REMEMBERING THE VICTIM OF A DRUNK DRIVER - Paul Abrahams 1909-1936

Paul Abrahams Senior Photo

This post is a bit of a change from my regular posts. In this case I am writing about a young man, not a member of my family, killed by a drunk driver.

That drunk driver, Hubert L. Pepper, is connected to my family by marriage. He was the husband of a 2nd cousin, once removed.

I thought I would honor the memory of the young man he killed.

I’ve done what research I can about Paul Abrahams and this is what I found out.

Paul Abrahams was born 15 Jun 1909 in Hancock, Michigan. It appears he was the youngest of four or five sons. His parents were immigrants. Morris Abrahams¹, born in London, England and Rebecca Gold¹, also born in London, England, according to Paul’s death certificate. 

However, in reviewing census records and the passport application for Morris Abrahams, I believe both he and his wife were born in Europe (Morris in Poland and Rebecca in Germany). Both spoke Hebrew leading me to believe they were possibly of Jewish descent. Morris applied for a passport renewal in 1920, to return to Poland to be with his sisters.²

• In the 1910 census Paul is living with his parents in Hancock, Houghton, Michigan.³
• In the 1920 census Paul is 10 years old and living with his parents & siblings in Hancock, Houghton, Michigan. His siblings were: William H., Samuel R. and Harold.⁴
• In the 1930 census Paul is still living with his parents and one sibling, Harold.⁵

I also located Paul Abrahams name in the Hancock Central High School Yearbook for 1925, page 68. He was listed as a junior.

In 1926 we find Paul Abrahams listed as a senior at Hancock High School, page 101, titled Senior ROASTER. It’s pretty cute what they had to say about those listed here. The list gives Name, Occupation, Wants and Might Be. For Paul they listed the following:⁶

Name: Paul Abrahams

Occupation: Kidding ability

Wants: His own way

Might be: Bachelor

Here is the death certificate and FindAGrave memorial for Paul Abrahams. 

Cause of death listed on certificate – Broken neck, struck by auto while crossing street, car driven by drunk driver 

 

I’m sure the sudden death of Paul was a shock to his family and friends. May he rest in peace.

Drunk driving penalties have certainly changed (for the most part) in our country, since 1936. The driver in this case was only given 9 months in jail and 3 years probation. 

That driver was the same age as his victim, only 27. I hope he made something of the rest of his life. Such a tragic story.

Sources:

1. Michigan death certificate for Paul Abrahams

2. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925

3. U.S. Federal census 1910

4. U.S. Federal census 1920

5. U.S. Federal census 1930

6. U.S. School Yearbooks, 1880-2012

7. Newspaper articles courtesy of newspapers.com

8. Death certificate located on seekingmichigan.org (update Oct 2019 - the new website for Michigan death records is michiganology.org

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright © 2010-2017 Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

MICHIGAN DEATH RECORD IMAGES FOR 1940 NOW ONLINE! Here’s how I found my family’s certificates

The website https://michiganology.org/vital-records/ has many wonderful records & historical information for Michigan researchers. 
Certainly the one I’ve used the most is their death index and images. The images for records from 1897-1920 have been online for a while now.

The images for 1921-1952 are being released as the 75 year restriction rolls around.  As of today, they have uploaded the images up to and including 1940.

So, today, I’m going to use my Legacy search function and see how many, if any, of my ancestors have deaths in Michigan in 1940.

To accomplish this I will go to the “Search” tab and then “Find.”
I want two criteria in my search:

• Place of death = Michigan
• Date of death = 1940

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)
 

And, here is my list



Let’s go over to seekingmichigan.org (UPDATE Oct 2019 - the seekingmichigan website if closed down - the new site is michiganology.org) and see how many of those four certificates I can locate.

NOTE:  As you know, uploading and indexing are not perfect sciences.  So, just because we hear that records are available, doesn’t mean they ALL will be.

How many of these death certificate images did I find?

FOUR OUT OF FOUR!!!

