per page) was “Estate of David Tressler2 – 1862.xls.” Who was David Tressler – certainly no one in my tree and how/why was John Duer associated with him? Intriguing!
The image (above) was a timeline followed by scanned documents of David Tressler’s estate from 1862. Using the Find trick (hold down the Ctrl and F keys and type in the box) I quickly found that John made a deed to purchase Tressler’s real estate on 8 September 1862. Yippee! So John had purchased the property IN HIS NAME ONLY prior to his marriage with Margaret which explains why she was not on the deed. This also tells me that either he and Jane were having marital problems/separated/divorced by this time since Jane was also not a co-owner.
After doing my happy dance, I went back to explore the remaining Duer findings on the site. I was surprised to find another deed record – on 28 June 1860 John Duer purchased from Benjamin Shafer, the estate administrator for John Tressler. Interestingly, this purchase was made ONE MONTH BEFORE the 1860 census records showing John in Mercer County, Ohio, which borders Adams, Indiana. Jane’s name was not on that deed, either. It’s likely the couple was already having problems with their marriage at that time. The property description matches the property he left Margaret in his will.
So John Duer planned to relocate to the next county over even before he and Jane divorced. (Yes, it would be wonderful to discover their divorce document but I have been unable to locate it in either county.)
Of course, every find leads to more questions. Now I want to know where and when John met Margaret. Her first husband died supposedly at age 35 but I don’t know where. I checked to see if he had enlisted in the Civil War but did not find him. I can’t verify his date of death; he’s not on Find-a-grave/Billion Graves. The date is unverified and comes from online family trees. He was last known alive in Dunkirk, Cessna, Hardin, Ohio in 1860.
My guess is one of Margaret’s sisters or step-sister was living in Adams and as a widow with a young daughter, Margaret moved to be closer to family. I will have to search them to discover if that theory is correct.
It appears from plat records I also found on INGenWeb that Margaret owned 20 acres of her own land in 1880 in Adams, Indiana. I don’t know when that land was purchased – before her marriage to John or after. More research is definitely needed. It’s now clear where John met Margaret; they were property owners in the same neighborhood.
Moral of the blog….when you can’t find what you are looking for check out the local genealogy sites. Kudos to those at INGenweb.org as they have done a phenomenal job in preserving local records and uploading them for FREE. I also love how they insert a timeline of the scanned original documents. I am deeply appreciative of your efforts.
I wanted to locate a deed record for my John Duer (1801-1885) because I was trying to discover which wife might be named on it. John married Mary “Jane” Morrison (1804-1866) on 29 July 1827 in Trumbull County, Ohio. The couple would go on to have 11 children together and relocate first to Killbuck, Holmes County, Ohio by 1840 and then to Liberty, Mercer County, Ohio by July 1860 when they are found together living two residences away from one of their married daughters, Maria Duer Kuhn per the census.
The census does not state if the residence was owned or rented. The couple owned property both jointly and separately when in Holmes County. I’m not exactly sure when they relocated but the last deed of sale I find for them in Holmes was 27 April 1854.
I began to look in Mercer County, Ohio for deeds between 1853 (when they sold another piece of land in Holmes-I figured they may have relocated then but couldn’t sell the other lot they owned until the following year) and 1864 when I knew John had remarried. I tried all the usual places but came up with nothing. The property appraiser site found no John Duer. The site doesn’t say how far back the records go but one of the options for age of buildings is 1800. I then looked for old deed books at the various online genealogy sites and found nothing for Mercer County, Ohio. I even tried the Familysearch.org image search that I blogged about two weeks ago but came up with a big zero.
Sometime after July 1860 and before 11 December 1864 John and Jane split up and John remarried widow Margaret Ann Martz Searight. They had a child together, Charles Edward, born in February 1866.
Since emigrating from Germany, Margaret lived first in Hardin County, Ohio but relocated to Adams County, Indiana, perhaps after her husband, George Washington Searight died 8 April 1863. John and Margaret, after their marriage, lived together in Adams County, Indiana.
My next search was for property in Adams County, Indiana as I knew, from John’s will made in August 1884, that he was leaving Margaret the property. That meant she had not been a co-owner. He possibly bought the land prior to their wedding or for some other unknown reason, decided to buy land separately from his second wife as he had done in Hardin County, Ohio with his first wife.
His will states, in the case of Margaret predeceasing him, the property would go to some of his children (why he selected only 3 children in his will I do not understand. He names the two children he had with Margaret and one of his children, Angeline, he had with Jane. Angeline had married and was living in Adams, Indiana. What is odd is two of his sons, John B. and James William, were also living in Adams. Why he excluded them from his will I hypothesize in my last blog, Missing Tombstones.)
The Adams County, Indiana property assessor’s office website is not very user friendly and I got lost in the clicking. I eventually found that “NEW! Electronic Records” were available but there is no link to where. Trying to click on what appears to be a link stating “Adams County is now ready to electronically record all your documents through e-recording.” also didn’t work. In small print, there is a note that the records are from 1990 to present. Oh well!
I continued to click and thought maybe “History” would be helpful but it was just a few facts about the 12 townships in the county. Under “Residents,” I decided to click on “Genealogy.” I was taken to INGenWeb for Adams County. I was so excited to find a search box so I entered “Duer” and found 59 items.
