# Help me solve a family mystery! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 23, 2025, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712 "2025-05-23T17:18:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/1 "2025-05-23T17:18:50Z")
I’ve started to look into an old family mystery. Nearly a century ago my grandfather’s sister was murdered. The story is that she was “murdered by her boyfriend”. We have been able to find out that she was married at the time of her death. Yesterday I visited the cemetery where she is buried and found the grave only has her married name plus the year of her birth and death. The cemetery’s office was able to give me the date of her funeral. So where can I go from here? I would like to find out: - was she really murdered? - was the murderer caught and what happened to him? - what happened to her husband? ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/2 "2025-05-23T17:23:59Z")
The local library may have archives of newspapers from that time. The library may also have access to online newspaper archives. If there was a story written about her, you might find it that way. ---
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/3 "2025-05-23T17:46:14Z")
I have thought of doing this but I see two problems. I don’t know the exact date of her death or where she was living at the time. Assuming the murder was done locally and the death was a several days before the funeral I might need to go through a lot of newspapers. If the murder was committed somewhere else looking at the local newspapers may not be of any help. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/4 "2025-05-23T17:47:45Z")
Since you know the date of the funeral, check for obits around that time in the city paper where the cemetery is. That should just be a week or two worth of papers. The librarian will be able to help a lot with this. They are great at helping with this kind of research. You can also do a web search, like “Soandso Smith 1925 obituary”. Many obituaries have been scanned in and are on the web. You might get some easy hits that way. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/5 "2025-05-23T17:51:00Z")
What about something like ancestry[dot]com to at least establish her last known residence or something? I assume you must have tried any parents or older family members who may remember anything. Once you have a general idea of where the murder happened, a lot of the rest will likely fall into place. In any case, this sounds like it’s shaping up to be a very interesting thread, and I will stay tuned. Good luck! ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/6 "2025-05-23T17:52:38Z")
I have a subscriptions to newspapers dot com and ancestry dot com . You’re welcome to PM me any details (names, dates, locations) and I’ll see what I can find. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/7 "2025-05-23T17:59:39Z")
Since it’s a murder, another resource is to do a court case lookup. However, the counties and states are inconsistent as to how far back their online case database goes, so the case might not be easy to find. Do a search for “Countyname court case lookup” and “State court case lookup” to find the court websites. ---
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/8 "2025-05-23T18:01:58Z")
One thing I forgot to mention in my first post is that this all took place a few years before my grandparents were married. We have all heard this story second hand and have no additional information about it. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/9 "2025-05-23T18:16:02Z")
Most states and provinces have online accessible records of births, marriages, and deaths, indexed by name. Sometimes the records are sealed for a period, for example, death records might be sealed for 20 years after the recorded death. And death certificates, which contain causes of death, last address, etc. most of the time, may also be available. [Ancestry.com](http://Ancestry.com) and the like may have all this. But it may be worth checking. With dates, as noted above, you can check for newspaper stories and obits. Digitized newspapers are increasingly available, and can be searched by name and date ranges, for example, Joe X, 1890-1924. Good luck! ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/10 "2025-05-23T18:18:05Z")
You can also now search newspapers by key word at [newspapers.com](http://newspapers.com) and a lot of other sources (you probably have a subscription to this through your local library). This is often searching OCR-scanned text, so it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good. Also, if you’re willing to tell us her name and rough dates, I’m sure people here will help. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/11 "2025-05-23T18:19:17Z")
Nice ninja work! ---
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/12 "2025-05-23T20:30:52Z")
It might be worth looking at [familysearch.org](https://www.familysearch.org/). It’s free, and while it doesn’t have near the information that [ancestry.com](http://ancestry.com) has, it might have enough info to get you going in the right direction. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/13 "2025-05-23T23:50:42Z")
> [@X.L.Lent](#): > > So where can I go from here? I would like to find out: > > - was she really murdered? > - was the murderer caught and what happened to him? > - what happened to her husband? Just as a point of note, this is how every story in which somebody discovers an ancient ghoul or vampyre which has been murdering and feeding on the living for centuries begins. So…be prepared. [![](https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/052/292/078/large/paul-rozhkov-vampire-hunter-4-2.jpg?1659440260) ](https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/052/292/078/large/paul-rozhkov-vampire-hunter-4-2.jpg?1659440260) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/14 "2025-05-24T00:18:02Z")
I’ll third/fourth/nth the online paper lookup via your local library system. I was able to do that to find a picture of a military serviceman from the early 1900s, to complete a project a friend was working on. It took a bunch of text searches and time reading slightly different variants of the same story, but it worked out. ---
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/15 "2025-05-24T01:52:11Z")
Thank you all for your suggestions. I found her death certificate on familysearch(dot)org and confirmed that she was murdered. The certificate also had her husband’s name. Also spoke to my mom this afternoon (the murder took place over a decade before she was born). She remembers the story as saying that the husband was the one who did it. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/16 "2025-05-24T11:00:52Z")
As for newspapers, there’s also [Chronicling America](https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/), though it only goes up to 1963, and several states have free online archives. ---
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/17 "2025-05-25T05:43:20Z")
Found husband’s name in census records taken 1 year and 11 years after the murder. These records show that he was free and working as a car salesman. This means that either he didn’t commit the murder or he somehow got away with it. I guess I’ll be hitting the library next and looking at old newspapers. ---
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/18 "2025-05-25T15:47:04Z")
I’m glad the familysearch website was at least a little helpful. Keep us updated on what you find in the newspapers! ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/19 "2025-05-25T16:05:24Z")
You might be able to find marriage records and his death certificate, which might let you find his obituary which might mention survivors who may have survivors still living now. Lotta in, lotta outs, lotta what have yous, but that’s history for you! ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712/20 "2025-05-25T17:34:10Z")
I’m really disappointed that no one has yet observed that the only logical first step is to dig up the grave to see if there even is a body in the coffin! Preferably in the middle of the night, in a rainstorm. You all are a bunch of amateurs! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-solve-a-family-mystery/1018712.md?page=2)