The first is that early burial records for Fairlawn Cemetery here in Oklahoma City has gone online.  This is one of the oldest burial grounds in Oklahoma City, which if you recall was established overnight by the land run of 1889.  The images are of Fairlawn’s record books and they are not searchable.  However, it is fairly easy to browse them, and the benefit of being able to look at the book is that you actually get more information.  There is no public index for deaths in Oklahoma so this is a wonderful resource for central Oklahoma.

For now, the information begins in 1901.  My source tells me the earlier books have been scanned and will be up within a month or so.  We look forward to having access to these records for so many of Oklahoma City’s early citizens.

Secondly, I have just found marriage records for Oklahoma counties have been put up at FamilySearch.  As with many states, Oklahoma has no statewide index to marriages.  This database has images where available–I found an image of my parents’ 1950 marriage in Beaver County, including images of the index–one for the grooms and one for the brides.  However, I found only an index entry to what I believe is probably a 1909 marriage between my the great-great aunt and uncle in Alfalfa County. (My great-grandfather’s brother (Simon B. Unruh) married my great-grandmother’s sister (Josephine Buller)–I was hoping for the record of my great-grandparents 1904 marriage, but because of the pre-statehood date, I really believe it is only available in the church book.)

The entire state is not included–my understanding is that some counties declined to have their records filmed.  I hope you are one of the lucky ones!

A bit of background.  Oklahoma was not a state until November 1907.  As you can imagine, this wreaks havoc on those of us who had ancestors here early and want vital records.  Registrations was mandated early, but neither birth nor death records are consistently held until the mid 1930s.

Amy over at WeTree is one of the “victims.”  She has an ancestor who died in Oklahoma in 1919 who, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, does not have a death certificate.  (Never mind that they found one for this ancestor’s spouse who died in 1913–we don’t really expect consistency, do we?)  So I was browsing through the Lawton newspaper to see if there was an obituary.  I found this article about compliance with the Health Board Regulations.  It explains a lot:

COUNTIES REPORT BIRTHS TO STATE

One-third of Counties Complying Health Board Regulations

Oklahoma City, Nov. 22–Nearly one-third of the counties of the state are not complying with state health department regulations on reporting births and deaths to the vital statistic bureau, according to a report just made to Commissioner Arthur R. Lewis, by Ethel Hawley, state registrar.

Last month 23 counties made absolutely complete reports of all births and deaths.  In September there were only 19.  In 258 out of 399 registration districts, reports were made.  There are 46 districts with no registrars and 85 registrars who didn’t report.

Reports for October show 2753 births and 989 deaths, an increase of 244 births and 102 deaths over September.

Recently I had the occasion to need some birth, death, and marriage certificates from California. The birth and death came from Sacramento fairly quickly–about 2 1/2 weeks. Surprisingly enough, they are sending me a refund for the two they didn’t find. Of course, the two they didn’t find, a birth in 1862 and a death in 1883 are the two I wanted most.

But I have another issue with the marriage record requested from Sierra County. They sent me a letter of “No Record Found,” and they had the wrong name for the groom on that form. Now, I’ve checked. I sent the correct name. Did they check the right name and put the wrong one on the form? Did they check the wrong name? And how do I diplomatically address this?  I’m hoping an oh, so polite telephone call tomorrow will help settle this for me.

I have no New England ancestors that I know of.  I do have that one line that was in New York City fairly early, so maybe that counts.  I tend to think of New England ancestors as being in places other than the Big Apple.  But I am a genealogy librarian, so I think of this as a work-related expense.  I need to know what’s out there for my patrons, right?

So imagine my surprise when I found something in the NEHGS’s manuscript collection that a cousin and I recently discovered and have been trying to find one accessible to us.  Short of a trip to Boston, this one is still not all that accessible, but I can at least check into having a portion of it copied and mailed to me.  I sent off the request this morning.  It’s only money.

I’ve documented my quest for documenting “Patsy McClain” as the wife of John Mitchell.  We believe we have definitely connected Martha “Patsy” McLean, daughter of Ephraim and Mary “Polly” Boyd McLean, Jr., as the wife of John Mitchell.  They probably married about 1810 or so in Maury County, Tennessee.  My cousin recently unearthed a Maury Co., TN bond of some sort between John Mitchell and John McLean–but there is no date and no mention of Patsy!  It was sent to her as a “marriage bond.”  Of course she is pursuing it further.  But it is as close as we’ve come to linking the two. What do the headings on this hard-to-read document mean?  As with any bit of information, this one engenders the need for still more data.

