Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Is the Most Unusual Cause of Death You Have Discovered?

I have to veer a little off to the side for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic from Randy Seaver.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision

1.  What is the most unusual cause of death you have discovered for your ancestors?

2.  Tell us about the most unusual cause of death you found in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]

The reason I have to veer off a little is because I haven't found any particularly unusual causes of death in my own family, for my ancestors or collateral relatives.  And while I didn't find an unusual cause of death in my half-sister's family, I did find a situation regarding deaths that is worthy of note.

A few years ago I wrote about the time I printed out a five-generation family tree for my half-sister's mother's side of the family and discovered that not a single man in the family had reached the age of 60.  Every man but one had died of a heart attack by the age of 59.  So, not an unusual cause of death, but an unusual number of the same type.

At the time I made this grisly discovery, that cousin had not yet reached 59.  I never learned whether he had made the same observation about the men in his family, but he retired before turning 60.  He lived to the ripe old age of 79, dying just shy of his 80th birthday.

During my research for others, the most unusual (and unexpected) cause of death I have found was described thusly:

In case you're having trouble reading that, it's:

(a) Shock, Traumatic

Due to (b) Hemorrhage & Concussion of Brain

Due to (c) Multiple injuries of head

And in case you were wondering, the coroner's jury did come back with a verdict of homicide.

I would like to think that is still considered an unusual cause of death.

Treasure Chest Thursday: Elizabeth Curdt's "Obituary"

This is three newspaper clippings that have been glued together.  The first piece is at the top, with the name of the newspaper and the apparent date of the articles.  It is 3 1/8" x 3/4".  The second piece is the long, main piece of this amalgamation.  It is a short article about Elizabeth Curdt's death from burns suffered two days earlier and a second article (a short piece about "Pershing's Own Band" giving performances) that is partially obscured by the third clipping.  It is 2 1/8" x 7 1/8".  The third piece has been pasted in the middle of the long piece, just below the report of Elizabeth's death, and is a standard death and funeral notice.  It is 2 1/8" x 1 3/16".

In addition to the three pieces having been clipped from the newspaper and then taped together, the other modification that has occurred to the long piece is handwriting in blue pencil at the bottom reiterating the date and time of Elizabeth's death.  It is possible that the only reason the second article was kept with the one about Elizabeth's death was to be a platform for the death notice and note.

This came to me assembled already, so I can't confirm from my own knowledge that these all came from the same newspaper, but for the sake of analysis today I will work from that presumption.  The St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat reported on Sunday, April 27, 1919, in its morning edition on the death of Mrs. Elizabeth Curdt the previous Friday, April 25.  On the same day, the newspaper included a standard death notice and funeral notice, with the funeral scheduled to take place the next day, Monday, April 28.

The piece of information that immediately jumped out at me from this is that Alvina was at the house, apparently by her own admission, when her mother died, and just couldn't get to her in time.  If you believe the theory that Elizabeth was murdered is a viable one, then that definitely sounds suspicious and casts Alvina in a bad light.  In addition, Alvina seems to have been the child who inherited the largest amount directly after Elizabeth's death (her sister's husband having apparently obtained most of his money through purchases and sales of land prior to their mother's death).

On the other hand, the coroner's jury gave a verdict of accidental death.  I'll have to order that file, if it still exists, to see if testimony is included.  I wonder if anyone commented on Alvina's presence . . . .

The article about Elizabeth's death lists only her three children who had been residing in Missouri their entire lives.  The death notice added Emma, who had returned from Europe in 1917, less than two years previous to these events.  It's possible that the information for the two were given and/or compiled by different people.

The handwriting at the bottom looks like that of Jean La Forêt to me.  I can't think of a reason for him (or anyone, for that matter) to have copied the date and time.  Maybe his eyesight was starting to fail and he wanted to be able to read it more easily?

