My Genealogy Blog: Wordless Wenesday

Showing posts with label Wordless Wenesday. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Wordless Wenesday: Alfred Abram and Katherine (Jones) VanNess: My 2nd Great grandparents

I finally found information on my brick wall! Researching my 2 great grand parents I could not find any information on them, I had names, place of birth and approximate birthdates but nothing showed up on Ancestry.com or Familysearch.org. I gave up after a while then one day last week I decided to start reaching them again.

I knew they lived and died in New York so I googled New York Deaths, I found a site called http://www.italiangen.org, they have a online search index for New York deaths, marriages and naturalizations. I found this site before but I thought this site just catered to Italian genealogy so I did not even bother to look at their indexes, this time I gave it a shot and typed in their names. Bingo! They showed up on their death index along with a death certificate number. I could have had this brick wall solved months ago!

I sent for their death records and Katherine’s came in the other day. This is her! Her place of birth, birthdate and parent’s names match what I have. Her death certificate stated the cemetery where she was buried. I googled the cemetery http://thecedargrovecemetery.com and to my surprise they had an online interment search. I typed in her name and there she was! The site gave me her lot and plot number. Along with Katherine, Alfred and several family members are buried by her. They even had a map of the cemetery sections, how convenient.

My sister lives in Brooklyn, I live in Florida, so I called her and she told me she is only 15 miles from the cemetery. Guess what she is doing this weekend? Yep, she is going to the cemetery for me to take tombstone pictures. The whole time family members were buried 15 miles from my sister and we did not know it!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Wordless Wenesday; Mystery of Mathias Knaus solved!

Mystery of Mathias Knaus solved!
I have blogged before on how it was driving me crazy that I could not find information on when Mathias died. No one in my family remembered when he died but knew where he was buried. I flew to New Jersey last year to visit my Mother and talked her into driving me to St. Peters cemetery in New Brunswick. There are no tombstone inscriptions for St. Peters.
We asked the “keeper of the books” where his tombstone was and he looked up Mathias’s name. He stated there was no death date listed but he was buried in the family plot. When we found the family plot Mathias’s name was not on the headstone just his parents. The “Keeper of the books” said his records state that it was a double headstone and Mathias’s name should have been on it.
Over the year I searched every record source I could. I had an idea of when he died but with no exact death date I could not afford the process of elimination through the New Jersey State Archives.
Last week I decided to see if the New Brunswick Public Library updated their online newspaper search. They did! I typed in Mathias Knaus and found a death notice, now I know when my great great grandfather died, 05 Jan 1916. I also found several articles on him, one in particular....a notice of a will executed to his wife…..I sent away for it yesterday!