Keep in mind the very real possibility that your ancestor had no tombstone. This reasonably fresh grave doesn’t even have a temporary marker as many do. The takeaway here is that your ancestor may have been buried sans tombstone. They may have been cremated and their remains scattered in an unknown location. Or if they had a stone, it may have deteriorated beyond repair–always search for a book of transcriptions done in the past in case the stone was extant when they were done. No stone decreases the chance they are located in FindAGrave. The cemetery may have records–if you know where they were buried. Death certificates, funeral notices, death notices, obituaries, church records, family knowledge, or other sources may also indicate where a person is buried.
My uncle has a guardianship file that runs from 1909 until he reached the age of majority a few years later. His middle initial, which was actually “A,” is listed as “O” throughout the set of documents. Consistently every reference to him has the same middle initial of “O.” This makes one wonder if the clerk wrote it down wrong once and simply copied the same error over and over. It might have been easier, if the error was actually noticed, to just stick with it going forward. Because after the guardianship was closed, the issue might have been moot.







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