She Was the Informant for Her Own Death Certificate

It's October, the month of Hallowe'en and strange and scary things, so Elizabeth O'Neal of the Genealogy Blog Party asked people to write about the strangest things they had found during their research.  Besides my grandfather being registered as a girl on his birth record (which is strange in the sense of odd and confusing, but not particularly scary), the strangest thing I have found is the death certificate where the information was provided by the deceased herself.

I ordered this certificate while I was doing research for a friend.  As I worked my way down the page — past name (Taisia Swanson), birthplace (Russia), parents' names (Vladimir Gussakosky and Maria Akinfieva), occupation (self-employed vocal instructor), and usual residence (Ojai) — I reached the box labeled "Name and Address of Informant–Relationship", and found "Self Before Demise."

Say what?  This was the first time I had seen that on a death certificate.  Why in the world would she have given the information for her death ceratificate before she died?

My eyes had gone straight from the usual residence to the informant.  When I looked at the other information, I found that she had died in a convalescent hospital.  So she didn't really give the info specifically for the certificate; she likely provided it while she was filling in the intake forms that the hospital required, and the person at the hospital copied it from there.  But it certainly was startling to read, and I've never seen another like it!

Could "Bertram" and "Bertolet" Be Named for the Same "Bert"?

Bertolet Grace Sellers birth certificate, March 6, 1921, father "unknown"

I've written previously about how I proved that the man my great-grandmother married was my grandfather's adoptive father.  Of course, once I did that, my new task became the search for my grandfather's biological father.

The starting point for this search has been going back over some of the information that led me to suspect in the first place that Elmer might not have been Grandpa's father:

• no father's name was listed on Grandpa's birth certificate

• father's name was added to Grandpa's amended birth certificate in 1940, 22 years after Elmer (the supposed father) had died

• my grandaunt told me that my grandfather, Bertram Lynn, was named after a close family friend, even though he was the oldest son

• my great-grandmother had a daughter three years after her husband had died and named her Bertolet

The last two in particular have really had my mind whirling.  Not only do Bertram and Bertolet have "Bert" in common, let's face it, "Bertolet" isn't exactly your garden-variety, everyday name.  I started thinking, Hey, maybe this guy's name really was Bert-something (maybe Bertram?), and Laura and he got together again after Elmer died.  That's why she named her daughter Bertolet, after him.

I figured the most direct way to try to find the answer was obtaining Bertolet's birth and death certificates.  Makes sense, right?  So when my sister told me she was going to Trenton again to visit the state archives, I asked her to look for Bertolet.

She found both of the certificates.  But . . . Laura foiled us again.  Neither certificate lists the father!  So much for the easy route.  That woman sure liked to keep her secrets.

Bertolet Grace Sellers death certificate, January 11, 1927, father "not known"

While there could be several reasons why Laura declined to state that particular piece of information (twice!), I'm leaning toward him being married.  My sister, on the other hand (who is named after our great-grandmother), came up with a really complicated theory:

What if our great-grandfather was a married man (most likely) and wanted to name his child Bertram.  Laura gets pregnant and "Papa Lynn" insists he'll take the child away from her . . . IF it's a boy.  Laura doesn't want the child taken away from her, so declares the child a female and names "her" Gertrude on the birth certificate.

Actually calling/naming Grandpa Bertram Lynn was thumbing her nose at Papa Lynn, even though she corrected the BC years later.

In the meantime, Papa Lynn goes on with his life and Laura marries Elmer.

Papa Lynn HAS his baby boy and names him Bertram.
 
But wait . . . Papa Lynn was NOT a married man, but Laura's childhood sweetheart from an affluent family!  She was their domestic!  He was a few years younger and his family frowned upon the older Laura.  The family threatens to take her male offspring, so she names him Gertrude and then marries Elmer.

Elmer dies and Laura reaches out to Papa Lynn to confess her secret.  They rekindle the flame and create Bertolet.

How's that for melodrama?

