Problem: find where Mary Jane Dukes-Aurand is buried.
Sources: obituary, online obituary database, cemetery transcriptions, known genealogy of the family
When I visited my hometown of Findlay, OH in January 2006 I looked up most of my direct ancestors’ gravesites. One that I was not able to find was Mary Jane Dukes-Aurand. Here’s how the story goes:
During the preparation for my trip, I used the online obituary database of the Findlay Hancock County Public Library to makes lists of all the obituaries I wanted to look-up and all the cemeteries I needed to visit. Mary Jane was somewhat elusive in this regard. I had trouble finding her in the obituary data base. I checked under both her married and maiden names, as well as Mary Jane and Minnie (I knew from my grandmother telling me about her that her nickname was Minnie). I found an obituary for a Mrs. Henry Aurand which seemed promising, since this was Mary Jane’s husband’s name. However, this ended up being Henry's second wife, not Mary Jane. In the course of checking the obituary index I copied down "near hits" that I got in case I needed to reference them later. It wasn't until I was in Findlay that week that I found her obituary in the database under Mary J. Aurand. Unfortunately, all it told me was that she died of consumption near Benton Ridge; it gave no family or burial information.
Since I now knew that she died near Benton Ridge, it made sense that she would probably be buried somewhere nearby. I looked through the cemetery transcription books that I thought might be applicable. I checked Dukes Cemetery first, since that seemed an obvious choice given that her maiden name was Dukes. There was no listing for a Mary Jane (or Minnie) Aurand, but there was a Mary Jane Dukes listed with a date of death of 1883. The date of death given seemed much earlier than what I was expecting; Mary Jane’s husband died in 1925, so I was looking for a date similar to that. Jane is a pretty common first name, and a Dukes buried in Dukes Cemetery pretty-much told me nothing, so I decided this wasn’t the Mary Jane Dukes I was looking for. Moreover, since she had been married for a number of years and had two children with her husband Henry, I was expecting her to be buried under her married name of Aurand, not her maiden name of Dukes. I concluded that this Mary Jane Dukes who died in 1883 was not my great-great grandmother but some other “cousin” with the same name.
My visit to Findlay ended and I left without finding where Mary Jane was buried. After I got back home and started working with all the data I’d collected over the course of my visit I came back to the problem of Mary Jane’s burial. I had an unconfirmed date of birth of 1849 and an obituary dated 03 Jan 1884. The obituary was printed in a weekly paper which reported that she died “Thursday.” Thursday happened to be the day the paper came out, so I needed to determine if she died that day or the week previous (27 Dec 1883). But what was I going to check these two dates against to determine which one was accurate? I ended up looking back over the “near hits” I’d found in the obituary database, and there it was, staring me in the face: Mary Jane Dukes, 27 Dec 1883, Dukes Cemetery. I'd listed it as a near hit!
Key to the puzzle: Mary Jane’s obituary uses her married name of Aurand but her headstone is inscribed with her maiden name Dukes.
My resulting epiphany consisted of the following realizations. The obituary data base contains two sources of information: dates of obituaries published in local newspapers and headstone transcriptions from county cemeteries. If the person has an obituary, their headstone information usually isn’t listed in the database. Mary Jane had two listings in the database: an obituary under her married name Aurand and a headstone inscription under her maiden name of Dukes. These entries don’t reference each other because the obituary (under Aurand) gives no burial information and the headstone inscription (under Dukes) gives no marriage information. The key piece of information one has to know to solve this whole riddle is that Mary Jane was buried under her maiden name. So, at the end of the day, Mary Jane was hiding in plain sight: in Dukes Cemetery, right where I’d expected to find her!
Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, once I found her obituary I had a date of death within one week of accuracy. Why I didn't take this date and compare it to the data in the obituary database is a mystery to me. As mentioned above, when I saw 1884 listed as her date of death in the cemetery transcription book it struck me as being too early to be her. Her husband died in 1925, therefore she should have died somewhere around the same time; a very erroneous assumption on my part. Combine this with my lack of faith in the unconfirmed birth date of 1849 and I looked right at the solution without seeing it.
Two lessons learned: first, don’t assume which name—married or maiden—will be used for a woman’s obituary or headstone inscription. Second, just because it’s the obvious place to look doesn’t mean it’s the wrong place. Rule it out based on facts, not because it’s “too easy” to be true.
Final mystery: given that Mary Jane had been married for just over 13 years to Henry Aurand and given birth to two daughters, why was she buried under her maiden name? One can understand that her family may have insisted on burying her in the family plot, but why under her maiden name that she hadn’t used for 13 years? Once a Dukes always a Dukes? Perhaps.
I have seen many instances of women who died young and were married for far less time than Mary Jane was who were buried under their married name. Many, in fact, have completely lost their own identity in death and been given a headstone inscribed with their husband’s name, i.e. “Mrs. John Doe.” Others have preserved at least their first name and received “Jane, wife of John Doe” as a final inscription. Mary Jane’s situation illustrates that even when someone is buried under the name they were given at birth, it doesn’t guarantee an easy find 120 years later.
