Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Mystery of the missing death date

What are your thoughts when you see a gravestone on which the date of death is missing?

Of course, it could mean the named person is still living. But not someone born in 1857.

The tassled marker at the grave of Barnhart Ullmer (b. 1848, d. 1898) names Catharine Ullmer (b. 1857), his wife, but the year of her death is missing.


BARNHART
     ULLMER
1848 – 1898
CATHERINE
His Wife
1857 –       

Why is Catharine’s year of death missing? One explanation, maybe the most obvious, is that Catharine is not buried here.

Why would a wife not be buried with her husband? Any number of reasons, I suppose, but one comes to mind immediately: Catharine remarried.

Catharine Augustine (Augustein) married Barnhart Ullmer in 1873 in Marion County, Ohio. According to the marriage record (image available on FamilySearch.org), he was 34; she was 20.

So far, so good. The ages of the bride and groom match the dates on the gravestone.

Birth records on FamilySearch.org show a child, William Uhlmer [sic] born in 1884 to Barnhart and Catharine.

What happened to Catharine after Barnhart’s death in 1898? A clue on Ancestry.com suggested that Catharine remarried, and the 1900 Federal Census supports that theory.

Check out the name of the son living with Gottlieb and Katy (Catharine!?) Durr in Marion County: William Ullmer.

Ullmer Cemetery, Marion County, Ohio

2 comments:

  1. We had trouble finding my 3rd great grandmother. When we did find her her stone had her info but nothing regarding her husband. In calling the cemetery office they verified he was buried beside her.
    Another place we found a couple noted to be buried in cemeteries 20-30 miles apart.It bothered me think these two were married and raised a large number of children and were not together in death. After much researching we found them together with many of their children buried in a different cemetery.
    We also found my great grandmother buried with her first husband (she married three times) and a married(?) daughter. So their stone had three people with different last names buried together.
    See: http://restinginwestmoreland.blogspot.com/2011/05/mystery-monday-would-you-want-to-know.html

    If possible calling the cemetery office or checking out church records can help.
    I found a cemetery record in the local library's Pennsylvania Room. The original records at the church in the cemetery had been burned. So keep researching it's all so exciting. The more you find the more questions you dig up!
    We love your blog, BTW!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing the link to you blog--I am your newest follower!

    You know, I'm always puzzled when couples are buried apart. I have 3g grandparents who are buried in different cemeteries, maybe 10 miles apart. Why?

    ReplyDelete

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