Unsolved Mysteries

Tracing your genealogy is a lot like working on a giant picture puzzle. Except, the puzzle pieces are the same shape and have similar colors. Just when you think you have a section of your puzzle completed, you find you're still missing a piece, and the piece you had doesn't fit.

That's what happened when my friend, Teague and I arrived at the cemetery to find my great-aunt Angelina's grave. Not only was I interested in Z'Angeline (as my father called her, zia is aunt in Italian), but I wanted to "meet" her husband, Manny. Manny was a stonecutter and family lore stated he carved his own tombstone.

I'm happy to have found my aunt, but was stunned to find Manny wasn't buried with her. Z'Angeline is buried with one of her sons. And all the headstones in the section of the cemetery are all relatively new. So this stone wasn't carved by Manny since he passed away many years before his wife.

Not only was Manny not resting in peace with his wife, but someone else is also buried in this grave. The name is not familiar to me. So another piece of the puzzle. Who is this woman and how is she related to my aunt?

Back to square one with finding information about Zio Manny. I haven't been able to find a death certificate for him. I had suspected he passed away in 1926, but had no definite proof.  I went home happy to have found my great-aunt, but at the same time disappointed.

Later in the evening, Teague called me. She's the one who got me involved in genealogy. She decided to do some detective work on my behalf. She searched through a city directory for 1927. I didn't find a directory for 1926 and had searched through 1927 with every variation of Manny's name I could find. Teague has learned some tips and tricks about genealogy research. She found an entry for Manny with a date of death 10. June 1926 and his widow, Angelina.

The weird thing about her finding the information when she did, today is the 84th anniversary of Manny's passing. But now that I know the date he passed, I'll be able to find the cemetery he's buried in.