Mary Emma Williams death

[Amberella]

If Mary Emma was buried from the same church that the children were baptized in.....

The online records for this church appear to NOT have 1903 as part of the collection. This may explain why the burial can't be found.

My suggestion matches an earlier one....IMHO, you need to apply for the death date ($5.00 option) from the cemetery.

PB

Unfortunately, the death date on the cemetery headstone is quite possibly WRONG; I contacted the cemetery & all they said was "1903" which doesn't explain the discrepancy between the headstone and the 1911 census.   It says she died 1903 however she's still alive in the 1911 census. What I've done is found researchers in Quebec to see if they can locate her death from 1911 to 1912. After that will leave it for a while.  It's really unfortunate that everyone who WOULD know is now dead or suffering from Alzheimer disease.

[polarbear]

I get that, but no matter what date she died, the cemetery should be able to provide an accurate date from their records. There is always the possibility that Howard made an error with the 1911 census.

Welcome to RootsChat 

PB

[Amberella]

I get that, but no matter what date she died, the cemetery should be able to provide an accurate date from their records. There is always the possibility that Howard made an error with the 1911 census.

Welcome to RootsChat 

PB

As I said, I contacted the cemetery & all they gave me was the information on the headstone.  They didn't even seem to have a register (like many British parish churches had/have) where BMD are noted down. Not that THAT would have been much use in Quebec with its seemingly hit-or-miss record keeping! And having been a census taker on several occasions in my province, before the last couple of census years, we HAD to go around personally and actually sit at the kitchen table with a awkward book & write down what the chosen household member was telling us - usually the wife.  It wasn't until recently that Canada changed to sending out the forms in the mail & the householder has to fill everything in thus opening the way for errors. Many people would add in a family member even if they were visiting or studying somewhere else when what should ACTUALLY happen is that whatever household the AWOL family member was visiting would be the one where they were counted.  Anyway, I suspect Mary Emma will have to be left for a while.  I've still got a pile of family documents to sort through so perhaps something is there.

[Amberella]

UPDATE:  I've decided to overcome my hesitation that errors aren't made on census forms and indeed, that people will LIE to a census enumerator & therefore to work with the theory that the date on the headstone is correct.  I went through the original documents I have & found that my great-grandfather bought the cemetery plot on October 14, 1903.  IF I assume that her husband knew she only had days to live or that she had died on October 14, 1903, I decided that I'm going to try to wade through the French-only Province of Quebec archives & order a death certificate for October 17, 1903.  A crap-shoot as we here in Canada say however it seems to be the only way of reconciling all this disparate information!!  It really goes against all my instincts though about accuracy of census information (I mean, why would the family LIE 8 years after her death??!!) however right now that seems to be the only answer!! Now my only other question is: who the heck took care of all those kids (the oldest was 12 & the youngest 4) between 1903 & 1912??!!