At this point I had to decide, did I want to derail my search for a deed, which I figured wouldn’t be placed here, or just get more info about the Duer’s who had lived in Adams County. I decided to stay focused but to do a new search for “John Duer” hoping that it would eliminate all of the other Duers except for John’s son, John B., known to also be living in Adams. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the search results were for 53 items.
What immediately caught my eye on the first page (10 items show per page) was “Estate of David Tressler2 – 1862.xls.” Who was David Tressler – certainly no one in my tree and how/why was John Duer associated with him? Intriguing!
The image (above) was a timeline followed by scanned documents of David Tressler’s estate from 1862. Using the Find trick (hold down the Ctrl and F keys and type in the box) I quickly found that John made a deed to purchase Tressler’s real estate on 8 September 1862. Yippee! So John had purchased the property IN HIS NAME ONLY prior to his marriage with Margaret which explains why she was not on the deed. This also tells me that either he and Jane were having marital problems/separated/divorced by this time.
After doing my happy dance, I went back to explore the remaining Duer findings on the site. I was surprised to find another deed record – on 28 June 1860, John Duer purchased from Benjamin Shafer, the estate administrator for John Tressler. Interestingly, this purchase was made ONE MONTH BEFORE the 1860 census records showing John in Mercer County, Ohio, which borders Adams, Indiana. Jane’s name was not on that deed. It’s likely the couple was already having problems with their marriage at that time. The property description matches the property he left Margaret in his will.
So John Duer planned to relocate to the next county over even before he and Jane divorced. (Yes, it would be wonderful to discover their divorce document but I have been unable to locate it in either county.)
Of course, every find leads to more questions. Now I want to know where and when John met Margaret. Her first husband died supposedly at age 35 but I don’t know where. I checked to see if he had enlisted in the Civil War but did not find him. I can’t verify his date of death as he’s not on Find-a-grave/Billion Graves. The date is unverified and comes from online family trees. He was last known alive in Dunkirk, Cessna, Hardin, Ohio in 1860.
My guess is one of Margaret’s sisters or step-sister was living in Adams and as a widow with a young daughter, Margaret moved to be closer to family. I will have to search them to discover if that theory is correct.
It appears from plat records I also found on INGenWeb that Margaret owned 20 acres of her own land in 1880 in Adams, Indiana. I don’t know when that land was purchased – before her marriage to John or after. More research is definitely needed.
Moral of the blog….when you can’t find what you are looking for check out the local genealogy sites. Kudos to those at INGenweb.org as you have done a phenomenal job in preserving local records and uploading them for FREE. I also love how you insert a timeline of the scanned original documents. I am deeply appreciative of your efforts.
Last week I wrote about my awesome find locating the deed for one of John and Jane Duer’s children, Mary, in Mercer County, Ohio. I mentioned that no one knows where John Duer was buried and that it is my guess he is buried next to his first wife, Jane.
It is frustrating when we can’t find a burial location so before I get into why I believe that is where his body lies, I want to take a moment to list reasons of why someone may not have a tombstone.
1. Lack of Money – many families, especially if a breadwinner died in his/her prime, would have certainly been impacted by the loss of income. If it is between feeding the children and memorializing the dead, it is understandable that the living become a priority over the tombstone.
2. Family Dissension – unfortunately, as we all know too well, families don’t always get along. In my own, I know of a brother and sister who lived only a few miles from one another but did not speak after the death of their mother due to a disagreement over the mother’s care in a nursing home in her last year of life. The sister had no other living relatives when she unexpectedly passed except her brother and a few step-siblings that lived far away from her. The sister’s friends reached out to the brother when she died, taking up a collection and paying for the cremation. They wanted to know what to do with her ashes but the brother stated he didn’t care. The brother emailed me two months after his sister’s death to inform me she had died. He never told me about the ashes or the disagreement. I sent my condolences via an online memorial site. The friends saw my post and contacted me inquiring what I would like to do since I appeared to be the next closest relative to the brother. I accepted the ashes. I paid for the internment in the cemetery where the mother is buried as the friends stated that was the deceased’s wish. I did not pay for a stone as I believe that would be out of line while the brother is still alive. Perhaps I will have a small stone placed there someday. But what happens if the brother outlives me? Then there will most likely never be a stone. If a researcher ever checked with the cemetery, the records will clearly show that I requested the internment and where the location was. I do not own the rights to the deceased’s Find-a-grave or Billion Graves memorial so no information has been placed there. Perhaps someday I will and then I will add the burial location. Sadly, in the interim, no one seems to have been concerned where the cremains were interred.
3. There is NO Burial Site – Regarding cremains, the family may have scattered the ashes as requested by the deceased. Placing a tombstone in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico just isn’t an option!
4. Deceased Requests No Memorial – The family may be keeping with the wishes of the deceased who wants the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” to be literal.
5.Religious Preference – My example here is poor because I really don’t know if this was the case with my husband’s 4th great paternal grandfather, Wilson Williams (1754-1831). He is buried next to his wife, Margaret Hicks Williams, in Christ Church Cemetery, Nassau New York. She has a lovely stone. He has zilch. The family could afford a stone and there is no indication that there was family dissension. Although his death location is not noted in the current church’s records, it was recorded in an old work of cemetery transcriptions by Josephine C. Frost in 1913. (Thank you, Josephine!) In what appears to be empty space next to Margaret was once “a common field stone marked W.W.” In a past blog, I wrote that Wilson was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church and a common burial practice was marking a grave with a field stone. Over the years, the stone has been lost and for a time, so, too, was our knowledge of where Wilson was buried since the church cemetery records are no longer in the church at that site. If not for the Frost transcription we would still be wondering.
