Before I get to some of my weird stories, I want to tell you how I went from casual name collector to serious (albeit amateur) tree researcher.
I was surprised at how little I could find out about a great-grandfather. I knew his name and that was about it. Online research had me spoiled and I kept waiting on that hint to pop up and magically explain where he came from and who his people were. After years of that not happening, I decided to order my first death certificate.
Oh, the excitement! I was fidgety waiting for that piece of paper to arrive. I could barely contain myself when it showed up. I opened it to find this:
Confirmed info: great-granddad was a painter. His Dad was J. Harrison and his Mom was M. Harrison. New info: the “J” stood for James and the “M” stood for Mollie whose maiden name was Gasson. These details had been provided by the deceased’s child, my own dear grandparent, so I felt confident in the information provided. I also found out this death was due to an automobile accident.
I was able to confirm the automobile accident quickly enough by speaking with family and by searching out Newspapers.com:
Some goodies family let me in on: Mr. Harrison was blind ( a blind painter!) and used a sight cane to get around, and the odds were good he was intoxicated at the time of this accident. Alrighty then.
I added the new info into my tree and got NOTHING. Seriously nothing. I read and re-read the death certificate hoping for any clues at all. James Harrison is a plain name with too many hits to be useful. But Mollie Gasson? I was sure that odd last name would get me somewhere. But it didn’t. I found some folks with that last name but the background didn’t fit, the geography didn’t fit, and I found no records whatsoever to give me any kind of confirmation.
Because. The. Information. Was. WRONG.
Mollie was a nickname. Gasson was just completely incorrect. To wrap this story up, I spent months searching every version of that last name I could come up with. I finally hit an obituary that listed Mollie and her brother…with the correct last name but incorrect first name. But once I got to looking at the brother I was able to confirm Mollie’s real name and her real maiden name.
So the death certificate was wrong. It is easy to assume the official document is correct but it is only as correct as the person providing the details. I put myself in the position of the family. The informant was the deceased’s grown child although his spouse was living. Maybe his wife was distraught and just couldn’t help provide the specifics. That may have been true, too, for the child who did. That child also may not have really known for sure what the correct information was and just gave the best version that could be remembered at that moment. This was a sudden death and the family was likely in shock. They probably did the best they could.
The obituaries I found were also wrong. Same lesson as above. The additional lessons are to keep looking, use varieties, check newspapers, and look at siblings.
Looking at siblings plays a big part in the next story. I look forward to sharing.
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