DEATH CERT FOR WILLIAM W. BUSH	DEATH CERT FOR WILLARD B. GOULD
DEATH CERT FOR MINNIE ERB	DEATH CERT FOR KATHERINE MARTZ FORSYTH

Wonderful!  I’ve downloaded each of them, cropped and corrected them and now I can add them to Legacy and source them.  That’s what I call 15 minutes well spent online.

TIP:  I do not like the look of images as they appear in our downloads.  I don’t like the black surrounding them and I don’t like them to be crooked or too grey.  I fix all of this before I ever save the digital image to my computer.  I takes about one minute to perform the task and makes your images look so much better in any report or if you upload them online.  See my “Other Posts” below for a post I wrote about this process.

Time to go work on those records.  Please let me know how many new records you find in this collection.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

MICHIGAN DEATH RECORDS ONLINE - Where can you find them?

Legacy 8 - THE SEARCH FUNCTION - What Can You Find?

EASY DOCUMENT EDITING - How to Straighten & Correct Images

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

FOLLOW UP ~ Why did Ralph Forsyth jump from a 9th story hotel window to his death?

I wrote a post last week about a newspaper article I had located in the Detroit Free Press, about Ralph G. Forsyth.  You can read that post here.

The article did not answer the question as to whether Ralph fell, was pushed or jumped to his death.  I wanted to find out so I ordered his death certificate.  Rather than order from the State of Michigan directly, which costs $34, I chose to use a service I am aware of called Genealogists.com.  You can see their list of services and request a quote for the service you want.  All I wanted was a death certificate and I already had all the information as to which film it could be found on etc.  I located this information on seekingmichigan.org (UPDATE - the new website for Michigan death records is michiganology.org)  The images of the certificates on that site are only available through 1939, at this time.

Michigan, Death Certificates, 1921-1952Name: Ralph G Forsyth
Event Type: Death
Event Date: 07 Mar 1952
Event Place:Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, United States
Gender: Male
Age: 55
Marital Status: Widowed
Birth Date: 10 Aug 1896
Birthplace: Michigan
Birth Year (Estimated): 1897
Father's Name: James Ferris Forsyth
Mother's Name: Louise Gillespie
GS Film number: 001973241
Digital Folder Number: 005363701
Image Number: 03254

I received a quote back from genealogists.com within 24 hours.  The quote was considerably less than $34.  I paid via PayPal and received the certificate by email the following day.

Here is the death certificate.  Everything on this certificate matches the information I already have for Ralph, including his date of birth, place of birth, parent’s names, where he worked and that he was a widower.  I have no doubt that this is the correct death certificate.

                    (CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)

DEATH CERTIFICATE FOR RALPH G. FORSYTH - 1952

You can see from the items I have pointed out on the certificate, that Ralph’s death was ruled a suicide.  There was an autopsy and the death certificate is signed by the coroner.  I can also see that he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit.
 
Ralph left behind a daughter, Anne and a sister, Catherine.  I’m sure this must have been a very difficult time for the family.  Ralph’s wife had died at a young age, back in 1940.  Then in 1950 his mother died and in 1951 his father died.  Did these deaths lead to Ralph’s decision?  Was he “despondent” as stated in the news article, because of these deaths?

I called Woodlawn Cemetery and spoke to a staff member there.  She was extremely helpful and confirmed that Ralph is buried there and what part of the cemetery he is located in.  I have now created a memorial for him on findagrave.com.  You can visit his memorial here #155345077.


I only have one photo of Ralph.  Here he is shown with his sister, Catherine and his cousin, Irene Milne.  I’m glad to have at least this photo.

LEFT TO RIGHT - CATHERINE FORSYTH, RALPH FORSYTH AND IRENE MILNE

I have been to the cemetery and visited the graves of his parents at Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.

HEADSTONE FOR LOUISE G. AND JAMES F. FORSYTH, Parents of Ralph G. Forsyth

I located numerous articles about Ralph Forsyth and his wife Katherine in the Detroit Free Press.  From the articles I learned that they traveled and visited out of town relatives, and he attended various racing events.  I do hope they were happy.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

AMANUENSIS MONDAY - My Grandmother's Journal records the birth of Anne Forsyth, daughter of Ralph & Katherine

MICHIGAN DEATH CERTIFICATE IMAGES RELEASED - 1921-1939

PLEASE contact me if you think you might be related, even remotely, to anyone mentioned in this blog.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

UPDATE ON WILLIAM H. THORPE DEATH INFO

Yesterday I shared with you my search for the death date and/or burial location of my great grandaunt’s husband, William H. Thorpe.  Please refer to that post here, if you haven’t read it THOUGHTFUL THURSDAY - Why don't I have a death date or record for William H. Thorpe?

