Only record what a record provides evidence of. Sophia Trautvetter’s stone at the Tioga, Hancock County, Illinois, cemetery does not mean she died in Tioga. She could have died in a nearby village, township, or county. Practically speaking, she likely died within a reasonable distance of where she was buried. However our entry for her death place should not say she died in Tioga. The stone does not indicate that. sophia-stone

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  1. Just think of all the soldiers who died overseas in so many battles, wars, and accidents, yet they are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. And a good example is that we all know President Kennedy was assassinated in Texas, yet that is where he is buried as well.

  2. The presence of a gravestone does not prove that the person named is buried where the stone is located.

    A good example is the relocation of gravestones from burial grounds on farms to local cemeteries, without relocating the remains. I have found this practice to be not uncommon in New Hampshire and Vermont.

  3. My grand uncle died during WW2 in France and was buried there for four years. Then great grandfather had his body brought back to Texas to be buried.

  4. Gravestone inscriptions are not always located in places of burial.

    1) an Ohio man bequeathed something to a daughter of his deceased daughter He died a few days after writing the will. An inscription for the deceased daughter is on his marker, and there is also an inscription for her in California in the same cemetery where her husband’s marker is. Where was she buried? Other information not found.

    2) a Corps of Engineers project on the Delaware River was going to flood an ancient NJ cemetery. A newspaper article listed the legible gravestone inscriptions for those that were to be moved inland, but did not specify that the actual remains were to be moved.

    3) a WV church sold its graveyard site and a coal company became owners. The gravestones were moved to a nearby church cemetery, but were the remains? There are recent findagrave entries for the 2nd church-cemetery site, but the moved markers are not specified in the listings and actual burial sites are uncertain.

    Numerous cemeteries (and/or gravestones) have been moved pursuant to creation of reservoirs and other construction. Many Historical Societies and Family Associations have placed memorial markers in places that are not necessarily actual burial sites.

  5. You should not even assume she died near there. My great-grandmother lived and was buried in Bruce County, Ontario. She died in Detroit, Michigan where she had been living with her daughters. It took me some time to find her death certificate. It wasn’t until I found her on a border crossing that I realized she had moved to the United States.

    • While not everyone died relatively close to where they are buried, there’s a good chance this woman probably did. Nearly eighty, her children were all living within 5-6 miles of her burial location. My database entry for her should not be specific but I’m probably safe in concluding it was the county where she’s buried or the one to the south, which is just a couple of miles away.

  6. It goes the other way, too. For years my family tried without success to find the grave of my g-g-g grandfather John Thompson. Since he had been living with one son in Cincinnati and died in the house of another son, there they assumed he was buried in Cincinnati–but he was not in the family plot. A death notice in a Cincinnati paper, sent to me by a helpful researcher, stated that his remains were moved for burial to Zanesville, where another son, George, lived. There I found not only John’s grave, but that of his wife Mary. That explains why no burial record for her could be found in Hebron, Ohio where she and her family were living at the time of her death. The inscription George’s tombstone in the same burial plot stated that he was the eldest of John’s three sons. Our branch of the family had always assumed that our direct ancestor, Samuel, was the oldest. Amazing what you can learn when you stop looking in the wrong place.

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