A 10 year search was finally ended with a chance discovery this past summer. My grandfather came from a family of 12 children, and all of them had been traced with the exception of one - Peter Albert Quinn.
In 10 years, all we had ever found on him was that he was born in Minneapolis in 1874, signed as a witness to his brother's marriage, and that he was basically "planted" in St. Anthony Cemetery in Minneapolis in 1909.
For a family historically known for huge funerals and wakes, this was very odd, indeed. In fact, it was odd enough that even the 1909 records from the cemetery noted it - all they had was the notation "early on the morning of 8 September, a woman named Ann entered the offices and purchased a plot. By 3 that afternoon, Peter Quinn was buried. No services...."
Obviously, something was very wrong here with his burial. But we couldn't find anything anywhere. Then back in July, I ran across a posting on a message board - someone had posted an old news article from a 1911 New York Times. It concerned the Quinn family, formerly of Minneapolis, leaving for Mitchell, South Dakota to file murder charges concerning their brother Peter Albert Quinn.
The search was on! It took literally MONTHS to get the paperwork here, and we are still looking for more. But the end result is: Peter Albert (Bert) Quinn was killed by the sheriff of Davison County, because the sheriff was trying to mess around with Bert's wife. The sheriff managed to get the death ruled a suicide.
Two years to the DAY after Bert was killed, the sheriff's wife turned up dead - found with same "evidence" as was found with Bert.
It's a very long story, but the end result is - the sheriff and Bert's wife were placed on trial - but NOT for murder! They were tried for adultery. Within 4 months of the sheriff's wife dying - the sheriff himself was found dead one morning in the town dump.
It's a long, convoluted story, but very interesting indeed. In fact, we are currently at work on a book about it - rivals any murder/suspense movie and book of today.
To top it off - thanks to one very "odd" remark my father used to say, until all of this surfaced, most records indicated the sheriff's death was accidental - froze to death. Once the paperwork arrived, and was dissected by my family - we realized WE were the ones, in fact the ONLY ones, who knew the real story behind the death of the sheriff.
Which was -- my grandfather got him!
Out of all of my searching, finding this was the hidden goldmine for information, and it suddenly made my family more interesting than ever. A 100 year old secret hidden by an entire family - until I came along and got a little too nosy for them all! LOL
Quinn