Whatever the reason was, we didn't get the answer we were hoping for.  Now I'm working on the Y-DNA angle.  My father has a match at 111 – 4 markers, which means something like 6th cousins.  Luckily, the guy has a bare-bones family tree on FTDNA.  I'm working it backward and bringing every male line forward in time, hoping to find someone who plausibly could have been in Burlington County, New Jersey (or Philadelphia as a reasonable second possibility) in 1902.

In a funny coincidence, the man who matches my father has an Irish name.  Maybe that Ancestry DNA test will prove to be right about my Irish ancestry after all?

The Miracle Baby

Lily Gordon, circa 1935

Family stories are always interesting, but are they accurate?  My grandmother Esther Lillian Gordon, whom I always called Bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother), was born March 6, 1919.  One of the stories I heard many times while I was growing up was how it was a miracle she had been born and survived.

The story goes that Bubbie's mother, Sarah Libby (Brainin) Gordon, was pregnant with her when Sarah's brother, William Brainin, came home from the Army with influenza during the 1918 pandemic.  He infected his sister, who became gravely ill.  She had to go to the hospital and have a lung removed, while still pregnant.  Everything was touch and go, and there were serious questions as to whether either or both of Sarah and the baby would survive.

Somehow, Sarah recovered and gave birth to my grandmother.  Both of them were healthy, and Sarah's father, Rabbi Mendel Herz Brainin, was so overjoyed he went dancing in the streets. As an epilog to the story, Bubbie also said that her Uncle Willie had died before she was born.

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So far, the only part of this story that I've attempted to research is Uncle Willie's death.  My first clue that he didn't actually die before my grandmother was born was that I found him, or someone who certainly appeared to be him, in the 1920 U.S. census with his parents in Manhattan.  After that discovery, I searched for him in the New York City death index and found a likely listing with a death date of January 26, 1920.  I ordered the death certificate and confirmed it was indeed for the brother of my great-grandmother.  Obviously, I was very lucky in that he lived long enough to be enumerated in the census!

Learning that Uncle Willie had died in 1920, not before Bubbie's birth in March 1919, does seem to poke a fairly large hole in my grandmother's story.  Unfortunately, the other avenues of research aren't particularly viable.  The odds on any hospital records from 1918–1919 surviving are very small, and even if they existed, I probably wouldn't be permitted to view them, because medical records of any type are considered sacrosanct in this country, and New York is especially well known for being unfriendly about allowing researchers access to records (yes, even 100-year-old records that are supposed to be available).

A slightly — only slightly — better angle would be to research Uncle Willie's time in the Army.  He apparently did serve, because there was a photograph of him in his uniform that my grandmother identified.  It disappeared several years ago, but he was an enlisted man.  About 80% of Army enlisted personnel records for soldiers discharged between 1912 and 1960 were destroyed in a fire in 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri.  So the chances of his records having survived are low.  I do need to try requesting them, though, because that's still a 20% of being successful.  If his records did survive, I might be able to find out if and when he was sent home with the flu.  (It's on my [long] list of things to do for my own family research.)  If he did have the flu, and if he went home between about June 1918 and February 1919, maybe the story is true after all!

They're Not Mine; Are They Yours?

Herschel Kosewen and
Maria Wiernicka
marriage license (top)

I'm sure that everyone who does family history research has at some time ordered a record (probably more than once!) for a person that turned out not to be a family member.  What to do with these?  They aren't doing me any good.  I've accumulated a few of these at this point, so I thought I'd post about them in the hope that other researchers who can use them might read about them here before ordering them.  It's easy to spend a lot of money doing research; helping someone else save some money is a good thing.  These are all high-resolution scans, all but one from microfilm.  All are from New York City except one marriage license from Cuba.

