Genealogy and Death Certificates
Jul. 31st, 2022 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutA while ago, I pulled a ton of death certificates from Washington State. Apparently, I failed to pull the certificate for a step-grandfather OR I completely blocked out of my head the contents of the death certificate. I just pulled it up online (Washington State Digital Archives has a lot more images now than the last time I was there). A little backstory, first, tho.
When I was a child, I was aware that my mother’s mother (maternal grandmother) had been married several times. I was much less clear on what had happened to the various husbands. She wasn’t married at all for some of my childhood, and then she married a brother of her first husband. She divorced her first husband (story was he cheated, and it does not seem incorrect, per se, altho he married the other woman and they stayed married until he died and while the other woman had had previous husband(s), she did not remarry again). Another marriage didn’t last very long. But a third marriage lasted a while, involved children from the previous marriage and produced a child who was therefore a half-uncle. What happened to that husband? I conferred with my sister on this, and we weren’t really sure what we were told, but one of us had heard that he had died of cancer or possibly suicide connected to learning he had cancer. Of course that was utter bullshit. There was a divorce and it was acrimonious. I pulled some of those records and was a little appalled.
Anyway.
He lived until 1991. He remarried in 1959 and they remained married until she died in 1981. I had read an obit, and was surprised the obit mentioned the son who was my half-uncle, because AFAIK, there had never been any contact between my half-uncle and his father but honestly, I know nothing and what I do know is confused and/or lies.
Today, I read the death certificate. There are a variety of elements of a death certificate, for things like “spouse” and “informant”. The “informant” in this case was the son (not my half-uncle — child of first marriage for the man in question). Under spouse was listed _the first wife_. There were _two_ other marriages after that one, but neither of those wives is listed. !!! You know what? Fair.
So how’d he die?
Chronic depression leading to suicide by strangulation by hanging himself.
There was some unexpected ultimate truth to the suicide claim, apparently. (Of course, he was still alive when I was told he’d died by suicide.)
If there is a moral here, it’s probably that you shouldn’t read death certificates.
When I was a child, I was aware that my mother’s mother (maternal grandmother) had been married several times. I was much less clear on what had happened to the various husbands. She wasn’t married at all for some of my childhood, and then she married a brother of her first husband. She divorced her first husband (story was he cheated, and it does not seem incorrect, per se, altho he married the other woman and they stayed married until he died and while the other woman had had previous husband(s), she did not remarry again). Another marriage didn’t last very long. But a third marriage lasted a while, involved children from the previous marriage and produced a child who was therefore a half-uncle. What happened to that husband? I conferred with my sister on this, and we weren’t really sure what we were told, but one of us had heard that he had died of cancer or possibly suicide connected to learning he had cancer. Of course that was utter bullshit. There was a divorce and it was acrimonious. I pulled some of those records and was a little appalled.
Anyway.
He lived until 1991. He remarried in 1959 and they remained married until she died in 1981. I had read an obit, and was surprised the obit mentioned the son who was my half-uncle, because AFAIK, there had never been any contact between my half-uncle and his father but honestly, I know nothing and what I do know is confused and/or lies.
Today, I read the death certificate. There are a variety of elements of a death certificate, for things like “spouse” and “informant”. The “informant” in this case was the son (not my half-uncle — child of first marriage for the man in question). Under spouse was listed _the first wife_. There were _two_ other marriages after that one, but neither of those wives is listed. !!! You know what? Fair.
So how’d he die?
Chronic depression leading to suicide by strangulation by hanging himself.
There was some unexpected ultimate truth to the suicide claim, apparently. (Of course, he was still alive when I was told he’d died by suicide.)
If there is a moral here, it’s probably that you shouldn’t read death certificates.