And hopefully the manuscript will help as well.  IF portions can be copied.

If not, a trip to Boston may be in order.

I’m taking license with the prompt for today.  This is a Christmas present for this year rather than bringing up memories of Christmases past.

What happened at work yesterday is a large part of the reason I do what I do.  [NOTE:  ALL names and places have been changed for privacy.]

A gentleman came into our library with an application for the birth certificate for his wife’s adopted sister.  He’d been to the Bureau of Vital Statistics and they’d told him they couldn’t help him–they would not issue him a birth certificate nor would they issue one to his wife for her sister.  They suggested he come to the Historical Society.  We get these customers often–the state does not have any sort of public record index nor do they provide any sort of access for any vital records from any time period.

I began the reference interview to try to determine what we could do for this man.  We do have newspapers from across the state so sometimes those will provide birth information.  Through the years of being a librarian, a genealogist, and an all-around curious person, I’ve helped people with these sorts of research problems–it’s always a circuitous path with lots of unknowns.  And it usually takes a lot of time and effort.  He said he’d been working on this for 16 years.

When I started asking questions, he said the family had been very closed-mouth, not unusual in these situations.  But he thought she might have been adopted by the daughter of a friend of the family–that was the family story, maybe, if the below-the-surface talk could be believed.  And he knew that person’s name.  Let’s call her Roberta.

So we started looking.  We found the family in the 1920 census living in the community he remembered.  The potential adoptive mother was married to Marvin Morgan (name changed)–our customer didn’t know she’d been married.  But he was sure this was the person he’d heard might be the adoptive mother–he recognized her parents names as well as hers. The young married couple was living with her parents in the small town our customer knew as their home, and they had no children of their own listed on the census.   So we looked for them in 1930 to see if there was a child listed in the household, but we couldn’t find them listed–either the grandparents or the adoptive parents.  The husband had been listed as working in the oil fields, so they could have moved anywhere to find work in that time period–the depression and Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl.

We decided to take a look at the SSDI.  Marvin’s name was common but not exactly as common as, say, Bob Jones.  We found a “Marvin Morgan” listed who died in 1975 in Gotham City, Oklahoma, who was the right age and who had received his Social Security card in Oklahoma before 1951.  We thought he was a likely candidate based on that much info, and there were no other candidates with this munch potential.  It was at least an hypothesis to test, a lead to follow.

My colleague trotted back to get the city directories.  Listed in the Gotham City city directory was Mrs.  Robert Morgan, retired.  Was this Roberta or was it someone who was still using a husband’s name?  We kept looking until we found the year she was no longer listed in the directory.   HOWEVER, we went a step further,  looking up her address in the back of the first directory that she was not listed.

A person by a different name was living at that address, but the phone number had remained the same.

What did this mean?

Using the name listed at the address, we went back to the front of the directory and found the wife’s name matched the information the customer had for the sister’s name!  Woo-hoo!

Then, with trepidation, we put her name into the SSDI.  We found a death date for a person who matched  what we knew so far.   Sure enough, she’d died in September of this year.

We went on and found a death notice that included her funeral date and the funeral home.

It was bittersweet, but rewarding.  He was thrilled and so grateful.

It made my day.  We didn’t even charge him for the copies we’d made for him.  In about half an hour, we’d answered a question this family had sought for years.  The answer usually doesn’t come that quickly nor that easily.  We were aided by the fact that the sister’s name had not been changed and that much of the family whisperings turned out to be valid.

It wasn’t the hoped-for outcome, but it still felt like a  gift to both his family and to my coworker and to me.

These records are a gold-mine of information, and for now, I’m very frustrated by not being able to do more in-depth indexing.  For a variety of reasons, I’m only recording which court, the type of case and the names of the defendant and the plaintiff.   Because of lack of space, we cannot unfold and put these documents into a file folder.  I hope to eventually be able to scan them so they can be more easily accessed and indexed.  Right now, they are in a basement storage in a huge stack of boxes.  My efforts are the the beginning foray into organizing these records for use.

I have not worked in divorce records before.  The information found in these petitions nearly always includes the date and place of the marriage.  One I read today indicated the marriage took place in 1899 Havana, Cuba–was the groom a soldier?  How did the bride get to Cuba?  Neither name appeared to be a Cuban surname.  I want to know the story of this wedding.  A surprising number of the marriages did  not take place in Oklahoma, the site of the divorce.