6. The Missing – for those individuals that are no longer in touch with their family for any number of reasons, a falling out, an abduction, etc., the location of their burial is unknown so family cannot place a stone. Some families do place a memorial to the deceased in a cemetery as evidenced by the many fallen soldiers interred overseas who have a memorial in their hometown.
7. Avoid Remembering – deceased murderers often do not have a stone to ward off those who seek out the grave to disrespect it. Being eternally unnamed and forgotten is a final punishment for heinous crimes committed.
8. The Stone was Lost – tombstones sink, they fall over, they are vandalized or some idiot decides they would make great construction material and steals them. My 4th great paternal grandfather, Thomas Duer’s stone had toppled over in a rural Ohio cemetery that had become abandoned. A local genealogy group righted the stone and moved it to be in line with the other stones but its present location is not exactly where he was buried.
9. The Burial Site Relocated -My husband’s 2nd great maternal grandfather’s child, Lincoln Mordecai Harbaugh’s (1846-1847) was once interred in a cemetery adjacent to the family church in Waynesboro, Franklin, Pennsylvania. The church sold the property long after he died and the family relocated to Indiana. His remains are interred in a group burial site in Green Hill Cemetery after the new owners wanted to expand the building.
10. Chaos Following an Emergency – In some parts of the world today, due to the pandemic, those who have died are being buried in mass graves. This is not a new phenomena. During an ongoing emergency the need to inter takes precedence over individual burials. Whether the site will eventually be marked with a memorial may or may not occur.
Perhaps you can think of more reasons why tombstones might not be found.
In the case of my John Duer (1801-1885), I can only point to examining further family dissension as the reason why he doesn’t seem to have a stone. At the time of John’s death he had a second wife and 8 surviving children, 4 of whom were prosperous and have elaborate tombstones of their own (Maria, John B., Sarah Jane and James William). John died in Jefferson Township, Adams County, Indiana where he was residing with wife Margaret Ann Martz Searight Duer. He knew he was ill as he made a will in August 1884. He did not name his prosperous children in the will or his daughter Mary Ann, possibly because they didn’t need the money or perhaps, because he was not on speaking terms with them. Children Angeline, Charles and Lucinda were all named to receive John’s property, along with his wife. I also know from the will that John requested “that my body be burried (sic) in a manner suitable with my condition in life.” John wasn’t well to do but he did own 80 acres that he farmed and had few debts at the time of his death. A tombstone was not against his religious beliefs; he was raised Presbyterian as a child but there is no church membership found for him as an adult.
Mary “Jane,” his first wife who died after his second marriage and a few months after he had a son with his new wife, is buried in Kessler Cemetery, Chattanooga, Mercer, Ohio. The cemetery records are not complete and do not state who or when her plot was purchased. The family owns a plot next to her that is sunken and may contain the body of John. Family tales state he is buried in Kessler. His second wife is also buried in Kessler but not close to Jane. There are tombstones on both sides of Margaret’s gravesite so he is not buried next to her.
No death certificate has been found for John, nor an obituary or church records that may shed light on where he was interred.
Perhaps John’s older children did not think he needed a marker as his name is on Jane’s stone. It would have been awkward putting a stone next to Jane’s that said “John Duer, husband of Margaret.” Perhaps the children decided to ignore the situation and leave his plot unmarked. Since Jane died AFTER John’s remarriage, her stone’s inscription of “Wife of John Duer” holds a clue. Perhaps she didn’t remarry as she believed that one only marries once. Maybe she had no preference but her surviving children had the stone engraved as a way to voice their unacceptance of the second marriage.
The only way I’ll ever know if someone is buried next to Jane is if ground penetrating radar is used and I’m not planning on doing that. Even if someone was found to be buried there I wouldn’t know for sure it was John unless the body was exhumed. So, I’ll have to leave this Duer mystery unsolved for now. Sigh.
Skipped blogging last weekend because I was consumed by work from my other job – lots of teaching units were cut in my district and I was tasked with making new schedules for students. Planned on blogging yesterday and got attached by wasps so my hand is swollen and I’m typing with only one hand now so this will be short!
Did the Tombstone Cake work in helping me find new info on my brick wall ancestors? Sort of! I ended up selecting Hannah Byrd, one of my paternal 4th great grandmothers, who was born in New Jersey and died in Ohio.
With all the way to spell Byrd – Bird – Burd – Berd, it’s always made the search difficult.
My mistake was thinking that she was born in Sussex, New Jersey as that is where her husband’s family was from. I decided to research the only other Bird that lived in Trumbull County, Ohio at the same time she did and discovered he was born in New Jersey but not Sussex. Looks like his father was born in Sussex but moved shortly after marrying to southern New Jersey. So I’ll be following the trail to see if I can connect the two as they are about the same age and could be siblings or cousins or not.
Funny, though, I decided to randomly pick a Kindle free book for October and chose Spellbreaker, a fiction story about a young witch in London who does not cast spells but breaks them. Sort of like a female Robin Hood who helps the peasant farmers when the Baron claims they never paid rent and have to repay. Had to laugh as one of the main characters just happens to be from Barbados. My goodness, those Hollingsheads just won’t let me move on!
