So When DID She Die??

Another goal of the Alabama trip, was to find proof of someone's death date.  Again, a little background is needed....

A few years ago, I convinced Mom to do the paperwork necessary to get me into the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution), as I'd discovered we have several ancestors who served in the Revolution one way or the other.  And she did.  So Mom, Ho, Ha, me, and my neice Ho2.0 are all members now.  Now, I have an admittedly addictive personality, I like to collect things, so I felt the urge to attach myself to the other patriots.  Mom did the paperwork for a dude on her side of the family, but turns out there are several on Dad's side too!  Long story short, we've been working on adding some of the, I think there are potentially 8, other lines I can join (like 4 or 5 for Mom).

Bear with me now, we're getting to the meat of the second why for this whole trip.  Mom has an ancestress named Priscilla Hollis.  Now someone else has previously joined the DAR and Priscilla is one of their peeps too.  Mom, in the course of preparing her application to attach onto that particular patriot, noticed that the DAR (per this other person's application) shows that Priscilla died in 1804-ish (shortly after her hubs, our ancestor, died). 

Now, at this point in the story, I'm like "yeah, so?"  Well, Mom says Priscilla died in 1836, in Alabama, after remarrying and she wants to be able to put the correct info in her application instead of "me, too'ing" the wrong info.

Obviously, I've not drunk enough of the Kool-Aid, and pointed out that Priscilla isn't the Patriot, in fact, I think she's just the wife of a guy in the ancestral line.  Nevertheless, she persisted.

As I said, Hollis family lore has it that Priscilla and hubs #2 (Thomas) got married in South Carolina, obviously after hubs #1 died.  They had a son, and at some point moved to Alabama, where she died a week after their son.  Somewhere along the line, Mom discovered that the
re is supposedly an obituary for Priscilla in the West Alabamian (a newspaper).  Armed with this info, we headed south from Hamilton, AL, with our ultimate destination being Sumter County - however, along the way, we had a couple of courthouses and libraries to stop at to see if would find this obituary.

First, I apologize, I'm writing this a week after the events, so I don't quite remember the names of all the towns/counties, but I will attempt to otherwise accurately report our escapades.  Additionally, I must say that you couldn't really get to one place from the other easily - it involved several county roads which were long and twisty, with some thrill-hills thrown in.  But it was a beautiful day and we were game.

After driving some, we arrived in Pickens County, in the town of Carrollton. (FYI, I've Googled a map of AL to assist here).  Mom had some reason to think that the West Alabamian was a Pickens County based newspaper.  And whatever her sources were led her to believe that old issues could be found in the courthouse.  We arrive, gather all of our research accoutrements, and go inside where a very nice man sees us, looking like we have no clue what we're doing, and he offers to help us.  Mom explains that supposedly, somewhere in this building are issues of the West Alabamian going back to the 1870's.  (I realize you're asking, but didn't Priscilla supposedly die in 1836?, and yes.  But I think Mom's thoughts were that we'd find an actual death record for her in the county where she supposedly died.  Meanwhile, if the WA went back to the 1830's, then maybe she could find an obit for Derrill Upright Hollis (see last episode).

The kind gentleman tells us, "Oh, no.. not here.  You'd want to go to the Library in Aliceville, they have all the old issues there.  Or, maybe in the Probate Judge's office across the street, but I KNOW the Library in Aliceville has all the old issues, because I've done research in them."

So, we trotted back to the car, discussing whether to try the Probate Judge's office, which was a maybe, or head to Aliceville, which was a definite.  We hit the road for Aliceville.  And had lunch.  Where we asked some guys at the table next to us where the library was.  Of course, they weren't from Aliceville, so they didn't know.  Sigh.  

Don't worry, Siri got us to the Library and when we inquired about the papers, the woman behind the counter had no clue (literally and figuratively) but she helped us investigate.  Turns out the library had every year of the West Alabamian on microfilm EXCEPT the years 1870 and 1871.  She voluntarily called another library in the county only to be told by that person, that the best place would be, you guessed it, the Probate Judge's office in Pickens County.  Sigh.  

Fortunately, it's a good road and a beautiful day, so we drove back to Pickens County, where we had to stand in THE slowest line ever.  See in Pickens County, AL, the Probate Judge's office is also the BMV!  I kid you not, we were in line a good 10 minutes waiting for the two people who were being served when we walked into the room to be finished!  Argh!  Finally, we were able to inquire.  The woman took us to a room giant bound volumes of actual old newspapers - it seems the newspaper itself produced these volumes for the Court.  Very nice.  EXCEPT (together everybody..) the Courthouse burned in 1876.  So nothing older than 1872, newspaper-wise.  Sigh.

At this point, I'm bummed.  Why does Mom do this?  Where's the thrill of discovery?

We drove on down to our ultimate destination, which was Sumter County, the county where Priscilla (you forgot her, didn't you?) and hubs #2 lived.  Mom said the the Courthouse burned, but not the Probate Judge's office, so she hoped there might be some records.  We got to the Probate Judge's office at 3:25 pm hoping that they were open until 5.  We were told that they didn't have any death records, but they did have some old newspapers.  Oh, and the office closes at 4pm.  Sigh.

Mom said that Priscilla died in 1836, and Praise God!! the newspapers went back to 1836!  So I started at the beginning and Mom at the end (of 1836)... when inspiration hit Mom that we should log into her Ancestry account to find out Priscilla's actual death date.  Thank God I had the app on my phone.  I logged in and ... she died in early October.  

As we both stand neck and neck, pouring over the ooh so tiny print in these ooh so crumbly old newspapers, our hearts were pounding.  Finally, BAM! I see this tiny little obit.  I all but ran screaming "We found it!!" to the woman who was helping us.  Ok, I got my thrill of discovery.  So, incredibly long story short, Priscilla died in 1836, and we have proof!  Now the only remaining hurdle to Mom correcting the DAR's record is proving that the Priscilla Hollis they say died in So. Carolina in 1804 is, in fact, the same Priscilla Cusack that died in Alabama in 1836.  Fortunately, I still have vacation days to burn, so it looks like we be South Carolina bound!

- To Be Continued -