In about 95% of the cases I’ve processed so far, the woman is suing the man for the divorce–she typically states that he does not provide support, and, in many cases, that he has disappeared.  This is substantiated by the files containing some documents such as returned mail as well as notices published in the newspaper requiring the defendant to respond to the summons.  Too often the woman describes being verbally and physically abused–again, substantiated by restraining orders.  One case names the person with whom the defendant has been “committing adultry,” and another phrase is handwritten in–”…and with other persons known to the defendant.”

AS I’ve said, the majority of the records in this box are divorces.  But today I came across a case filed for breach of promise.  The plaintiff/woman was asking for $10,000 in damages.  She said she’d quit her job at the telephone company and made arrangements to be married as she had been promised.  She even included a letter he’d written her from Texas.  From my non-legally proficient eyes, it looked like she had a good case.  Unfortunately for my curiosity, there was nothing in the file that showed the final disposition of the case.

There was also an annulment petition.  Evidently the groom was only 17 when he married and his “next friend,” his father in this case, was petitioning for annulment–the basis for the petition was that the groom was not 21, there were no children, and the couple was not living together.  Another story to pique my curiosity.

One of the few cases of the husband suing the wife for divorce was a man stating that he’d met all the duties and responsibilities of a husband only to find that his wife would not cook meals or mend his clothes.  He stated that he’d made arrangements for her to be able to shop at the best grocers and butchers, but that she insisted he eat out, incurring additional expense.  He also spelled out her unwillingness to mend his clothes, also incurring expense since he had to hire a tailor.  In addition, he said he made money available to hire household help, but she refused to hire anyone.  So he was asking for their marriage to be dissolved.

This peek into 1914 matrimony and law has been fascinating. The names and ages of the children are included, and, in some cases, the name and address of the business and it’s financial worth, usually owned by the husband.  In one particularly sticky custody case, the names and addresses of both sets of grandparents was in the file.  Often the woman asks that her maiden name be restored so there’s another valuable piece of information.

The gloves I wear while processing the papers are filthy after handling about 20 of the packets.  Refolding the documents and putting them into their cardboard envelopes goes against everything I know about preserving such documents.  But for now, we need to record enough information to make them minimally identifiable and accessible.  Here’s hoping they retain their fascination for me.

My grandparents both fibbed on their marriage certificate.

My grandmother was born in what is now Beckham County, Oklahoma Territory, 19 January 1906.

My granddad was born in Dewey County, Oklahoma, just after statehood, on 2 November 1908.

In 1929, they were both living with their families in the Oklahoma panhandle in Beaver County.

Lida Lee Anderton and Elmer Dewey Unruh drove two counties away to marry in Woodward, Woodward County, Oklahoma 25  March 1929.  Google Maps calculates this trip as an hour and a half today.  I don’t know how long the trip was at that time, over mostly dirt roads, but it can’t have been quick.

Lida’s age on 25 March 1929 was 23 years and 3 months or so.

Elmer’s age on 25 March 1929 was 20 years and 5 months or so.

Here’s what they wrote on their license and certificate:

According to this document, Elmer was 21 and Lida was 22!  Not a big lie, but not the truth, nonetheless.  Lida ignored her last birthday and Elmer assumed his next.  I’ve often wondered if Elmer had been the oldest by almost 3 years, would they have felt the need to misrepresent their ages?  Probably not, which is part of what makes this act so interesting.  Even today we assume that grooms are older than their brides, though we have become somewhat more tolerant, I think.

My grandmother always told me that her marriage license had burned up in a house fire.  I accepted this story because I did know that her family had at least 2 house fires.  However, when examined more closely, those fires were in the homes of her parents and really should have had nothing to do with their married daughter’s marriage record.  I don’t think either one of us thought about this aspect of the story at the time.

As a beginning genealogist I wrote the Woodward County Clerk for a copy of my grandparents’ marriage record.  They wrote back telling me that they had no record of such a marriage.  Of course I knew they were married but how was I going to document this marriage?  If I was going to have trouble with collecting documents for my grandparents, how would I manage the generations further back?

In current Texas panhandle terms, Woodward, Oklahoma, is not very far from my hometown of Perryton, Texas–a short 2 hours.  Years after my failed request for this marriage record, my mom was going to Woodward for some reason I now forget.  I asked her if she would be willing to go by the Woodward courthouse, “just in case.”  She was a good sport about running these sorts of local errands, so when she called to tell me the results, I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

Not only was their marriage record on file, the County Clerk still had the original marriage license application and certificate of marriage.  Did she want them?  Did she want them!!  So I am now in possession of the original marriage certificate of my maternal grandparents.  My grandparents never returned for the record and it evidently was not mailed to them.  My grandparents didn’t go to Woodward often–if they went to a “big town,” they went to Perryton, Texas, which was less than one-half the distance.  So going to Woodward to marry adds another layer of mystery to this deception.  They went because no one knew them there and they had a better chance of getting by with their “new” ages.