Had a strange Sunday morning courtesy of my family.
I got a wake up call from one of my adult kids asking me to list my top 12 dead ancestors that I needed info on. That made me laugh as I was thinking yesterday I need to move on from my Duer-Hollingsheads who I found a wealth of info for over the summer and now things have dried up. Like most of the world, I’m over the pandemic and am starting to make plans for when we can travel again. While gardening, I thought I would list relatives I planned on researching by geographic region so that I could identify areas for trips in 2022 (yeah, I’m being overly cautious here.)
Within minutes I emailed my kid a list of 24 ancestor brick walls – 12 on my side and 12 on my husband’s side.
A few minutes later I got another call that said, “Mom, you have to pair that list down to 12 total!” Okay, sigh, 6 from each list.
Since I was already on email I started reading and found I had two Ancestry messages over night and one email message addressed to my website. Two were regarding Leiningers and one was Harbaugh. People who discovered books and photos as they were cleaning and looking on Ancestry or my blog, found the named folks on my tree. They were hoping to give the items a new home. Since I didn’t list one Harbaugh or Leininger on my brick wall list, this was personally hysterical as those two lines always seem to nudge me when I am working on other family.
Minutes later, my kid brings over the cake pictured above. On each tombstone is one of the names I had supplied that are a brick wall. The chocolate pudding cake with cream cheese frosting was delicious. The “dirt” on top is crushed Nilla wafer cookies dyed with food coloring. Child had bought the cake mix at the start of the pandemic and said, “Let’s bury this thing and move on.” I agree!
I also got a homemade awesome Ancestor Hunter T-Shirt. Neither of my kids have interest in genealogy but they are crafty and when the mood strikes, no telling what they’ll come up with.
The weather was beautiful so we decided we’d have cake and coffee outside. I was walking down the cobblestone path my husband had installed several years ago and took one step off onto the “grass.” Unbelievably, my right leg sunk to mid calf. My kid grabbed me as I sunk, originally thinking I had lost my balance and was about to fall.
There is a reasonable explanation of why the ground gave way in that spot – we had a heavy rain last night and several years ago, a 200 + year old oak tree had been growing there. We had to have the tree removed after a third of it blew down in a hurricane. The roots have been decaying for years and we guess, with the heavy rain, the ground just collapsed.
I’ve never been stuck in quick sand but it was a creepy feeling to all of a sudden just sink into the ground. I had difficulty pulling my leg back out of the hole. Don’t know if my ancestors were ticked off or not but it was weird to be holding Daniel Hollingshead’s candy tombstone while I sunk over a foot into the ground. Yes, I know I need to move on from Daniel but I am still searching for his lost Bible so he remains up on the top of my list.
We settled down to eat a slice of cake and child says, “I had real trouble with one of the tombstones. Catherine Jarvis’s keeps falling over and hitting Wilson Williams.” Umm, Catherine was Wilson’s daughter-in-law! They lived near each other in Long Island, however, Wilson’s “stone,” which I have blogged about in the past, is no longer in the cemetery next to his wife, Margaret Hicks. It was this same child of mine that had discovered that at the Family History Library several years ago. Of course, with no interest in genealogy, there was no remembrance of the names and the finding.
If there’s a message in all this I have no idea what it would be. I re-read my original Wilson and Margaret posts you can find here and here. They are still on my brick wall list as I need further proof of their parents. Family lore gave me the parents’ names but I have no proof of that. I’m thinking that’s who I need to research this afternoon, along with Catherine Jarvis.
If I find something wonderful I will definitely share it and use this unique approach again! Since the world has certainly gone insane a novel way to research just might be what’s needed. Consuming the name of a dead relative on a candy tombstone is weird but fits right in with the spirit of the month. Happy Hunting!
I have blogged extensively about my mysterious Duer family that I connect with DNAwise but can’t prove a firm document relationship between son Thomas, who died in 1829 and his purported father, John, who died in 1831. Thomas’ family lived next to John in Trumbull County, Ohio but none of Thomas’ children were mentioned in John’s will. John’s will only mentioned 1 grandchild and named all of his other living children. The 1 grandchild was the son of his deceased daughter and was easily recognizable by his last name, Hazen.
I’ve theorized that none of Thomas’ children were named because Thomas had already been given an “inheritance” of land adjoining John’s. I also thought John might have been slightly put off by Thomas’ widow, Hannah, quickly remarrying another neighbor who was a widower, James Preston. That marriage didn’t seem to last as both Hannah and James can be found in 1840 living with their adult children.
The land that Thomas lived on remained with one of his son’s until the mid-1800’s when he sold it to what I believe would have been a cousin who had come to own John’s property. Of course, there was nothing to show the connection between the two listed in the deed transaction so I can’t prove that relationship, either.
I’ve been told repeatedly to give up the search but I will admit I’m obsessed with this line. So, every few months, I recheck to see if any new records are uploaded, a new DNA match can be found that might hold the key in their basement or attic, or a donation is made to an archive in the areas the family lived where someone drops off records that will be the proof I need.
Yes, I already have DNA proof. There have been several descendants of John’s children who have tested and we all relate but I want a document! Or do I?
