52 Ancestors Week 17: Document

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 17

"Document" can be a noun or a verb and, as genealogists, we should be using it as both! Perhaps this week you share a neat document you've found or write about your efforts to document an ancestor.

The temptation to use Clippy was strong.

    Where would we be without documents? Well, as genealogists we'd be up a creek without a paddle because documents are quite literally our bread and butter. Documents can tell you anything from when a person was born to even their height. Sadly, there isn't any document that can tell you what your crazy uncle Ed's favorite color was or his shoe size. We're getting there, though. It's the Internet and the stuff you upload to it, news stories and social media adventures stick around forever! I probably have stuff from like twenty years ago on some long forgotten corner of the web. I don't invite you all to go looking for it! Besides all the cool stuff is on our sister site, Starbolt Productions. 

    On the genealogy front, you always want to be mindful of the documents you find. I was half joking when I said "Have you verified the source?" in the banner above. You really want to verify things before you attach them to your tree because sometimes a Paolo Coppola may not be *YOUR* Paolo Coppola. Look before you leap or attach a document in this case. That's just common sense.

      I know various documents show up as hints and it's very tempting to accept everything you see as gospel. However, sometimes you might want to think outside the hint box and do a little sleuthing on your own. You never know what kind of documents you might find. 

    This was especially true a few months ago when I found this unlikely holy grail of information. Ladies, gentlemen and others, I present the death certificate of one Antoine Pierre Legault.  Antoine, as you might recall, was my second great-grandfather who met an unfortunate end in 1901 shortly after the birth of his son, Oliver. He was the father of thirteen and husband of Lucie Cadran. He was also a factory worker working in one of the many textile mills in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Antoine passed away due to pulmonary phthisis aka tuberculosis.

    I found this particular document after it was suggested that I should probably try and find things that didn't require a shaky green leaf or one of those blue hint boxes on Familysearch. I figured why not? What could happen? A lot, apparently.

    I came across this document because I was not satisfied with the original death record hint Ancestry and Familysearch originally presented to me ages ago. It had no meat. No potatoes. No substance of any kind. I was not willing to accept a name, date and cause of death. I needed MORE information! The list of names just wasn't cutting it!

Need more meat, yo.

    While the information on the deaths in 1901 did give me his cause of death, his parents and his age. It left out a few other odds and ends I'd have been interested in. For example, stuff like where he was buried would have been awesome. More on that later. 

    Then again it was just a basic report on who died that year in Haverhill. I don't think it was intended to have a lot of meat. So, I shouldn't be too upset.  Either way, I had a goal. I wanted to see if I could find a document in the vast document filled archive that is Familysearch which had more information than what was provided here. While cool, it lacked the explicit details I needed.

    Armed with a thirst for knowledge, I decided to check the Vital records in Haverhill in 1901 to see if there could be anything on Antoine. These records weren't indexed and thus wouldn't show up as hints for anyone until some time in the future. I had over two thousand images to slog through. How was I going to find what I needed?

    Fortunately I had everything I needed for a search on Antoine's page on WikiTree. His date of death was on October 19th, 1901. I just needed to find that date. So, what I did was I put in random numbers into the image viewer until I got close to October of that year. It didn't take long to find his death certificate on image 1209. I smiled. Had I hit paydirt?

    I had to verify things of course. His date of death matched Antoine's. His parents also matched the parents I have for him as well. They were Jacques Legault and Delphine Gourgon. I should note that thanks to some miscommunication at the border, Antoine's mother is forever listed as "Delphine Gourgon Samorette" instead of "Delphine Gourgon dit St. Maurice" on so many documents. Even my grandmother's records had the bizarre misspelling! I digress. Despite the glaring errors, the document was clearly showing this man was my

 2nd great-grandfather.

    Finding Antoine's actual death certificate meant I had more information available than I ever had before. Aside from his cause of death, it had the following bits of information:

* Parents' names.

* Address

* Duration of his illness (About a year, it seems.)

* Place of burial.

    Wait! Place of burial?! YES! This death certificate listed where Antoine was buried and to my surprise it was not in Saint Joseph's cemetery in Haverhill as I had originally hoped/theorized. All this time I thought he was buried in Saint Joseph's with Lucie and the rest of the Legault family. He could have even been at Walnut cemetery. That's two strikes. Turns out Antione was buried in Saint James cemetery! Well, that saved me two trips. 

   

    I should note that I found this document in winter when there was like a foot of snow on the ground. It was a pretty snowy January. It's probably not a good idea to do cemetery runs in the middle of winter anyway!

    Saint James cemetery is a good sized cemetery on Primrose Street in Haverhill. It's also across Little River from Hilldale cemetery, one of the most haunted cemeteries in New England. They actually have night tours for that cemetery around Halloween. I'm not joking. 

    Once I discovered where he was buried, I sought out to make a page for him on Find a Grave. I had enough information to make an entry so I thought I would get ahead of the game. I put in a photo request because I wasn't sure when I would have a chance to go there. Hopefully, I get a chance to visit soon. I just wonder where to start to be honest.

    Most cemeteries, like nearby Saint Patrick's, have people buried by decades. I think I would have to start by looking for the graves in the early 1900s. Or I could just call the cemetery office. I mean....That would be the most sensible thing to do. Still, I hope the photo request is claimed either by me or someone in the area. It'd be really cool and whoever finds it would have my gratitude.

    In hindsight, it is a a sad document to find. Now I can see just what exactly happened to him and suffering tuberculosis for a year is just depressing. At least there's finally closure on that chapter. I created a Find a Grave profile and reunited him with his wife and children. Now we wait. Will I get a pic or will some volunteer take a photo? I have no idea!

   For now, this document has been attached to Antoine's profile on Wikitree and will be a testament to how great things can happen when you think outside of the usual hint box. Sometimes you need to take initiative to find the documents you're looking for. You might yield some amazing results. Ever since I found that death certificate, I felt the need to see what else I can find that hasn't been made into hints. Those stories will have to wait for another day. Finding documents online is a great way to prove facts in your favorite tree. I invite you all to check out your hints and even do your own deep dive into the archives!

See ya next time!