MEMORY TABLE FOR DEPARTED LOVED ONES

From the Library of Congress, this Memory Table lithograph was designed 

by A. M. Bleichrode, circal 1974 in New York.

DEATH CERTIFICATES and BURIAL RECORDS : WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

In modern times the burial record is usually spawned from the mortuary that prepared the body for burial or cremated it.  The burial record will usually give information such as what cemetery, the name of a minister or priest or rabbi who conducted a ritual, and some other basic information. It is not a governmental civil records but the burial record and the death certificate seem to lean on each other. 

A death certificate is a governmental - civil report on what the person died of, the name of a doctor who had been treating that person or if an autopsy was performed.  It will often include the name of a spouse or next of kin, and don't be shocked but some people did not know the maiden name of their own mother!

Step one is to find a death certificate, as possible. Depending on location you might have to swear you are the spouse or child of the person who died.  But privacy laws vary and these records are being loaded into databases based on those privacy laws.

Yes, go ahead and check a TOMBSTONE PROJECT.

Step two is to contact the cemetery named and ask them for the burial record.  You might start by asking them for the plot location in advance of a visit.

Remember : Find A Grave TM and other such projects are TOMBSTONE PROJECTS.  There are more burials in that cemetery than the tombstones. Consider that:

There was never a tombstone or the cemetery is one that does not allow them.

That family members may have been buried in with an earlier burial that the tombstone does not include.

That family plots may not include the names of all the people buried in the plot.

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HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES #3 THE RATHER RECENT NOTION OF SURNAMES : AFRICAN AMERICAN - BLACK

HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES  #3  THE RATHER RECENT NOTION OF SURNAMES  :  AFRICAN AMERICAN - BLACK

Some people are telling me that using the term "Black" is now correct rather than African-American. Well....  all things being not equal...

I know that European-American is the equal of the term African-American but in the United States anyway, we have a very mixed society. I feel as if the term Black (or White) is actually general and assumes much based on a visual interpretation of someone's body. 

To learn what specific country or tribe one's ancestors left perhaps a DNA test is what to do. For today, using these tests, a person can say they are Nigerian-American... 

Using traditional genealogy, the find of archival documents, I've helped more than one person discover their American slave ancestors. But in one case we learned their Black ancestors were not slaves at all but were "People of Color" who came free and into New Orleans. 

We cannot assume that every person we encounter whose skin is of a darker shade has African roots, or if they self identify as Black, that they are of slave ancestry.  And as for Reparations, we cannot assume every person's roots were in Slave-America.

A person needs to ask themselves WHY they are doing genealogy. There are very many reasons why. If meeting people you are genetically related to is the reason, you no longer have to totally rely on documents held in archives. If you are preparing for Reparations, well I suspect a DNA test will be required plus the genealogy. 

African-American slaves...  on records in the United States, rarely are listed by names recorded in Farm Books or census. Slave Schedules on the 1850 and 1860 Federal United States Census offer statistics. But then, early census in the U.S. also only listed the head of household and statistics. Sometimes on contracts for buying or selling of slaves people are named. There has been some inference that when a White slave-owner does list the names, it is equal to recognizing those people as his genetic children. That assumption may be going too far. 

The Library of Congress has the largest collection of interest to those researching African slave ancestors. In addition, Slave Narratives, taken by writers employed by the Works Project Administration re President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, is held by many libraries. Recently on YouTube I found some RECORDED slave narratives! 

As for surnames, after liberation, some ex slaves did take the name of the slave-owner - the estate they lived on, without being genetically related to an owner...

But I think for the purposes of this post we need to go to the fact that most enslaved people did not go on record on U.S. census - and other documents - as having surnames until they were freed.  We have some incorrect notions about what happened when being free was official as well, as history and genealogy has proven this depended very much on individual situations, places and dates. We may know that slaves wanted to escape, wanted their freedom, and some managed to do this because of the Underground Railroad, but others had no idea what was next for them. Slavery was an economic system and the slave was tied financially to the slave holder, but emancipation did not always or automatically mean that the now free person was going to leave the homestead or plantation, not right away anyway. They needed to find viable employment and a place to live. To pack up and leave on foot on short notice to nowhere?

For many reasons people like to stay put. Our economic situation in large cities right now is typical.  Many people have become homeless because they can no longer afford to live where they have for years but they are not moving out of their home turf. They have no urge to leave a place they have become accustomed to, where they feel connected, where they know some people, how to get around, and where to find what they need.  