Sources: obituary, online obituary database, cemetery transcriptions, known genealogy of the family
When I visited my hometown of Findlay, OH in January 2006 I looked up most of my direct ancestors’ gravesites. One that I was not able to find was Mary Jane Dukes-Aurand. Here’s how the story goes:
During the preparation for my trip, I used the online obituary database of the Findlay Hancock County Public Library to makes lists of all the obituaries I wanted to look-up and all the cemeteries I needed to visit. Mary Jane was somewhat elusive in this regard. I had trouble finding her in the obituary data base. I checked under both her married and maiden names, as well as Mary Jane and Minnie (I knew from my grandmother telling me about her that her nickname was Minnie). I found an obituary for a Mrs. Henry Aurand which seemed promising, since this was Mary Jane’s husband’s name. However, this ended up being Henry's second wife, not Mary Jane. In the course of checking the obituary index I copied down "near hits" that I got in case I needed to reference them later. It wasn't until I was in Findlay that week that I found her obituary in the database under Mary J. Aurand. Unfortunately, all it told me was that she died of consumption near Benton Ridge; it gave no family or burial information.
Since I now knew that she died near Benton Ridge, it made sense that she would probably be buried somewhere nearby. I looked through the cemetery transcription books that I thought might be applicable. I checked Dukes Cemetery first, since that seemed an obvious choice given that her maiden name was Dukes. There was no listing for a Mary Jane (or Minnie) Aurand, but there was a Mary Jane Dukes listed with a date of death of 1883. The date of death given seemed much earlier than what I was expecting; Mary Jane’s husband died in 1925, so I was looking for a date similar to that. Jane is a pretty common first name, and a Dukes buried in Dukes Cemetery pretty-much told me nothing, so I decided this wasn’t the Mary Jane Dukes I was looking for. Moreover, since she had been married for a number of years and had two children with her husband Henry, I was expecting her to be buried under her married name of Aurand, not her maiden name of Dukes. I concluded that this Mary Jane Dukes who died in 1883 was not my great-great grandmother but some other “cousin” with the same name.
My visit to Findlay ended and I left without finding where Mary Jane was buried. After I got back home and started working with all the data I’d collected over the course of my visit I came back to the problem of Mary Jane’s burial. I had an unconfirmed date of birth of 1849 and an obituary dated 03 Jan 1884. The obituary was printed in a weekly paper which reported that she died “Thursday.” Thursday happened to be the day the paper came out, so I needed to determine if she died that day or the week previous (27 Dec 1883). But what was I going to check these two dates against to determine which one was accurate? I ended up looking back over the “near hits” I’d found in the obituary database, and there it was, staring me in the face: Mary Jane Dukes, 27 Dec 1883, Dukes Cemetery. I'd listed it as a near hit!
Key to the puzzle: Mary Jane’s obituary uses her married name of Aurand but her headstone is inscribed with her maiden name Dukes.
My resulting epiphany consisted of the following realizations. The obituary data base contains two sources of information: dates of obituaries published in local newspapers and headstone transcriptions from county cemeteries. If the person has an obituary, their headstone information usually isn’t listed in the database. Mary Jane had two listings in the database: an obituary under her married name Aurand and a headstone inscription under her maiden name of Dukes. These entries don’t reference each other because the obituary (under Aurand) gives no burial information and the headstone inscription (under Dukes) gives no marriage information. The key piece of information one has to know to solve this whole riddle is that Mary Jane was buried under her maiden name. So, at the end of the day, Mary Jane was hiding in plain sight: in Dukes Cemetery, right where I’d expected to find her!
Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, once I found her obituary I had a date of death within one week of accuracy. Why I didn't take this date and compare it to the data in the obituary database is a mystery to me. As mentioned above, when I saw 1884 listed as her date of death in the cemetery transcription book it struck me as being too early to be her. Her husband died in 1925, therefore she should have died somewhere around the same time; a very erroneous assumption on my part. Combine this with my lack of faith in the unconfirmed birth date of 1849 and I looked right at the solution without seeing it.
Two lessons learned: first, don’t assume which name—married or maiden—will be used for a woman’s obituary or headstone inscription. Second, just because it’s the obvious place to look doesn’t mean it’s the wrong place. Rule it out based on facts, not because it’s “too easy” to be true.
Final mystery: given that Mary Jane had been married for just over 13 years to Henry Aurand and given birth to two daughters, why was she buried under her maiden name? One can understand that her family may have insisted on burying her in the family plot, but why under her maiden name that she hadn’t used for 13 years? Once a Dukes always a Dukes? Perhaps.
I have seen many instances of women who died young and were married for far less time than Mary Jane was who were buried under their married name. Many, in fact, have completely lost their own identity in death and been given a headstone inscribed with their husband’s name, i.e. “Mrs. John Doe.” Others have preserved at least their first name and received “Jane, wife of John Doe” as a final inscription. Mary Jane’s situation illustrates that even when someone is buried under the name they were given at birth, it doesn’t guarantee an easy find 120 years later.
1 comment:
So nice to find a cousin looking at the same conundrum I was having. I had gone to findagrave.com and they only showed 3 listed graves at the Dukes Cemetery in Benton Ridge, Hancock County, none of which was a Dukes.
My great grandmother Clemma Ione Dukes (Wright) died very young. She was the daughter of Eli Haddox Dukes. Sooo..., my father died in January 2009 and one of my sisters sent away his blood sample to get his (in other words, our grandmother's, mitochondrial haplotype and it came back Native American! We were blown away!
So good luck hunting through that trunk. are you doing a tree on ancestry.com? I like to tag everything with a source, so I nicked the headstone photo and referenced this blog. Let me know if that was not good.
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