MAUSOLEUM

 image from Graphics Fairy

With the cost of funerals and burials rising, 

I wonder how many people can afford to build expensive mausoleums like this.

A TOUR OF THE ALTHORP ESTATE GRAVEYARD (PRINCESS DIANA SPENCER's FAMILY) : IS THE ISLAND REALLY HER GRAVE?

 I had no idea there was a possibility that Princess Diana, the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry, may not be buried on the island on her family estate.  But while watching videos after the death of Queen Elizabeth II I found this video.  I had thought about how her grave might not be water resistant, though there are probably ways to make it so.  Well, take the tour because there is a church, Saint Mary;s, first built in about 1200  I don't have a problem with the Memorial because it's carved wood rather than real marble. Nineteen generations of the Spencer family buried in their private chapel area....

Dead Good Walks is the poster.

A MODERN OBITUARY FOR AN UNMARRIED CHILDLESS MAN : CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF A NMNK

The unmarried and childless are often enough forgotten on genealogy charts and in family histories, despite the fact that it is also often those persons who were available to other family members when needed for child care, parental care, and financial help too. The Never Married No Kids person, without the obligation towards a spouse or offspring, is sometimes the person who is gets an education or moves away and has time to develop a career when others in the family have joined the status quo of married with children and the work-a-day world. 

I make every effort to include NMNK people in my charts and stories. Perhaps the brother of grandma is not one's genetic line but perhaps he was the one who cared for her when their parents died.  Great Aunt may have been called a spinster in her time and maybe she was lesbian or had been raped as a girl and had no interest in men. Or maybe cousin Honor was mentally slow but she was very much part of the family. Whatever the case, it was Great Aunt who hosted the Thanksgiving Family Reunions and always had some advice for a niece or nephew. We really do need to celebrate their lives too.

I recently came across an obituary in a sea of Covid-related obituaries of a young man and rejoiced in the wording of this tome.  It is so far distanced from the usual obituary that is either matter of fact or dripping in religious sentimentality and wording.

I'm changing the names and some of the details here but goes:

*****

SMITH, David John

David John Smith, 54, actor, traveler, educator, of Los Angeles, passed away Monday, January 3rd, 2022.  He was graduate of Valley College and UCLA.  He went on to earn an MFA in Theatre at the University if Michigan and later in life earned a Masters in Education.  Acting was his love from a very early age.  He performed on stage from the time he was in kindergarten and moved into film in adulthood. David began teaching in Los Angeles and took great joy in teaching children and taking part in shaping their lives for the future.  David loved his fur babies and will be reunited with his puggies,  Pretty, Spot, and Rover and many other furry friends he had through the years.  David leaves behind his parents,  John and Mary Smith, his sister, Nancy Jones, and his nephew Jack all of Detroit, Michigan, his dear friends Matty Johnson, Annie Mayer, Larry Larson, and Derik Shapiro, his kitty, Samson, and many close friends all over the world. A memorial service will be held at a later date.

*****

The original obit included a nice photo of the man who had recently passed away.

C 2022  Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot

SOLDIER FROM BATTLE OF WATERLOO SKELETON FOUND WITH TEETH : PROPER BURIALS

YAHOO: SOLDIER WITH TEETH : WATERLOO   In this article we learn that many a soldier's grave was looted and teeth were even sold as dentures.  Horses were buried too.  Perhaps the most important aspect of this archaeological dig is the discovery of proper burials. 

Excerpt:  The new findings cast doubts over historical claims that victims who died being treated at the hospital were unceremoniously dumped after the battle, along with some 500 limbs amputated during the fighting, and wounded animals.

PRAGMATIC MARRIAGE and DEATH

Pragmatic marriage - matchmaking or introductions - and no contraception.  Children dead from diseases now conquered through vaccinations and antibiotics - Fragile beings.  Or because their mother was malnourished during her pregnancy.  Or had too many children close together to actually recover between births.  Or they wore born without a father to support the family. Or their mother had no milk.

Today we talk Grieving.  We say it takes time to heal.  We have psychotherapy.  Then?

They had religion -informed world views. Children born as replacements (but not reincarnated) for previously born children who died. It seems to me that our ancestors had a whole lot to grieve as intimate family members, wives and husbands, parents, siblings, as well as friends and people they surrounded themselves died.  Reminding them that they too would and that life had many risks.

They often remarried - pragmatically  and quickly- as they might have the first time around in youth - and there were blended families due to death rather than divorce (which we think is another form of death.)  A woman without a husband needed another one quickly.

Were they so different than us?  Did they always have to carry on and get to it?

Villagers in Europe were often quite genetically related.  

Children on farms worked young.

Girls were left uneducated more than boys.  Even well-to-do families thought education - reading and writing - though educating a girl was handicapping her, making her a less desirable and dependent wife.

This was socially acceptable.

I think of the brides of pre-contraception and modern medicine days as especially brave.  They all knew that pregnancy and childbirth could kill them. 

As I try to understand my ancestors, I'm glad for the choices that modern medicine has given us.

And that be it them or me, life is short.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship Genealogy

USC SHOAH FOUNDATION DATABASES INCLUDE GENOCIDE TESTIMONIALS BEYOND THE HOLOCAUST

SHOAH FOUNDATION USC - LINK TO TESTIMONIALS   Cambodia, Guatemala, Armenia, Syria - man's inhumanity to man.  Shouldn't we be working on LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF?

There are hundreds of "access points" - usually at colleges - to this site for the full collection.

Is it possible that you or a family member should be recording a testimonial?

JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM HONORS JAPANESE AMERICANS INCARCERATED IN WORLD WAR II - SPECIAL BOOK PROJECT

LA TIMES - JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT BOOK MEMORIAL PROJECT 

Excerpt:  The book weights 25 pounds and is more than 1,000 pages long.  It is roughly the size of the Gutenberg Bible.

Instead the word of God, it contains names - 125, 284 names. ...

All 125, 284 names have never been collected in one place.  WIth 75 incarnation sites - some, like Manzanar and Heart Mountain, well-known, others forgotten --- records are scattered.  ...

JANM : JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM

DEDUCTIVE REASONING in GENEALOGY - NARROWING DOWN THE AGE OF DEATH TO FIND THE RECORD

Now that I've had my big breakthrough in my Polish line research, I've easily gone back a few generations but records I focused upon and would like very much remain missing or undiscovered. They are yet to be indexed for sure.  I've not found that the death records have much to offer in identifying who the dead person was married to. The death records seem to be the least indexed as well.

TO FOCUS and potentially reduce the time spent on looking for records page by page here is what I do.

I look at the marriages of the children.  If there have been two - three - four - marriages, I look at the marriages of the children from those marriages too because in these records there is a notation about each partner's heritage.  If possible start with the first married child and work forward in time.  If it says the parent is p.d. (parent deceased) you'll know that at the date of that wedding, that parent is dead.  Or both are.

ie. Jan's marriage  1835 parents both alive

     Marianna's marriage 1838 note that her father is diseased

      Sophia's marriage 1843 note that both parents are deceased.  

Therefore I know that I need to look from 1838 to 1835 for the death of these children's father.  And from 1843 to 1838 for the death of these children's mother.

Ancestry Worship - Genealogy