Follow your Dreams!

This is Sophie Regula Gubelmann. She was my great-great-grandmother. I know so very little about her. She was born in Switzerland and was married young to my great-great-grandfather Carl Stange who was 16 years her major. I was told she had reddish hair. I think I inherited the form of her hands. That’s pretty much all I know.

I once dreamed of her. I met her in the store in Stralsund that she ran after her husband’s early death. She wore a black dress as widows did, with a lot of underskirts. She walked up to me and told me to continue my search and not to give up. I awoke and wondered what this was all about. But it had felt very real.

The following week, I went to Stralsund to find out more. I went through the church records of St. Nicolai at the parish office, looked at the death records and found my great-great-grandfather’s cause of death and his place of burial in 1899. The next step was to find his youngest daughter Antonie’s confirmation record from around 1890. These records were kept at the church itself and the clerk was kind enough to go there with me and let me have a look. I stood in the sacristy, opened the book of confirmations on page 172 in the year 1893 and immediately saw a surname that sounded familiar. The record stated that this child named Sophie Charlotte Stange was the daughter of Carl Stange, born in 1879. But I had never heard of this girl before. I went back to the other records again and found her death at the age of 20 of consumption. And in fact she had been Carl and Sophie Stange’s daughter and my great-grandfather’s youngest sister. Only that no one had ever talked about her. I asked my mother, aunts and uncles, no one had ever heard of her. I called my grandfather’s cousin who had done research in this part of the family and could even remember her grandmother and her great-aunt Antonie. But she had never heard about this child either. 

She sent me a picture of two girls whom she had considered to be the oldest daughter Maria and the youngest Antonie. But as Maria had been 9 years older than Antonie and handicapped after a fall, it simply was more likely that these two girls actually were Antonie and Charlotte.

I still am puzzled by the fact that this child never was mentioned. I am sure that this was rather normal in those days, even though the child was certainly was loved and missed. But one person did not forget her and made sure that we started to talk about her again. And that was her mother Sophie Regula Stange, née Gubelmann, born in Switzerland, married young, with reddish hair.

Killing Them Off - It can help knock down those brick walls

What Death Records have you used?

One thing that many genealogists do not pursue, as much as they should, is death records.

Even though as beginners we are advised to kill off the individuals in our trees. 
However, unless the death records available, provide clues to aid the addition of further generations, many of us think it is something that can be left till last.

But is this really such a good idea, and are these records as lacking in information as we believe.

So what records are available that can help us to determine that our family member has died.

In England and Wales here are some of the records I  have used

• Death Certificates - these were required from 1837. However they are not always available for the early years.
• Burial Records for church or cemetery.
• Newspapers - obituaries, death notices and inquest reports.
• Headstones - although many are illegible.

As I discovered only this week, the amount of information found in any of these records can vary widely.

Death Certificates or Registers

Certificates in England and Wales contain only a limited amount of information, although you can sometimes discover a daughter's married surname if she registered the death. Here is a useful guide to what can be found on these certificates  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By3twQPayu2VMUJjMWtRRTVnMDQ/edit?usp=sharing

In Scotland it is very different. The Scotland's People website allows access to images of the registers (for a fee), the details as to what information can be found on these, is explained on this page  http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?r=554&628 .
This extra information can be a great help. 
So if you have family who died in Scotland it may be worth your while checking out those death records.

Burial Records or Registers

Burial records may be your first port of call for earlier years, but I would always recommend finding the original record where possible as sometimes additional information is recorded. Even for more recent burials the registers can confirm where the individual was buried and where any memorial may be found. 
Today many individuals are cremated. Although this was less common in the past, a lack of a burial record, cannot be considered to indicate that an individual is or was still alive and searching for a cremation may need to be considered.
If someone was cremated it may be more difficult to find the records but books of remembrance and memorials can be found.

Newspapers

For sudden deaths then newspapers can reveal much about the family as an inquest will look into the circumstances of the death. 

Death notices may contain little more than a death date, but others can be more like an obituary, with details of family members. 
They may give clues to other places to find records or mention the company involved in the burial.

Headstones and Memorials

Headstones can be very susceptible to the ravages of time and weather conditions. Some older memorials can still be read today whilst other newer ones can be illegible. The materials used and the position in the burial ground are all factors affecting the memorial.

Many family history societies will have transcribed headstones in the past and this may be the only way of finding what was written on the memorial.

Find a Grave http://www.findagrave.com/ is worth looking at even for more recent deaths as is Billion Graves http://billiongraves.com/ .

I have not extended my search beyond England and Wales so I would suggest that if you are looking for records in other parts of the world you check out Cyndi's List http://www.cyndislist.com/  to find out what records may be available or where you may be able to start looking.

Finding out when and how someone died can bring so much to your story and without a record of death how can you be sure that there was not some other reason why that individual has apparently disappeared. 

This does not mean that we record individuals as living well past the usual life expectancy, but a deceased without a death date is always open to questions. 

Divorce was not readily available for our ancestors and if someone was of the right age, they may have another, yet to be discovered, family.

Widows of any age may have remarried. So that death record you found was it your person or another with the same name. 
This has happened to me and I discovered the person had remarried and was living with her new husband on the next census. She finally died some decades after the original date I had found.

If you have found death records to be useful please share what you have found with others in the community. If you have found any unusual sources or particularly useful records then I am sure others would love to know about them.

As I have mentioned before we all benefit from collaboration none of us know everything so please share your thoughts. 
Whilst you may help others it is also possible that others may help you.

"COME ON LET'S BREAK DOWN SOME BRICK WALLS!"