It was certainly an adventure and a great way to spend the afternoon.

I shared my blog post on several Facebook genealogy groups I belong to.  I share posts that might be relevant to a location or topic.  One of those groups is Detroit Genealogy.  This group has been helpful to me in the past as far as offering research advice and doing lookups.

Don’t you know that before I had a chance to go hunting for William’s death certificate on SeekingMichigan.org, (Update Oct 2019 - the new website for locating Michigan death records is michiganology.org)  one the the members of the group located it for me.  Thank you Deidre Erin Denton.  This certificate gives further evidence of other information I had located.



Then this morning, Deidre surprised me again by posting a death notice from the Detroit Free Press for William.  Further evidence and again, my thanks to Deidre.

This is why I encourage other researchers to join Facebook and get involved with the genealogy groups from all over the country and the world.  This is not the first time I have received wonderful help from a group I belong to.

The other two things I have done to complete this record for William H. Thorpe.

• I requested a photograph of his headstone on FindAGrave.
• I sent an email to Elmwood Cemetery asking for a copy of his burial record and/or the exact plot where he is buried.  I’ve been to Elmwood Cemetery and they have always been very helpful.

I’d certainly call this a successful research session.

Here’s hoping your next hunt turns up some great finds.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

MICHIGAN DEATH CERTIFICATE IMAGES RELEASED–1921 - 1939

There is hardly anything more exciting to a genealogist than a long awaited release of records.  Especially when those records are IMAGES.

Today, the heretofore only indexed Michigan Death Certificates, 1921-1939, have been released to us on michiganology.org

I heard this news early this morning and by now, I’m sure most of you have heard it also. 

WHAT DID I DO BEFORE GOING ONLINE TO LOOK FOR RECORDS?

I went into my Legacy database and ran a report that would give me the names of everyone in my database that died after 1920 and before 1940. 
 

A list of 274 individuals was created.  Because I didn’t designate a place of death the list included those without a place of death and those with a place of death.  I found that when I designated “place of death” Michigan I got very few results.

I began going thru my list.  The people who died in another state could easily be ignored and I could concentrate on those whose place of death was either Michigan or those with no place of death.  Since I’m familiar with my family names it was easy to pick out those I needed to check.

Here is page one from my list of 274 names.

I can see that Adams & Ainsworth died in the correct time period and that they are buried in Michigan.  I can also see that Henrietta Barnes died during the 1921-1939 time period.  I know I can rule out the Allen & Armstrong names because they aren’t associated with my Michigan ancestors.



Using this list, I began to enter the criteria into the seekingmichigan.org site for death records. 
I can tell you that it was a very successful day and I have located and saved 21 death certificates to my computer.

Rather than enter and source each one into my database as I found them, I decided to crop and adjust them and save them to my computer.  I made a list of the RIN number and the person’s name.  This will now allow me to go back and take the time I need to take to properly document each death certificate.
 
There are still more names to check from my list.  But, I will take these 21 certificates and complete my entry and sourcing before going on to find more.

I have to admit it was kind of difficult to stop myself today.  Having access to records I have previously had to pay as much as $22-36 for is indeed a treat.
 
Please share with me how many death certificates you were able to find.  Did you find any surprises?  Tear down any brick walls?  I don’t think I have yet, but there is more on this list to explore.
 
OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
OTHER MICHIGAN DEATH RECORDS ONLINE - Where can you find them?
REVIEWING A RANDOM PERSON IN MY DATABASE - How much can I learn in an hour?

Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

MICHIGAN DEATH RECORDS ONLINE–Where can you find them?

UPDATE - 16 Oct 2019 - One of the primary sites for finding Michigan Death Records was seekingmichigan.org.  That site no longer exists and all of their collections have been moved to Michiganology.org.  Unfortunately, there is no redirect and you must actually go to the new site.  I have updated my post to reflect these changes.

