Couldn't find him in Aberdeen; he was in Ohio!

speleobat2 · Post by **speleobat2** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:07 am

I've had very good results in tracking down members of my father's family in Aberdeen so I was baffled when I couldn't come up with a death extract for my great grandfather, George Clerihew. I knew from my grandparents marriage extract that he was alive in 1910 but then he vanished. After trying everything repeatedly including variations of spellings of Clerihew that only the census records could come up with, I wondered aloud to my sister if the last of the four children to immigrate didn't simply pack up Dad and bring him over to the States. I searched just his name on Ancestry and got a listing for the Ohio public health death list! I knew that the last of the children to come over, daughter Isabella, and her husband lived in Montgomery County, Ohio for about ten years but couldn't find any passenger listings for them or their father so I ordered a copy of this George Clerihew's death certificate and there he was. He immigrated in 1916 when he was 77 and died May 10, 1919 (coincidently the day before my mother was born) and lived with Isabella just outside Dayton, Ohio. The Ohio Historical Society has custody of the Ohio death records and has the index available online up through 1937 I think it is. You can order a copy online and they do searches for the years up to sometime in the 1950's. Can't remember the exact dates but the site is wonderfully simple to use! Ironically, the cemetery where my great grandfather is buried is just a few miles west of Interstate 75 the main north south route from Michigan to Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama where we now live. I must have driven passed his gravesite a couple hundred times and never knew he was there until last Monday!

ohiohistory.org will get you to the homepage, then click on the death index button

Carol

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:22 am

Hi Carol

Good Going! It is always wonderful when you find something that has had you stumped for awhile. It was good of them to bring him with them rather than leaving him back in Scotland.

Regards

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:08 am

Hi Carol

I must have driven passed his gravesite a couple hundred times and never knew he was there until last Monday!

Glad you found him! These sort of odd coincidences seem to happen when researching families - you look and look and then find the answer was closer to home than you had thought it would be....

Best wishes
Lesley

Post by **emanday** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 3:15 pm

Isn't it wonderful when missing rellies suddenly turns up where you least expect them.

One of mine last appeared with her daughter in the Scottish 1881 census with no sign of her husband's whereabouts, then they disappeared as well.

SarahND found them in Chicago of all places! It looks as though he went over first and she and their daughter followed later. Thanks to Sarah, I now have the US censuses for them, their US born children and these even give the name of the chap one of the children married.

I couldn't thank Sarah enough for that information. Wonderful stuff!