© Kathy Duncan, 2021
The obituary for Nancy (Johnson) Brown eluded me for a long time. I thought there should be one since the Browns were a prominent family in the little village of Weldon, Illinois, at the turn of the twentieth century. But repeated searches turned up nothing. I did find a few social notices that referred to Nancy's bad health, but nothing about her death.
To find this, I went to the Weekly Pantagraph of Bloomington, Illinois, a newspaper that routinely reported news from Weldon. Then I went to the newspaper issued right after her death and went through it page by page. When I found it, I saw that the problem was that the paper had her listed as "Mrs. John A. Brown" instead of Mrs. John D. Brown. Even though I had searched for her under just the name "John Brown," I had not pulled it up in my search results.
This obituary is woefully thin on information. Her given name Nancy is not included nor is her maiden name, Johnson. As is typical in that time period, her identity is submerged in her husband's. Her children are only listed as numbers and genders, not names. Her husband's name is incorrect. The one piece of information that connects this obit to her is a birthdate that matches the one on her tombstone in the Nixon Township Cemetery in Weldon. The place of birth, Milton, Illinois, confirms my suspicions.
I had hoped for information about her parents, Samuel and Esther (Bryant) Johnson. Searching later issues of the Weekly Pantagraph did not turn up more.
Isn't that infuriating? I am fortunate to live near a genealogy library with an obituary index online. I make lists of what microfilm I need to I can secure these obituaries when I make a trip (precovid) and am so disappointed when my results look just like yours.
ReplyDeleteI can hope a better version will turn up in another newspaper in another database. At this point, I am able to determine which sons predeceased Nancy (Johnson) Brown, and one was a big question mark.
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