Not everyone wanted to leave a warm climate for a cold one. How do you know for sure that moving to a northern city will be a positive move? Point is, Emancipation came. The day came in which a person who never earned an income - or a viable one - but who had at least a rudimentary roof over their head, clothes on their back, and food in their stomach, was going to have to find some other way to earn money, a living, and pay for these things. Some slave owners did decide to go ahead and pay their ex-slaves or let people remain on the property. The Big Plantation existed but believe it or not most Slave Owners had only one or two and sometime the Slave lived in the house with the family.

As slaves did not have the right to property such as land or have money in a bank account until they were freed, the Freedmans Bureau created the first place for them to do that, the Freedmans Bank. Unfortunately, this bank didn't last and was only in operation for a short while.

The Freedmans Bank records I've used are rather limited, but I've found some valuable information in them because the person's name was unusual, or the person had not moved from where they had a bank account and were also on census. 

Freed people were told they could choose their own surname.

Though once enslaved, many chose the name of a President of the United States, such as Jefferson or Washington, though they were not slave owned by these men. 

THERE WAS NO LEGAL REASON WHY ANY ONE PERSON HAD TO ACCEPT OR USE a SURNAME meaning that members of the same family could choose different surnames or a person could try out a surname and decide on a different one. This is a research obstacle that one can sometimes not surmount, though I've had some great luck along with determination to find more information on people's ancestors who were once slaves. You may have to do some of the most dogged but incredibly interesting research that goes well beyond what databases can offer. 

I find that information held by churches can be valuable in this quest. Also carefully inspect death, birth, and marriage certificates for any notes that might have been made. I've found mention of a person's previous surname, not related to earlier marriage, in a few of these documents. When you find the name of a Slave-Owner or ex-Slave Owner, you may want to look for any legal documents such as land purchases and wills in order to learn more. Some of these landowners had land in more than one locality but, especially if they were rich and had many slaves, they may also be mentioned in local histories.

The African-American - Black way in contemporary times is to invent and create interesting and unusual given names, almost as if the surname is not so special. It's because of these given special names that I've been lead to some useful information. 

This post is one of a series on the subject.  Click on the tag Surname Help - AWG to get to the posts.

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All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

Image is from Graphics Fairy

FIND A GRAVE CHANGES POLICY TO BE MORE SENSITIVE : OPINION BY ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

FIND A GRAVE, the web site that features volunteers and others posting private information on where a human has been buried, has changed its policy, giving some credence to the sensitivity of living family.  It is not enough.  They have determined that they will allow family to grieve for three months before posting the location of the burial. (FIND A GRAVE WILL GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO OBJECT, if you register with them, then they will hold off for a YEAR.)

The lack of privacy in death that the deceased person and their loved ones has makes me feel some outrage at the whole situation - costly burials and the whole lousy funeral industry included. 

Apparently if you are living in the United States, you have about 70 years of privacy when it comes to census records, but almost none in death, and since most people who are alive have family who have died THIS ERODES THEIR PRIVACY TOO.  It is no wonder that fraudsters, including people who call up old widows and try to get their money, operate so easily. They see an obit, do a little research, and soon they have the person's address and phone number thanks to some of the most popular genealogy databases.  It's shameful.

I know someone whose parents were robbed of their life savings by such a fraudster and he knew all sorts of things about them and their children, which the criminal used in his story.  

Someone else I knew, who was in very deep grief over the death of his wife, was solicited by some lonely widows!  (To his credit he joked that he could not move to Florida because there would be even more of them after him there!  He had no interest in dating or remarrying.)

I had this experience years ago when a loved one died after a long, horrible illness. I was still in grief when I found out that the expensively paid for funeral and grave site - supposed to be on HOLY GROUND in a RELIGION-BOUND CEMETERY YET, was posted on FIND A GRAVE.  I recall seeing this on the Internet and a sick feeling spread through my stomach.

Apparently, the whole cemetery had been tramped on as a couple went around taking down information about the tombstones but when? I called the cemetery and tried to express my displeasure and got a snotty person on the phone who did not give a damn. She sure wasn't going to contact these people for me.

This person, who I was calling long distance, previously also did not want to reveal to me where my very own ancestors were buried in the cemetery - apparently it would take a visit to find out. Since then I have to wonder how many cemetery workers just think "go look at the FIND A GRAVE web site!" Since then others have died and been buried in that cemetery and the same thing - the information is exposed to the world! 

It was at that time that I decided if I myself was buried I would NEVER WANT A TOMBSTONE. (We really need to rethink why we need to have a tombstone at all. I don't think too many people actually visit cemeteries and the whole kneeling on the grave, looking at the tombstone and saying prayers thing, which I've witnessed others doing, is something I will not do. That person is gone. The best embalming and the heaviest locked up casket will not stop a body from decaying, be it in the ground or above ground.)  

