Genealogist Shares Her Genealogy Research Success Story!

With GenealogyBank adding more records at the rate of 10 documents a second, we hear from genealogists every day sharing their excitement about their family history discoveries.

Here is a genealogy research success story we received today from GenealogyBank member Michele Lewis.

Michele wrote us:

Here is a newspaper success story for you.

My great, great Aunt Ida Perry was born in Purvis, MS, in 1884. She and two of her sisters became nurses. All three graduated from the Charity Hospital School of Nursing in Shreveport, LA. Two of the three contracted TB and died and one of those was Ida. The American Journal of Nursing had printed a blurb about Ida in the March 1906 issue: “Miss Ida Perry has resigned her position of the charity Hospital, Shreveport, La., and will engage in private nursing.” On the 1910 census she is living in Eunice, LA, with her sister Mary (who happens to be the other sister that died of TB). She is listed under her maiden name and as single. That is the last official record we had of Ida. Our only other clue was a picture postcard (undated) that Ida had sent to her brother from Denver, CO, that stated:

“Dear Bro, I am feeling fine. Had this made to show you all how fit I’m getting.

With love to all from ‘Jack’” [Jack was her nickname.]

So we knew that Ida had gone to CO for health reasons, which was common with TB patients. On the back of the picture it stated “Ida Perry Faust” so now we knew she had also gotten married.

We had checked EVERYTHING.

Colorado couldn’t find a death certificate or marriage license and neither could Louisiana. I had run her name through GenealogyBank (of course) and got nothing. We couldn’t determine when and where she had died. We couldn’t find her grave. It was very frustrating.

Yesterday I decided to run her name through GenealogyBank again since I know you regularly add papers and I got a hit! Apparently you had added the New Orleans Item since the first time I ran her name through.

New Orleans Item (Louisiana), 4 September 1911, page 2, column 4

Mrs. Ida Perry Faust

EUNICE, La., Sept. 4—A telegram from Denver (Colo.) brings the news of the death of Mrs. Ida Perry Faust, sister of Mrs. J. N. Adams of this city. The remains will be interred at Purvis (Miss.), the girlhood home of the deceased.

So we finally know! She did die in Denver as we suspected but she died earlier than we thought. She got married, moved, and died in the span of one year (she was still in LA and unmarried on the 1910 census) which means her husband knew she had TB and married her anyway. We are still searching for him. We assumed she had died in Denver but were surprised to see that they brought her back to Mississippi! We know which cemetery she would have been buried in (where the rest of the family is) but there is no marker for her. We might have to rectify that.

If I hadn’t run her name through again I wouldn’t have found this. Unfortunately, I can’t find her in any of the Colorado papers you have (including the Denver ones). I am assuming that the death of a TB sanitarium patient from another state didn’t warrant an obituary.

Congratulations to Michele for this family history success story!

Have you had a similar genealogy research discovery you’d like to share?