This exercise taught me several lessons–many of which come as second nature now.  One is to be skeptical of what you read, even in official records.  Those records are generated by human beings, and human beings are not perfect.  Another is to not take “no” for an answer, and that there is no substitute for being on the scene yourself (or, in this case, sending one’s mom).  I prize this document for the picture it provides of my grandparents as young people–traveling to the neighboring county to marry, away from persons who would have known them, except with the couple who accompanied them as witnesses, and who were also married that day.  They always celebrated their “correct” birthdays–they included them on the Delayed Birth Certificates they filed in 1971.

So a final lesson is to be sure to collect all the documents and compare the information they include.  And sometimes they tell a story beyond “just the facts”–a little insight into personalities behind those dry documents.

Elmer and Lida Anderton Unruh

near Sedan, New Mexico

est. 1945

The age for this person is right as is the name, but there were lots of Cromwells and lots of Elizabeths. I checked Rudy’s List of Archaic Medical Terms, aka Antiquus Morbus, to see what was meant by “chronic enteritis.” It appears to be a inflammation of the intestine, particularly the small intestine.

To be continued . . .

Last night I was surfing around looking at death records that are available online* and came across the St. Louis Library site. They have indexed and uploaded several years of death notices and obituaries from the the St. Louis Post Dispatch. The sparsely documented information I have on Elizabeth Mary May Cromwell, c1840-1897, indicates that the date of her death would be included in the index.

This is the entry for Elizabeth Cromwell in the 1897 entries: Cromwell, Elizabeth *1/22 p3

I know some of the Missouri death certificates are online, but when I checked, the dates do not include 1897.

So, next, I noticed that there were St. Louis City death records available, tagged “requires payment,” for 1850-1908. I know that this usually means the records are available through Ancestry.com and I have a subscription. So I checked that site as well.

Sure enough, there was an Elizabeth Cromwell who died in St. Louis in 1897.

St. Louis City Death Records, 1850-1908
about Elizabeth Cromwell

My information, probably gleaned from census records, indicates the Elizabeth Cromwell who was my 3rd great-grandmother was born in Illinois or Arkansas. The Ancestry.com record states that this Elizabeth Cromwell was born in Missouri. On its own, I don’t consider that strong enough evidence to discard this as a possibility. Nor do I consider it strong enough evidence to prove this is the person I am seeking. Lots more work needs to be done. Other areas to investigate include the “Female Hospital” where she died. Is this a hospital that is still in existence in some form? In my experience, hospital records are not very easily located so I’ll try some other avenues first. It appears that her body went to the Anatomical Board–does this mean it was her or her family’s choice that she be a subject for medical research? What was behind this decision?

So far, I have emailed the library to see if additional information is available from the newspaper entry. It may be that the record in Ancestry has extracted all there is. I also need to go back and see if I can locate the original query. (Back in the “olden days” of genealogy, we had to send in our questions to genealogical publications in the areas where our relatives had lived, wait for the queries to be published, and then wait even longer to see if anyone answered. And this wasn’t even my query so I don’t know the outcome.)

I have no idea why a woman from Benton County, Arkansas, would go to St. Louis to the hospital. It may have been the place that northwestern Arkansans went for major medical help. I’m not familiar with that place in those times. It may be that one of her children or another relative was living in St. Louis, or nearby, and she was living in that household. Her husband had died in 1885, so perhaps she’d moved from Benton County. I haven’t uncovered any relatives who lived in St. Louis, but neither have I been very diligent about this line.

More research to do.

*Joe Beine is one of my genealogical heroes with his Online Searchable Death Indexes in the USA. Isn’t this a great resource?

Today I got this envelope in the mail:

As you can see, I ripped into it, hoping against hope that the Texas Department of State Health Services had relented, seen reason, and sent me the death certificates.

Alas, the envelope contained an unhelpful form letter over the signature of a person whose title is “Complaints Coordinator.”

Bet she stays busy.

…and, scotch-taped to the letter was a refund.

Scotch taped! And it only took 6 months! Forevermore. I originally ordered these documents mid November 2006, and got the notice of refusal in December. This month, May, actually marks the 25 year anniversary of one of my uncles’ deaths–which means, in Texas’ infinite wisdom, that it would be safe for me to have a copy of his death certificate. Their noticing and sending his would probably be too much to expect.