Edwin Carroll Atwood and Margaret Victoria Andren marriage license, Manhattan, New York, May 9, 1931

Alex Blumenkranz and Leah Citron marriage license, Bronx, New York, December 1, 1934 (first page only)

Julius Fitzgerald and Margaret Andrew marriage license, Manhattan, New York, January 21, 1937

Herman Greenberg and Dorothy C. Itzkowitz marriage license, Bronx, New York, May 21, 1935 (first page only)

Jerome V. Heim and Margaret C. Andrews marriage license, Queens, New York, September 5, 1931

Jerome Klosenberg and Edith Posnick marriage license, Bronx, New York, June 9, 1935 (second page only)

Herschel Kosewen and Maria Wiernicka marriage license, Havana, Cuba, March 19, 1937

Irving Strauss and Rebecca Kshonz marriage license, Bronx, New York, November 24, 1934 (second page only)


Dora Sandals birth certificate, Manhattan, New York, February 23, 1899

Beckie Sandler birth certificate, Manhattan, New York, March 11, 1895

Joseph Sandlowitch birth certificate, Manhattan, New York, May 23, 1893


Margaret (Webster) Morrison death certificate, Bronx, New York, November 27, 1923 (first page only)

John O'Brien death certificate, Bronx, New York, November 27, 1923 (second page only); wife Mary O'Brien

It's That Giving Time of Year: World War I and II, Missouri Death Certificates, Vishniac Photos, Kilts, and More

It seems there are always more genealogy projects and mysteries that volunteers can help with, doesn't it?  I'm posting some of these later than I planned to, but all still appear to need assistance or answers.

More large institutions are turning to crowdsourcing to make information available.  The Smithsonian opened its Transcription Center to public input this past July.  After having digitized many handwritten documents, volunteers are now sought to transcribe the often difficult-to-read writing.  As with most such projects, each document is transcribed by multiple volunteers to try to ensure the highest accuracy.

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The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is also following the trend.  The museum has worked with the International Center of Photography in New York to digitize and place online the work of photographer Roman Vishniac.  Many, probably most, of the existing captions did not name the individuals in the photos.  If you can give names to previously unidentified photos, your help is wanted.  Visit the Vishniac collection and see if there's someone you know.  If you recognize a person or a place, click the link below the photo to send a message.

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Now this is a project made for family historians.  To help commemorate the centennial of World War I, the New York Times is asking people to share stories of their ancestors' roles during the war, along with the efforts made to learn about those stories.  So instead of just the bare facts, you can tell about the research you did and where you went to find out what happened to your great-grandfather.  One woman's story about her grandfather, who fought on the German side, is online.

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Every January 2, under Missouri state law, the Missouri State Archives receives another year's worth of death certificates from 50 years previous.  The archives processes and scans the certificates, and then volunteers do a transcription marathon.  It takes the volunteers only about four days to transcribe and check the year's worth of certificates, around 50,000–60,000 images.  The archives usually adds the images and the transcribed entries to the death certificate database by the middle of February.

Volunteers work from the comfort of their own homes, as with the FamilySearch Indexing program.  Also similar is that each record is transcribed twice and then checked.  If they don't match, however, a third person transcribes the record.  If none of the transcriptions match at that point, a staff member reviews the certificate.  Unlike FamilySearch, this program has no software you must download, but you do need to create a free account.

Mary Stanfield is the eVolunteer Project Coordinator.  If you or your society is interested in participating this January to transcribe 1964 death certificates, or if you have any questions, contact her at archvol@sos.mo.gov.

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The Jews of Frankfort DNA Project is both a regional and a surname Y-DNA project.  Male participants are sought who are Jewish; have a surname found in Frankfort/Worms in the 16th century; and have a documented lineage back to a male ancestor in the 16th century or earlier living in Frankfurt, Worms, Mainz, Alsace, Prague, Vienna, or another major Jewish center.  If you fit the criteria, the project would like you to take a Y-DNA test at Family Tree DNA and submit the results.  More information, including the known list of surnames, is available on the project Web site.

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A Glasgow seamstress sewing a kilt intended to be part of a World War I uniform included a note tucked into the stitching.  It's possible that Helen Govan was looking for a future husband:  "I hope your kilt will fit you well, & in it you will look a swell. If married never mind. If single drop a line. Wish you bags of luck, & a speedy return back to Blighty Town."  Now that the note has been discovered, the family that owns the kilt is searching for descendants or other relatives of Govan to learn more about her and the reason she included the note.

