Thursday, March 25, 2010
Funeral Home Documentation
Although genealogists love cemeteries they often overlook the funeral home documentation. But this documentation is vital to our research for several reasons: 1) it allows us to look at the social history of the time. 2) it may have family secrets held in it, like private notes of the cause of death that was withheld on the death certificate 3) it may tell you about the customs and traditions of an ethnic group. 4) it may have a listing of family members not yet known. 5) it may help you solve a mystery (i.e. in my case a murder. 6) it may help you find a copy of a DD214 (military discharge) that was lost in the NARA – St. Louis fire of 1973.
Recently I was hired to assist in confirming if a person was murdered. The family believed the murder was due to a generational family feud, but couldn’t prove it. However, it was suspicious that the wife and husband died within a day of each other, both of “heart failure” on their death certificate. After pulling death certificates of the couple, and noticing the informant was the same, I chose to widen the search, for additional hints. Voila everything needed was written in margins.This began my love affair with funeral home documentation.
Since funeral homes rarely go out of business, but are acquired, sold or merged with other business, their records are passed on. The seller rarely cleans up his records, but boxes them, and walks away. Making these boxed documents true treasures. In the margins, you can learn what was left off the death records, so that a proper burial could be had. For example, as suicides were not honorable, if on the death record a church burial might be denied. But the information might still be found within the funeral home’s archives. Also, where coroners and funeral homes were collaborating, transactions may be hidden in the documentation. In one document, it just said “same as James Well.*” Leading me to one more name to my murder case.
As many funeral home archives are being digitized, I began my search for a copy of a veteran’s WWII DD214 with the local library. The University of Florida Digital Collections of Cunningham’s Funeral Home from Marion County Florida, had all the information needed to prove the veteran’s military service.
African American funeral homes became more prevalent between 1880 and 1920. Many learned their trade after the Civil War up to the Yellow Fever Epidemic. Prior to that, the deceased were handled by white morticians, if allowed. However, keeping with the social times, it was usually the case that the white bodies were kept upstairs, waiting for burial, while the blacks were held in the basement. These notes can also be found in archival records of funeral home. To learn more on history of African American funeral homes, morticians and embalmers, visit the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association.
Back to my murder, it is likely that not only was the couple murdered in 1921, so were four other acquaintances in the following six months.
* Name changed to protect the client.
Posted by Kathleen Brandt, Professional Genealogist at 11:33 AM