This post was prompted by a private message sent to me today on Facebook.  The inquiry concerned where to find Michigan death in the 1900’s.  

I answered the inquiry and that resulted in a couple of more questions about death records in Michigan.  

So, here is a quick reference on what records you can find and where you can find them.

Michigan began keeping death records, by law, in 1867.  Registration of these records was not enforced until a 1905 law made the filing of records much more effective.

WHERE TO FIND RECORDS ONLINE

1867-1897

You can find an index for these records on the website
Genealogical Death Indexing System (commonly referred to as GENDIS) http://www.mdch.state.mi.us/gendisx/search.htm

(See the update below regarding viewing images of these records)



-- REMEMBER CLICKING ANY IMAGE ON THIS PAGE WILL ENLARGE IT--

Once on this page you can enter the descendant's name, father’s last name, county of death, and a range of years from 1867-1897.  You can sort by any of those criteria using the drop down list in the lower right hand corner.

NOTE:  My experience in using this database is that you can usually just enter a last name and click on search.  Unless, of course, your searching for Smith or Williams or another fairly common name.  There are few enough records on this site that entering just a last name will give you the biggest result.  If you find there are too many records (or the site tells you there are too many), then narrow your search by entering more information, such as a first name.  As with any search, less is usually better, so that you don’t miss anything.  I throw a big net and then narrow.  Some people like to throw a narrow net and then enlarge it.  Whatever you are comfortable with will work.  

When I entered the last name HART, I got a page full of hits.  And, the site told me the query was too broad to show all matching records.  In that case you’d want to enter more criteria.

Here is a sample from that page.



Let’s click on the first name on the list, Abigail Hart.

Here is our result.



As you can see this is some really good genealogical information.  Everything from the date of her death to her cause of death to her father’s name and much more.  

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Deidre who reminded me that the images to these records from 1867-1897 are now available on familysearch.org.  This link will take you directly to the death records search page https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1452402

Once you have entered the search criteria for the person you are looking for you will see a screen like this.

 

As indicated above, click on "View Document" to bring up the image.

NOTE:  Be sure to go to the next page in the record in order to view all the data available.  Many times the first page you see will not contain everything.


1897-1920

These records came online slowly, but steadily, until they were finished a couple of years ago.  We waited with great anticipation, knowing that they were loading images as well as the data. 

These records can be located on the website

michiganology.org

 Here is what you’ll see when you open the site.

Scroll on the page until you see Death Records and then click "view collection"

This opens a screen that looks like this:

NOTE:  Thanks to reader, Sonja, for letting me know that the images for this group of records will be gradually added to the michiganology.org site.  Due to restrictions on the release of death information, they will only show those that are over 75 yrs. ago.  So, as of 2019 they have posted images back to 1944.  I look forward, each year, to the new set of death records to view.




Isn’t it wonderful to see an actual image, online?  Now you can use your own skills to determine what each entry says.  Transcribers don’t always get it right, do they?

NOTE:  Before I would save this image to my computer and add it to my database, I would want to get rid of that awful black border, maybe darken the image a bit and possibly straighten it just a tad.  I do this ALL the time with images from Ancestry, familysearch or other sites where I find images.  

Here is my blog post about the method I use for making the images look great: 
EASY DOCUMENT EDITING    http://www.michiganfamilytrails.com/2013/11/easy-document-editing.html

Here is the image after I cleaned it up.




1921-1952

The index for these records is available on familysearch.org.  There are 1,681,256 as of 29 Apr 2013.  No images have been added yet, but at least there are transcriptions of a portion of the death certificate.  

Go to familysearch.org, Search, then click on United States, then on Michigan and you will get all the Michigan selections.



You can see the fourth selection from the top is Michigan, Death Certificates, 1921-1952.

Another place to check for vital records is at the county level.  Many counties throughout the U.S. have websites.  Some, like West Virginia and Missouri have indexes and images.  

That’s it.  Those are the available online death records for Michigan.  I hope you’ll have great success in using these resources.  I know I have.

Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl

Copyright © 2013  Diane Gould Hall