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A man who purchased a World War I medallion, and his father, are now trying to determine to whom the medal belonged.  They have done some research and learned that six men who served on the SS River Clyde at Gallipoli earned the Victoria Cross and this medallion, which was given by the Imperial Merchant Service Guild for bravery.  You can read the story of the men's service here.  The names of five of the men are included in the article.

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An online Michigan newspaper has been searching for the 39,000 World War II veterans it estimates are still alive in Michigan at the present time.  MLive created a database to share the veterans' names, photographs, and experiences and to honor their service.  The big push was to include information by Veterans Day, but information is still being sought.  An announcement about the project is available, and the database and submission form can be found here (scroll down for the submission form).

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At the Battle of Bannockburn, the outnumbered forces of Robert the Bruce defeated the English army of King Edward.  The 700th anniversary of the battle has passed, but if you believe you are descended from one of the men who fought there, researchers would still like to talk to you and help you determine if your ancestor was there, using modern DNA techniques.  Stewarts and McDonalds particularly are encouraged to contact Graham Holton, who was the head of the family history project for the anniversary.

I Found Two Possible Siblings of My Great-Great-Grandfather!

Possibly Gersh Wolf Gorodetsky

One of the great advantages of searchable electronic databases is their ability to show you information you wouldn't have thought to look for.  Even if you had considered looking, the time required might not have been practical.

Many years ago, I rented several rolls of microfilm of Jewish metrical records from Kishinev, Russian Empire (now Chisinau, Moldova) from the Family History Library.  I was trying to find information about my great-grandfather's family, which I had been told moved to Kishinev from the Kamenets Podolsky area some time soon after his birth.

My search was very successful.  I found the birth registrations of five of the six younger children in the family, the death record for my great-great-grandmother, and the index entry for my great-great-grandfather's second marriage (the church did not have the full marriage record on film).  I learned that this branch of my family was probably reasonably well educated, because when those five siblings immigrated to the United States the birthdates they used were surprisingly close to the actual dates.  I also learned my great-great-grandmother died one month after the birth of her youngest child, and that my great-great-grandfather did not remarry until two and a half years later, even though he had a one-month-old child.

I still have those microfilms on extended loan at my local Family History Center in Oakland, because I know it can be helpful to go through these types of records and look for other people with the same name and from the same place, as they might be related.  As these records were in Russian handwriting from the 1890's to the early 1900's, however, I kept putting it off, because I didn't want to slog through the 100+-year-old Cyrillic.

But now we have the Internet and searchable databases.  Several volunteers have transcribed many of the FHL microfilms of Kishinev records, and the transcriptions are now online in one of those databases.  I was recently doing research for someone else and ended up searching in the database that includes the Kishinev metrical records.

I didn't find any relevant information for the family I was researching, but I really thought there should be something.  To test the database, I searched for my family name, Gorodetsky, to see what kinds of results I would get.

The first thing I did was look for the information I had already found on microfilm.  All of it was there — that was a good start.  In these records my great-great-grandfather was consistently listed as being from Orinin, and his father's name as Gersh Wolf.  Then I glanced over the other results from the search.

I noticed a minimal death listing with my great-great-grandfather's name as the father.  I found another listing with more information about the same death and discovered that my great-great-grandmother had had at least one more pregnancy beyond the eight children I knew of, but this one apparently had sadly ended in a miscarriage.  I didn't know that miscarriages could be included in the death registers, but at least this one was.

Then I saw a second Gorodetsky whose father was also Gersh Wolf and who was from Orinin.  This man was potentially a brother of my great-great-grandfather!  He had three children listed in the database results.  Based on the birthdates of his children, he was probably a little younger than my great-great-grandfather.

I also found the death of a woman with the same father and from the same town, but she's quite a bit older than my great-great-grandfather.  She might be a sister!  It appears that she was not married.