Last month, I found 2 documents online that gave me promise. I was hoping they would lead me to the smoking gun record; this is what I discovered posted on Ancestry with no citation:
Although I found this posting just two days after it was done, when I reached out to the poster, her response was she couldn’t remember where she found it and would get back with me. I love her dearly because she wrote back the next day and said she found it from another Ancestry poster named John Shivers. She though it came from Revolutionary War Patriots from Ohio. She gave me a link to an archive in Ohio but they didn’t have it.
I found a John Shivers on Ancestry and emailed him but he hadn’t been online in over a year so I wasn’t hopeful I would get a response. I wasn’t even sure he was the John Shivers that originally posted it as I couldn’t access the private tree.
Then I reached out to a colleague in my locale who is a member of the Trumbull County Genealogical Society to see if he could check the membership roster and give me contact info for John Shivers. There was no info but he sent me a new member who was interested in the Duers. I emailed them but the email address wasn’t working.
I then searched Worldcat and Google for the title but only found a SAR pdf that wouldn’t open.
Going to the national SAR website, I found no new info; the Ancestor # 150827 is the number assigned by that organization so I decided to reach out to the Mahoning County, Ohio Chapter hoping that they might have a file with the relationship I was seeking that wasn’t submitted to national.
The local chapter’s website is under construction. Their Facebook page has no contact info. I reached out to a Trumbull County local who had given me info several years ago – she had tripped over Thomas’ fallen gravestone when she was conducting a cemetery clean up and loves to kid me that he almost killed her. She found two email addresses for local SAR members.
I emailed both. One never responded. The other said he’s no longer in that area so isn’t a member but he kindly forwarded my query to the current president. The president said the chapter reactivated 4 years ago and has no old files in their possession (who knows what happened to that stuff!?) so he forwarded my email to the organization’s state genealogist. That gentleman gave me the heartbreaking news – the real citation is from Roster of Revolutionary War soldiers buried in Ohio. Wilbur R. Branthoover, compiler. Veterans Affairs, Ohio. Reprinted by OHSDAR. 1929.
The SAR doesn’t even use it any longer because the info has been found to be incorrect. That is true – my John Duer who is buried in Ohio served in New Jersey and not Pennsylvania, that was my John’s cousin also named John.
So, another dead end here. Then I found another posting that stated that Thomas had been in the War of 1812. That was news to me as I had checked online and in the National Archives and could never find him involved in that conflict. The posting had a citation (hurray!) and when I followed up this is what I found:
It was a John Duer and not Thomas that served. Someone had misindexed and then hadn’t checked the original source. And the John named to have served in the War of 1812 was my John’s grandson but not descended from Thomas. You have to laugh at this – I discovered the mistake on November 2, 2019, 107 years to the day that this cousin John left the service.
Yes, I’m deeply disappointed that the newly found leads led to nothing but I’m not giving up. Several people have told me that I’m never going to find what I’m looking for but I don’t agree. I’m thinking boots on the ground might be my next action. Unfortunately, that will have to wait a while.
In the meantime, I’m moving on to other lines. Oh, Duers, why doth disappoint me so?
A few weeks ago I blogged about the very worthy Field of Honor database project in the Netherlands that memorializes fallen World War 2 soldiers. Strangely, as I was writing that article, I was contacted by an Ancestry.com member who I first connected with last spring about her DNA.
One of her parents was adopted and she was trying to see if we were related as I had placed information from the same geographical area she was researching on my Ancestry.com tree for the same surnamed individual. There were other coincidences – they had the same occupation, religion, place where they immigrated from and where they immigrated to about the same time (early 1900’s). We were thinking they were related but after comparing our DNA results, they weren’t blood relations.
The Ancestry member had received an email from another member who was contacted by someone in the Netherlands who found World War 2 dog tags using a metal detector and wanted to send them to family. I was contacted since we had the same surname – Koss – as the found tags who once belonged to Joseph E. Koss who died in 1944 in Holland.
I reached out to the memorial owner at Findagrave.com but he was not a relative. If you are a family member of a Joseph Koss please email me (see contact me page) and I will happily connect you so you can get the tags.
I’ve blogged in the past about scammers and I’ve read about fake dog tags being sold in Viet Nam but this does not smell like a scam to me but to keep my readers safe – I’ll play middleman for you. Using a metal detector and finding a lost object is typical in my world as that’s one of my husband’s hobbies and he has found and returned lost articles for people for years.
Funny how I’ve been contacted by folks living in the Netherlands twice in the past few weeks – maybe that’s where I should go visit next!
As I mentioned in my previous blog article, last summer I had the opportunity to visit the beautiful island of Cuba. At the time, I didn’t realize how fortunate I was since travel has now recently been rescinded. In my opinion, that’s a shame. I do understand it’s a political decision although I do not agree that we should not be on speaking terms with a neighbor. Cuba is only 90 miles from our nation and populated with people who are family to many of our citizens. Genealogywise, this separation saddens me.
I have not previously blogged about my trip because it was for pleasure only. I longed to go there since I was three years old; my parents used to watch I Love Lucy and although Lucy’s fake crying set me off, I was enchanted with Desi’s accent and musical skills. My mother told me he was from Cuba and in my preschool mind, everyone on the island – an island, no less – now that added to the mystique! – was as talented as Desi. Someday, I was sure to visit.
