What was the saddest death in your Tree ?

[Brian & Berni]

I didnt realise that there was another thread for this topic
I will try & get a moderator to move it (Moderator: done)

[Lendevon]

Parish Register of Fingringhoe, Essex
19.8.1840 Burial  Charles Wade age 15
29.8.1840 Burial  George Wade age 14
Both boys were drowned while bathing in the river

[nanny jan]

 My aunt died, aged  just 23, on my uncle's 15th birthday with her mother, just 50, dying 10 weeks later and my poor grandfather present on both occasions.  My dad had just had his 12th birthday.

TB was a real killer in the 1930s.



Nanny Jan

[MrsLizzy]

I think I have two saddest in my family so far, or maybe three:  there was my great-great grandfather's sister who committed suicide by taking carbolic acid.  She took 24 hours to die, in great pain, according to the newspaper.   That was in June 1881 and she was only 17.

Then there was my great-great grandfather's adoptive father/uncle by marriage, William H Giesen, who died in 1875 aged 37, after suffering an epileptic fit in the street in London.  He fell to the ground, hit his head on the pavement and died two days later of a fractured skull.  A policeman on his beat found him surrounded by a crowd of interested on-lookers.  For me the sad thing is the attitude of the Victorian public to things like epilepsy.  According to the coroner's report, of which I was lucky enough to get a copy, William had no fixed address at the time of his death, but he was employed.  For some reason he wasn't living with his wife Martha, to whom he'd been married ten years.  In the 1871 census he's recorded as living with her and their "son" Charles (actually her natural nephew).

Lastly there was Fanny, the mother of Charles and Ada, who died aged about 34 in the London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, of psthisis, a form of TB to which people suffering from malnutrition are particularly susceptible.

Oh dear I've remembered no less than three more:

My uncle Ronnie, who died in 1972 aged 17 when he collided on his motorbike with a lorry.  His brother, my Uncle Alan, who died the next year, also aged 17, when he was run over by a bus.  And lastly, their baby niece, my little cousin Laura, who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome aged 4 months.   

Great uncle George died on Christmas Day 1891 ......... he was a handsome cab driver
joboy

My great-great grandfather was also an extremely good-looking hansom cab driver.  Sadly I don't take after him.

[Josephine]

For me, the saddest was the undocumented death and burial of my grandmother's twin brother.

My grandmother and her twin brother were born in a maternity home and placed as boarders somewhere (probably by their grandmother).  I've got them in the 1920 census (in Maine) at 5 months of age, as boarders on a farm. 

At some point after that, my grandmother was left with relatives (again, by her grandmother).  It was supposed to be for a short time but they ended up raising my grandmother. 

Her twin was said to have died in infancy but there is no death record for him in Maine and no cemetery record in the town where they lived in 1920.  I've been told it's possible he was buried on the farm, if he was still there.

Regards,
Josephine

[stonechat]

Another pair of sad deaths in my tree.

My Ancestors oldest daughter, Elizabeth Boyce Douglas married Donaldson, a farm bailiff, in 1856
They soon had 6 children, the last in 1864,

John Donaldson died of some medical conditions causing a brain haemorrhage in Dec 1868
And Elizabeth. I just cannot find what happened to her. I have a letter from Lady Fetherstonehaugh's employee referring to John employment on the Uppark estate,  and the poor orphan children.

No death or burial record has been found, no remarriage, and Elizabeth is in no further Censuses.

The children are dispersed among relatives. Two girls go to Albert Douglas and Sarah, one to James Douglas, my ancestors, the others scatterred among uncles and great uncles around the country.

John was about 37 at death, Elizabeth , presumably dying 1864 - 1871 would be 29-36.

John junior too died young in 1900, leaving two young children, and young Martha got TB and was in one of those hospital specialising in the fresh air treatment used at that time.

Bob

[Michael72.]

Not only sad but a very unusual set of coincidences.......

My Grandmothers Brother had 5 Sons....the eldest left the sea and joined the Army in 1915 because he thought the sea was too dangerous in Wartime....he went through WW1 without a scratch.....went back to sea and, withing three months, was blown up and killed by a stray Mine.....
His youngest brother left the sea and joined the Army in 1940 because he also thought the sea was too dangerous in Wartime......he went through WW11 without a scratch......went back to sea and was blown up by a stray Mine........What are the odds there??...

Both of them are on the Memorial to lost Seamen on Fish Dock Island Grimsby and the Memorial to Lost Seamen at Lowestoft.........Their Surname is 'Madin'........

Michael72.

[jancis]

One in my tree is so far unverified, but lives in  on family tradition. It concerns my grandfathers elder brother James, a merchant seaman.
Family tradition has it that while in a harbour in Spain some nuns wanted to board the vessel to beg for alms. James, of Irish Catholic descent (although born in Glamorgan)  and the ships cook (tradition has it a man named Gregory) got into an argument since GRegory (a non-catholic) objected to the nuns begging.

To cut a long story short, the tradition is that James was hacked to death by the ships cook with a cleaver although I have not yet found any verification to back up this story.

Another sad and gory maritime death in my tree is a distant cousin of my dads whose death (in the 1940's) is recorded as 'death by winch'. 

Nasty!

[Simon G.]

I think the saddest in my tree was for my Great-Aunt Millie.  It was the war years, and her son was in the airforce.  He didn't die in combat though, he died in a car crash while on leave.
The saddest part was, her husband also died the same day of a heart attack.  I don't think she ever really got over if from what my Dad has said of her.