For several years, I have been giving a presentation on how to do focused research. I use William C. Gleeson’s obituary as a starting point. First, create a research question and then make a research plan.
This presentation is interactive and I have the audience participate by reading the obituary to discover something they would like to know, and then read it again to list the background information—those facts that the obituary is stating.
Then we make a list of items to research. The research question is usually who are his parents. Always someone lists getting the death certificate as one of the first items. One day I realized I had never ordered it. I knew when he died and where he was buried, but I never took the time to get the actual death certificate.
We should always strive to get every document that might have information about an ancestor. Even when you think you know everything. I know who his parents are, where and when he was born, etc. Of course, one thing I did not know was how did he die. The obituary said nothing about that.
I received my copy from Multnomah County.[1] I learned his address was 350 ½ Morrison in Portland, that he was born on 1 June 1871 in Canada, that he was a bridge builder, that his parents were John Gleeson and Margaret Tierney, and that he was buried at Mt. Calvary Cemetery. His younger brother, Frank, was the informant. All of this was information that I knew from other sources, such as his baptismal record and the cemetery record. The obituary gave the date of the funeral.
Then I looked at the cause of death, was I ever surprised. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning (suicide). It was the coroner who signed the certificate after an inquiry. Nothing about this was in the obituary. Of course not. The family probably kept it secret. There was a funeral Mass and he was buried in a Catholic cemetery. He would not have been allowed if it had been a known suicide.
Once I got over the shock, I felt sadness. What was going on in his life that he felt despaired to end it? He had been involved in mining, and oil development in Wyoming. Had he gone bankrupt? Did he owe money he could not pay? Unfortunately, I may never know, without some possible personal papers or letters.
#52 Ancestors: Week 39: Surprise
This is my sixth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe. I write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.
[1]
Oregon State Board of Health, Certificate of Death, no. 2746, William Charles
Gleeson, 1927, Multnomah County.
A sad discovery
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