Unfortunately, as I grew up, our countries grew apart. Sure, I spent every Wednesday at 10 AM hiding under my desk at school under the false pretense of being protected from a nuclear blast that was certain to hit the Chicago area from the disagreement but I still longed to go there. (As a side note, I realized how stupid the idea of these drills were one June morning after school had just closed for the summer. I was sitting on the back porch swing of my grandparent’s home reading a Nancy Drew mystery when the air raid siren blasted. On that beautiful late spring day it occurred to me that if a real nuclear event happened, I’d not likely have the protection of my school desk. I only lived one block from my elementary school, I could even see my first grade classroom’s windows from my bedroom, and I felt quite safe on the swing at home. I went inside and asked my grandmother what she did when the siren went off and she said she ignored it. My immigrant grandmother was a wise woman and I decided she was correct; hiding under a desk wasn’t going to spare my life. That was the day I started questioning authority.)
Fast forward to last year when a family member decided to take a continuing education course on a cruise ship sailing from my area. I eagerly agreed to go even though we’d only be in the city of Havana for about 8 hours. I scheduled an almost all-day tour for several reasons; the primary being I wanted to hear about the island from a native’s standpoint and not from my country’s. I also knew that like other Caribbean nations, Cuba operates on its own time so if I wanted to go to the fort, for example, it might just be closed at the time of my arrival even though it’s supposed to be open. (You live in Florida long enough and you get used to this concept but I understand it’s maddening if you aren’t used to it.) I figured a tour group would know what was open so I didn’t waste time. I also wanted to insure safety as my Spanish stinks and I’ve been known to say things that was not what I intended. I definitely did not want to be an ugly American.
I’m going to spare you my travelogue of that day and get to why I’m writing about Cuba now – this is what you need to know if you are of Cuban ancestry and unfortunately, didn’t go when you could to research your family. Although it will be more difficult now, it’s still doable with some work arounds.
Do not beat yourself up because you missed the chance. I once had lunch with a Russian genealogist who told me he had difficulty obtaining records back when his country was an ally. One morning on a visit to an archive he was told the records he sought weren’t available. He told a Cuban colleague and later that day, the colleague went to the same repository and came out with the records the Russian had requested. If you’ve been into genealogy for any length of time you probably had a similar situation like this happen to you. Get a different government employee and you get a different answer. Sure, prejudice could have been involved but I’m sticking to the first scenario as it’s happened to me.
I am no expert in Cuban genealogy although living in my area, I have friends and colleagues of Cuban descent who have shared how they have gotten the information they needed. My visit confirmed what they have told me. Here’s my advice, which is mostly commonsense genealogy practices:
· Make sure you get all the information you can about your ancestors’ FULL names and location before beginning so you aren’t contacting the wrong archives and wasting time. By full name, I mean the hyphenated Hispanic name. You don’t have to have the complete name but the more you have the better. (For example, Pablo Picasso’s complete name was Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. If you only had Pablo Ruiz y Picasso that’s fine).
· If you don’t write well in Spanish, hire a translator. Although most people I encountered spoke English well, that doesn’t mean they read it well so you’ll increase your chances of getting the information you request by clearly communicating in their first language. Don’t rely on online translators; you want to be clear in the Cuban dialect so hire someone.
· Be patient, like I said earlier, Caribbean time is not the same as U.S. time so you may have to wait a LONG TIME for a response. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope to increase your chances of success. How long will you wait? According to my guide, months. This was regarding my question about obtaining cemetery records to the main cemetery in Havana pictured above. As it is still being used, going through old records is not considered important and the request will be filled when burials slow down. No telling when that would be; there was funeral mass in the chapel when we were visiting. (Here’s another aside – if you’ve been following me for years and realize that every time I go on vacation I end up at a cemetery you are correct. I can’t explain it – I just do!)
· It is not recommendable to go online and hire a genealogist. First, there isn’t a lot of trust between our countries which filters down to individual interactions. There is also the economic impact of the most recent decision that clouds the situation. Looking at the list on the Association of Professional Genealogists you will not find one genealogist who resides in Cuba so I advise you to not find someone online who says they’re going to help you. If you have no family members in Cuba you can contact to go and obtain the document you seek, contact the CubanGenealogy Club of Miami who can guide you. (I have attended one of their workshops and was impressed)
· Be prepared to be disappointed as most buildings in the country are not air conditioned so time, humidity, and flooding are just some of the issues that affect the document’s condition, especially in the rural areas. It would have been nice if the Vatican had copies of the church records, since the country was predominantly Roman Catholic but that’s not the case. (Come to think of it, it would have been nice if the Vatican had copies of my needed Croatian records that aren’t on Familysearch so know this isn’t just a Cuban records problem.)
· IMPORTANT CAVEAT – don’t bother trying to get property records. Why? My guide mentioned that there was a concern that Americans were going to try to reclaim the property that their ancestors left behind. I assured her that was not what was the motive is in obtaining property records from a genealogical standpoint. My family member had witnessed this comment and reminded me last month that one of the new U.S. decisions was to support reclaiming property. Personally, I just don’t understand that – I’ve got family that fled lots of wars and rebellions across the globe and I’d never go after their former farms and homes. If a dear reader would like to help me understand the logic in suing for what was abandoned, please comment. I see this as the large impediment of obtaining genealogical records.
