It can be easy to lose a female ancestor after her husband dies. Sometimes she’s right there where she always was and sometimes she’s not. Failing to research the widow after her husband’s death can cause the researcher to overlook additional information and possible clues about her origins and parents. Sometimes additional children are overlooked. If you’ve lost your widowed ancestress, consider:
- searching marriage records to see if she remarried;
- looking for deeds drawn up after the husband’s death or (more likely) settlement deeds drawn up after the widow died;
- whether she moved in with one of her children who had left the area;
- looking to see if she’s buried near any of her children in cemeteries other than where the husband is buried;
- seeing if she applied for any military pensions based upon her husband’s service.
These suggestions won’t apply to all people in all places, but they are worth considering. And, as always, learn as much as you can about the local records that were created and being kept during the time period your ancestors lived there.
4 Responses
When carefully going through my gg-grandfathers probate records, I discovered his wife married twice following his death. The 2nd marriage I knew about. That husband died not long after they married. She then married the third time and that’s how I was able to determine exactly when she died because I had the name. I already knew where she was buried but the records have her there under her 1st husbands name. Leave no stone unturned…lol.
I followed two great grandmothers and one great great grandmother through city directories -as widows of – in Jersey City NJ
I always ask why people don’t follow their widowed grandmothers. They are your grandmother no matter how many times they marry and those additional kids are still cousins. Their story is not finished just because their husband died! And yet every wife of the men are listed, mostly without details and certainly no maiden name. Women weren’t people, just objects.
I followed one of my widowed gggrandmothers and found her living with a sister in law (source – city directory) this added another level of assurance that I was following the correct (common last name) ancestral lineage.