ROOTS & BRANCHES

I’ve mentioned Glenn Riegel, an award-winning photographer and boyhood acquaintance of mine, in “Roots & Branches” a couple of times previously.

That’s because he’s also interested in his family’s history and occasionally tosses some anomalies he encounters my way.

Like the one he recently asked about on New Year’s Eve. “So, I was just looking at the births to my 2nd greats on the Obold side. Maggie Obold was born on Jan, 22, 1880. Irvin R Obold was born on March 1, 1880,” Riegel wrote.

In this time period of Pennsylvania, there were no birth certificates, of course, which Riegel already knew. “Irvin lived 10 days. Maggie died in 1923. Headstone was all that there is that I’ve found for Irvin. Maggie I have the headstone and her death certificate,” which had birth information matching the her headstone.

“Both headstones read very clearly on the dates and the parents’ names,” Riegel wrote, wondering, “Bad recordkeeping on someone’s part?

Riegel’s idea that it was simply bad recordkeeping was a decent surmise, but I had some ideas on how to prove that, since it never ceases to amaze me how many headstones have the wrong dates or even names on them.

Since the official date of the 1880 U.S. Census was June 1, I realized that Maggie should be represented in it; and that since 1880 was one of the years for which a “Mortality Schedule” exists—these schedules were supposed to record data about everyone who died in the 12 months before the census date—that Irvin should be listed in it.

I also opined that if the dates were correct, then maybe parents listed on the stones (P. Reilly Obold and Matilda Obold) were not the actual parents.

So, I went to the census and the listing for the Obold family confirmed Maggie’s birth in January 1880 and listed her as a 5-month-old daughter. Irvin, on the other hand, wasn’t found in the mortality schedule.

So then I went back to the directory for the Bern Historic Old Graveyard I had helped compile some 40 years ago and found that the actual year of Irvin’s birth and death was 1884.

Riegel was correct that the photo on Find A Grave made the year look like 1880, but fortunately he had a clear one that showed 1884 as the true year. “I ran around crazy that morning because I realized the sun angle was optimal,” Riegel wrote.

Best of all, Riegel has gained editing control of this memorial from its original uploader and therefore can correct both the photo and the text on Find A Grave.

Since that’s too often not the case with those who have custody of specific Find A Grave memorials, it gave me a pretty good warm feeling to help Riegel get history correct.