If the recommendations above are overwhelming, realize the information you seek may not even be available in Cuba. Cuba was a Spanish colony until 1898 so you’re only looking for Cuban records between 1898 and whenever your family arrived in the U.S. Many of the Spanish records are in Spain. Personally, I’d start there.
Sometimes, it takes a village to solve a genealogy mystery. Thanks to all for sharing their ideas regarding identifying my mystery man, Anton “Tony” Kos, who is buried next to my great grandfather Josip “Joseph” Kos in Gary, Indiana. An extra special thanks to research librarian Marilyn in Lake County, Indiana, who went above and beyond my request for Tony’s obit.
Since the rainy season has officially begun in Florida this morning, I’m planning on spending the weekend further researching Tony and Joseph’s relationship, if any.
Here’s some great ideas that genealogists recommended:
People did not always stay in one place for long. That’s especially true for laborers who went wherever work was available. Joseph arrived in New York, traveled to Detroit, Michigan where he got a job with the railroads, relocated to Pennsylvania and followed the lines to California and then back to Chicago, Illinois where he lived in Pullman housing with his wife and children he sent for years later. When the work ended in digging ditches, he moved to Gary, Indiana to work for U.S. Steel. My Tony could be anywhere in the US at any time.
Linda reminded me that immigration was not a one way route – people came and went across the pond. My grandparents ended up married because they crossed paths in Chicago. Grandpa Ivan “John” Kos was a second cousin to Joseph Kos. John emigrated with his brother, Stephen. Stephen had a wife and child remaining in Austria-Hungary and had come previously to work but returned to the old country. When money became tight again, he opted to return and brought John with him. When the railroad job ended in California, Stephen decided to return to Austria-Hungary while John took work in Chicago. This means that Tony may have moved back and forth, too.
Marilyn pointed out that people often relocated together. I know that’s a duh but rechecking immigration lists might be helpful in determining other’s with the same surname or surnames of related families I’ve previously identified. For example, when Joseph emigrated he came with a Franjs and Embro. Embro went with Joseph to Detroit while Franjs went to Pennsylvania. I’m not sure who Embro and Franjs were in relation to Joseph other than they were listed together and all came from Austria-Hungary in January 1910. Tracing Franjs and Embro may be beneficial in determining Joseph and Tony’s relationship.
City Directory dates are not the date the data was accumulated. Back in the day, the information for a City Directory was compiled by workers going door to door across the city. Then it was published, perhaps the following year. So the 1918 City Directory most likely had entries that were from 1917. Since there is no way to know the exact date when a particular entry was recorded, there’s no way to be certain in years between censuses when a family actually resided at the listed residence.
Sometimes the answer is not where you think so I may just need to broaden the search back to the old country. Unfortunately, Familysearch.org does not have the Roman Catholic parish records for the village by people came from so I may need to contact a genealogist in Croatia to shed light on the family.
Next week, I’ll be on the road so there will be no blog post. Happy Hunting!
I’ve been researching a mystery man, Anton “Tony” Kos, who was buried in 1934 next to my great grandfather, Joseph Koss, in Oak Hill Cemetery in Gary, Indiana. You can see from the above pic I took in December 2001 how close the stones are compared to the next stone to the right. Looks to me like the plot was one.
I never got a straight answer regarding how Tony and Joseph are related, if at all. I’d love to find out if they were related, which I strongly think is possible, and why my mother and grandmother refused to verify that.
Here’s what I know…I used to accompany my mom and grandma to the family cemetery around Memorial Day to tend to the graves. We’d always go to the old part of the cemetery first, to clip the grass around the gravestone of my great grandfather, Joseph Kos[s] who died in 1919 during the Spanish flu pandemic. When I was old enough to read, I noticed that next to his grave was an Anton Kos. I knew the family name was originally spelled with one “s” but I had never heard of Anton so I asked how he was related and never got an answer. I recall my mother just looking at my grandmother and my grandmother looking down and continuing to tidy up her father’s grave. So, as only a small child will do, I asked again. I never got a straight answer. I tried several other times over the years and got various answers; that Kos is a very common Croatian name like Smith is in Great Britain. That didn’t tell me if Tony was related. It also didn’t explain why I never saw another grave in the cemetery with the original spelling of the surname. When I asked about that, I got, “I don’t know why.” as a response. (There actually is another Kos, John, who died in 1934 buried in the cemetery but as a child, I had never seen that grave.)
I tentatively placed Anton as a sibling of my great grandfather Joseph. Joseph was born in 1875 and Anton, in 1879. I had called the cemetery in 2012 to ask who purchased Anton’s plot and was told that no one did because the cemetery records don’t have an Anton Kos. I told the clerk I knew where he was buried, immediately south of my great grandfather. They insisted no one was buried there. Looking at the records, I understand what happened. Anton is listed as Tony in cemetery records, even though Anton is chiseled on his tombstone. Tony was what was recorded on his death certificate and the cemetery must have listed him under that name. My great grandfather’s tombstone has his Americanized name, Joseph Kos and not his birth name, Josip Kos so there was another possible clue that my family was involved. These folks Americanized as soon as they arrived in 1910.
