Working with city directories can be tedious, especially if someone lived in an area for some time. Occasionally surprising discoveries await those who take the time to view an ancestor’s entry for every year they lived in the location covered by the directory. This 1894 directory for the City of Davenport, Iowa, indicated that Mrs. Mary Cawiezell was the widow of Anthony Cawiezell and that shed died on 12 February of 1893.
This information should be supplanted by other records if possible, but in some locations a record of this type may be the only one available. The date could be incorrect (this is not a typical death record) and a citation to the directory as the source should be attached to the date in your genealogical database. Directories can contain unexpected annotations to the occasional entry that could result in a genealogical breakthrough.
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4 Responses
Is that Mary’s death date…or Anthony’s? My first impression would have been to assume it was his, not hers.
Mary’s date of death is what it’s referring to.
By looking at other entries on the page it can be seen that widows who are still alive have an address after their names. Widows who died don’t.
Thank you for explaining that to us Maureen. It was a helpful response.