Looking at the range of ages for these possible siblings made me wonder about my third-great-grandfather.  If these three were siblings, I wonder how many wives/mothers there were.  It's plausible, though on the extreme end, that all three could be children of the same mother.  Unfortunately, these records give only the father's name; the mother's name is not included.

I also began to think about Gersh Wolf's possible age.  I realized that none of Gersh Wolf's eight grandchildren I know about and the three potential grandchildren from the database had that name.  It was a common practice among many Eastern European Jews at this time, including my family, to name children after deceased ancestors.  In fact, my great-grandfather and three of his siblings named their first daughters after their mother; three of the siblings named their first sons after their father.  Admittedly, I know the names of only eleven possible grandchildren, but those births extend to 1910.  I'm starting to consider whether my third-great-grandfather was still alive as of that year, and that's why no one had yet named a child after him.  If Gersh Wolf was the father of the woman whose death I found, however, he had to have been born by around 1818 at the latest, so that would make him at least 92!  Of course, it's also possible that his children didn't like him, and that's why they didn't name any sons after him . . . .

Obviously, I need to follow up on all of these potential new clues.  And all this because I decided to poke around in a database!

What? A New Issue of "The Galitzianer" So Soon?

What's this, you say?  Another issue of The Galitzianer has gone to the printer already?  How could that be?  Could it be that Janice is catching up on her schedule again?

Yes!  I'm actually almost caught up!  The June 2014 issue of The G went to the printer last week and will be mailed this week.  That's pretty good when you consider that the March issue went out in June (one of these days I swear I'm going to be healthy again).

So I'm obviously excited that timeliness is re-entering my life.  This issue has some great articles, too.  Tony Kahane discusses upcoming legislation in Poland that will affect access to vital records.  The death record of a man in a specific house starts genealogist Israel Pickholtz on a search for how he might be connected to the family living there.  A woman contacted by a cousin via Facebook ended up taking a trip to Israel to meet cousins from a branch of the family that had been out of contact since World War II.  And we had permission to reprint a story by Robin Meltzer which publicly quashed, at least for a while, the age-old myth about names being changed at Ellis Island, this time in conjunction with the great Sid Caesar (may he rest in peace).

Members of Gesher Galicia receive The Galitzianer as a benefit of membership.  Gesher Galicia is a nonprofit organization focused on researching Jews and Jewish life in the former Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia.  Information on becoming a member is available here.

Articles for The Galitzianer are accepted from both members and nonmembers, and I love to read them all.  If you submit an article that is published, you will receive a copy of the issue with your article even if you are not a member.  Submissions may be articles and/or graphics, both original and previously published, and must be relevant to Galician Jewish genealogical research:  articles about recent trips to Galicia, reports on your own research, historical and recent pictures, etc.  Electronic submissions are preferred, though not required.  If you wish to submit material for consideration, please contact me at janicemsj@gmail.com.  I accept submissions year-round, but the deadline for the September 2014 issue is August 20.

New Online Database of Arkansas Deaths

The Arkansas History Commission has added a database of Arkansas deaths covering 1819–1920.  The database was designed to supplement the official state vital records, which began recording deaths in 1914.  The results from a search give the source of the information and the date recorded there.  Sources include cemetery records, mortality censuses, newspaper obituaries, church publications, and records from the Arkansas History Commission’s holdings.  Only the name is given for the source; if it isn't something you recognize, I would guess you can e-mail the Commission staff and ask about it.  The database is being created by Commission staff and volunteers, who continue to add new records every month.

I tried some sample searches.    It appears that the search does not support wildcards.  The search is by exact spelling, but it looks for names that match or begin with your search term.  For example, I searched for "robins" and got results for Robins and Robinson.  When I searched for "seller", however, I got all the Sellers results twice.

In addition to the new database, the Arkansas History Commission (which is the state archives) also has search pages for newspapers, military records, photographs, land records, and more.  This is a great resource for Arkansas research.