As an adult, I can see another family trait that gives credence to a relationship; my family plans for their deaths. I could see that they would have purchased two plots when my great grandfather died in 1919 expecting that his wife would be buried next to him. But she lived on until 1966. I’m thinking when a family member who was in need of the plot died, the family buried him instead. My family always helped out a relative in need, be it sending care packages back across the pond, fronting them money or taking them into their home for awhile. My grandparents had purchased a larger plot in the newer section of the cemetery that was the intended burial site for them and my great grandmother. It is also where I buried my mother’s cremains.
After we tidied the old section (but we never touched Anton’s stone, which is interesting), we’d move to the new section to trim the grass around the Koss stone. No one was yet buried there but my forward thinking grandparents had enough sense to purchase the stone while they were still employed. (And thanks, mom, for taking care of your end of life stuff prior to your death. Hope our kids appreciate we did the same – yes, you can already find me on Find-A-Grave.)
So getting no where with the cemetery, I decided to try to research Anton Anthony Tony to find a connection.
From Ancestry.com, you can see his death certificate below:
No help with his parents info but it does say he was born in “Yugo Slavia” just like Joseph Koss. He also died of lung issues, just like Joseph. Joseph’s whole family had lung issues, hmm. Not a smoking gun but certainly gives one pause to consider a relationship as they all died young. He also was a laborer in a steel mill, though not the same one where Joseph worked. Granted, most immigrants at the time were laborers and steel mills offered good wages.
I have never been able to find Tony in any census – having checked 1920-1940 under Anton, Anthony and Tony Kos, Koss and Ross (as my own people have been enumerated as).
There is another mystery – who was Steve Sesta who provided the death certificate info? I’ve never heard of him.
The death certificate gives me a clue to look at the address where Tony was living when he died, 35 East 39th Street, Gary, Indiana.
So here’s a tip – I want to use the 1940 census to find who was living at Tony’s address. It could take quite some time using Ancestry.com because I would need to click on every enumeration area and Gary was a large city so there are many. To save time, I used the National Archives site (just Google 1940 U.S. Federal Census enumeration map and you’ll be taken directly to it or use my link).
Since I grew up in the city, I know the layout of the street and avenue names, which saved me time. If you are researching an area you aren’t familiar with, simply use Google earth to get a better idea. In my case, I knew that streets ran north and south, avenues ran east and west. Street names west of Broadway used the president’s names in order (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, no repeat of Adams, etc.) and east of Broadway used states’ names, in no particular order. So, I was looking for 39th Street and could eliminate all of the western side of Broadway simply by identifying if the first page of the census had a presidents name or not.
After going through 3 enumeration areas, I found the address:
The address was divided into two housing units, front and rear. Steve, who had provided the death certificate info, lived in the rear. That means Tony was living in the front but he wasn’t there in 1940. It also explains why there is no parent information for Tony, neighbor Steve did not know that information. (I know, you’re thinking I should check property records to see who owned the residence but the problem is most of Gary’s records were “lost” according to the Lake County, Indiana property appraiser’s office. I suspect they’re somewhere in Gary and just weren’t turned over to the county when the law changed but I don’t live anywhere close to be able to hunt around for them so that’s a dead end for me.)
The death certificate did state Tony had worked for 1 year as a laborer for Illinois Steel. He may have only arrived in the area in 1942, during World War II.
I checked immigration records but there are many Anton Kos’ who emigrated from Austria-Hungary/Yugoslavia so I’m unable to pinpoint one of them as my mystery man.
I know, from a recent DNA match with another relative, that during World War II, my Cvetkovic relatives were displaced to another part of what is now Croatia, due to mayhem in the area where the family originally resided in Velika Gorica. It certainly is possible that Tony had left the area because of the war and came to the U.S. to a place where family already resided.
Tony was survived by a wife, Anna, who was born in 1878. Perhaps she remarried as she is not listed in cemetery records by the last name Kos or Koss or like Tony, she wasn’t entered in the cemetery database correctly. Unfortunately, only 30% of the cemetery is listed on Find-A-Grave. There’s nothing on Billion Graves either.
Somehow, I have a maiden name for her as Smolkovic but I have no idea where I got that info. I also have a marriage date, but no place, and two children residing in Rhode Island. That info was obtained years ago before I carefully sourced (shame on me!). This is an area I need to further research.
I checked City Directories and there is only one Anthony in Gary but he was married to a Mary living on Filmore Street in Gary in 1918. He never appears in any other directory. My Kos line doesn’t arrive in Gary until 1919 so I suspect he wasn’t the my Tony. There is no Tony or Anton ever in any City Directory for Gary. I got his obituary thanks to the Ask-A-Librarian link on the Lake County library site but it provides basically no information other than he had died after a long illness, which disputes the information on the death certificate. Or, maybe not. Perhaps he suffered from lung problems for years but the incident that caused his death had been short.
There is no one in my family much older than me left who would know – definitely no one who was alive in 1943 that would remember. Decided I’d try the cemetery again since it’s recently been sold and maybe the new owners have done an inventory of grave sites. Sent an email on Sunday and haven’t gotten a response so will follow up with a phone call this week.
If that falls through, I’m going to attempt to check Baptism records for Velika Gorica to see if I can link Anton to Joseph’s parents. Unfortunately, they aren’t on Familysearch.org so I’ll have to email a genealogist in Croatia to do some digging.
Connecting Tony and Joseph would be awesome but I’ll most likely never get the story of why he was not discussed since dead men tell no tales!
