Walter apparently worked with metal--his occupation was listed as tinsmith and metal laborer over the years. He came from a long history of blacksmithing and tinsmithing seems not too far removed from that. He married Sarah Armstrong and lived in the Buffalo NY area. Sarah and Walter had two children William and Maria. Again, not easy to locate yet another William Brown in Buffalo but the search will continue.
This case was cracked when I found Grampie Brown living with Sarah after Walter died. I'd had this death notice but wasn't sure it was the right Walter until I found that little tidbit.
This is a case where several small clues lead me to conclude that our Walter Brown died in 1908: the gravestone combined with the newspaper obituary combined with the census record. None of these, standing alone, would lead to such a conclusion but TOGETHER they paint another picture of one of our family members. It brings me great satisfaction to hunt these clues down and try to match them up. I'm embarrassed to admit how many of these clues have been right in my files all along but that's a different story for another day.
1 comment:
Let's go to Buffalo!
I love reading the way you have tracked down our relatives! Thank you for doing this, so other generations may benefit from your work. (and so we get to learn while you do all this work!) I'd be glad to join you again on a road trip of discovery!
My memories from our last trip? Several years ago, we went to Buffalo on a search for information on several relative Patty Anne was researching. It just so happened that there was a huge funeral for a Fireman who lost his life battling a fire in the SAME area where we were doing our research. We were in the basement of the Buffalo library, I think, when the fire alarm went off and everyone was told to evacuate! We have several important historical documents out, and micro film out at the time. We asked the security guard what we should do with them. He suggested that we TAKE THEM WITH US! Are you kidding? We weren't comfortable doing that, but I think we did, believing that if there was a fire we may be saving them from the fire. As it turned out it, someone had pulled the alrm to get attention. There was no fire, thank heavens!
We did find some very interesting things that day. I can't remember which relative it was, but I remember Patty Anne getting very excited and happy with our find. So I knew it must be good!
So I'm up for another trip, just say when and I'm there!
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