In Jessica's case she had narrowed it down to two couples. Both were named John and Mary Mason, residing in Illinois, and approximately the same age. One family resided in Joliet, Illinois; and the other resided in Chicago, Illinois. Ultimately, it was determined that her ancestors were the John and Mary Mason of Chicago. From there the journey began to uncover more about her great-great-grandparents.
Through research of her own she had located the burial location of her great-great-grandmother, Mary Nolan-Mason. Another researcher had already located a lot card with the burial information of Mary. But, missing in the plot was John Mason. Mary had been buried in the plot, purchased by her father, along with her father and siblings. Making sure we had located the correct Mary I sought an obituary. The obituary provided the information to determine it was her. The names of her sons proved that it was the correct Mary Mason. Also, that her husband John was deceased at the time of her death. Both her death certificate and parish burial register was located after discovering her obituary.
"The Inter Ocean"
Chicago, Illinois
20 May 1897
This still left us with locating the death date and final resting place of John S. Mason. Hoping to locate a death record for John, two databases were searched. First, was the "Illinois Statewide Death Index, Pre-1916". There was a promising candidate located within that database.
In the records pre-dating John's death the middle initial of "S" was often present. This coupled with the fact the death occurred before the death of his wife. The other John S. Mason in the database did not pass away until 1904. A quick search of the Cook County Clerk's website told us that the record had not yet been scanned and uploaded. This is fairly common as the process of digitizing records is an ongoing project. Searching the Cook County database on FamilySearch was my next step. Oddly, John's death certificate was not part of their database either. I then reached out to a research associate with a little more experience. She suggested that it could be a coroner's death certificate, and would not be present in the FamilySearch database. This led to a second database being searched. This time it was the "Cook County Coroner's Inquest Record Index, 1872-1911". Another entry was found for John S. Mason. However, this entry created a bit of confusion. Present was an entry with the same month and day, but the year was off by ten years.
Hoping to eliminate the confusion I requested a copy of the corner's report, and waited for a response. Meanwhile I tried locating an obituary for John using the dates found in the database. A search for a obituary did not yield any results, but a small notice regarding an accident was found.
"The Inter Ocean"
Chicago, Illinois
18 July 1883
This noticed verified that his year of death was 1883, and not 1893 as recorded in the coroner's index. Upon receiving the coroner's report it was determined that there was a transcription error when creating the index. The notice and report stated he died after an accident on the rail road track located in the Pullman neighborhood. This made sense since John had been a longtime railroad employee. However, the question still remained where was his death certificate, and where was he
buried at?
Meanwhile Jessica's research contact made a few inquires herself. This led to a large cemetery in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood on Chicago's south side. Oakwoods Cemetery was established in 1853, and is the burial place of many prominent Chicagoans. The office was able to provide the burial location of John S. Mason. John was buried in a section of the cemetery that was intended for people with little money. When visiting that section of the cemetery there are a few lone markers scattered among the section. Much to my surprise there was a small monument erected in memory of John S. Mason.
Prepared with the necessary information I prepared myself for a trip to the Cook County Clerk's Office. Since the certificate had not been scanned and made ready for download, a walk-in request had to be made. After making the request a search of the record warehouse would be made by the staff. The initial request was made in June of 2015. I provided them with the name, date of death, certificate number, and that it was a coroner's certificate of death. Initially, the response to my first request was lost by the United State Postal Service. This required me to contact the researcher who had searched for the record originally. She explained that she was unable to find the certificate for John. During the course of talking I asked her if the coroner's certificates had been searched. She told me that the clerk had not relayed that information to her. This time an alternate index was searched, and a different record warehouse held the record. When this process was complete, the search had taken several months, and multiple followup phone calls. However, by early September 2015 I went to pick up the certificate I had been seeking.
As with pervious requests, I took away a valuable lesson. That is always to followup with requests that do not produce results. The clerks who take the request are not familiar with research process in the warehouse, and what is required to do a search for historical records. The results may not be immediate; however, if you are persistent you will receive your desired documents. The internet has produced a certain anticipation of instant access to records. But, we must be patient as previous generations were, and remember that the internet does not always have what we are seeking.