Though the couple who did this outrageous privacy invading reportage did post that if you objected you could contact them and they would take the information down, I had to wonder how many people even knew what they had done and who they were! Latter Day Saints in a Catholic cemetery?  People who were with the local historical society?  Did they have any family buried in the cemetery?  What about the cemetery management and the church that claims this is Holy Ground - a great place for co-religionists to wait it out until The Second Coming resurrects them?  Maybe Jesus has his own database?

The idea that someone will offend you first, and then if you object, they will backtrack on the Internet yet, which is after all is world-wide, is sort of like when some man you're out on a first date with grabs your breast (or worse) and only if you object will he remove it. In other words, FIND A GRAVE and their cohorts seem to be, like some social networks with empire building agendas, speculatively depend on being caught and you making a fuss rather that ASKING YOUR PERMISSION IN THE FIRST PLACE. That is simply NOT DECENT.  

Further, FIND A GRAVE has turned into a place where people are posting private genealogy information as well: this is something I NEVER do as a professional. It is one thing to find out someone who died in 1906 in Austria is buried at a certain place, another to find out your mother's grave has been revealed. 

Privacy Rules for the Deceased and Their Families should be the same across the board.  Leave the dead to rest in peace and their loved ones alone too! 

There are many other privacy deprivations in place in the world of genealogy including in databases, and you can be sure FIND A GRAVE INFORMATION IS SHOWING UP ON ANCESTRY (The genealogy database: This blog has no relationship with it.) and well, lots of other places, including FAMILY SEARCH. 

I do wonder if FIND A GRAVE just decided to foist all that free, volunteer-given work over to ANCESTRY or if ANCESTRY PAID THEM?  FAMILYSEARCH? There is nothing wrong with contributing your free time and knowledge to a database but they need to be held accountable for privacy invasion. I await the day when someone who has been a victim of crime can point to these sites as to how the criminal found them and hold them accountable.)

Can cemetery sites help you with genealogy?  Certainly.  But let's get PRIVACY LAWS IN PLACE to show respect. Let the person rest in their grave without the world knowing where to locate them until decades have passed.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy.

(By the way, you are under no obligation to publish an obituary, and the funeral businesses putting obits and a plea for commentary and soliciting people to buy flowers and so on the internet, can also be insensitive. If someone has died and you have been informed, the thing to do is make a personal contact with the loved ones, not post on the Internet. If they are not personal enough to you to have been notified, you're just minding other people's business. This solicitation of posting remarks on Internet obits has become a sort of pressured activity, and funeral businesses are behind it.  If you want your privacy in death, be sure that your contract with the funeral home and cemetery include a contract in which they will not post and will not allow your burial site to be revealed!)

 

ABORTION and DEATH CERTIFICATES - NEW YORK 1970's

No doubt that abortion is a very difficult and controversial subject.

I recently became aware that in New York, in the 1970's, when "late" abortions were performed at about 20 weeks pregnant, women who delivered a dead fetus after a saline abortion had to sign a death certificate. This seems so very invasive of a personal medical issue that I hope these are sealed.

I would like to hear from  you if you know more about this.

GET THAT FLU SHOT?

A friend of mine has NEVER EVER gotten a flu shot and he is now over 60.  (I'm not sure that as a baby he got any vaccinations at all other than polio.  He wasn't born in the United States.)  He is one of the people who believes that vaccinations and flu shots in particular are unnecessary.  Some of these people believe that the government gives people diseases like cancer and AIDS in other vaccines.  To me this is paranoid thinking.

For much of my life I did not take the flu shot, not out of fear, but out of a sense that I did not need it and was so strong and in such perfect health that if I got the flu I could fend it off.  And if I did get a virus or cold or a flu I must have.

I started taking the seasonal shot in the last few years because I'm now in much more contact with the general population than I was - and that includes at libraries - and because I visit people who live in Assisted Living where there are a lot of seniors and people in more fragile health. 

I DON'T WANT TO BE CONTAGEOUS.

I'm convinced that, although the flu shot manufacturers take a good guess at what strain of flu is making its way around the globe and could be wrong, so that a vaccination might not actually work in every case, that the LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE TAKING THE SHOT actually helps protect those who refuse.  When thousands of people take the shot, they cannot get or give others the flu.

Well, my friend had a couple bouts of somewhat serious illness this year for the first time.  He was afraid enough to actually go to a hospital Urgent Care at one point.  He took antibiotics around the clock for the first time and he managed to break a fever of more than 102!  At that point I urged him to get the flu shot, because I think he is slowly becoming more fragile and at risk.  He said he'd think about it.

 And he didn't do it.

Not even when I brought up some DEATH CERTIFICATES from a database and showed him that people did indeed die of the flu in the not so distant past - like in the 1960's!


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