Genealogists Are Always Willing to Help One Another

One of the people I am researching is William Langdon, a first cousin of my grandfather Bill Kelly. Information about him was elusive for the period of 1915 until his death in 1957 for quite some time. Then I discovered that he went by the name Jack Langdon. I wrote about this discovery earlier this year.

That information took me on a search for his first wife, Sarah. Those of you who do research in Missouri know what a wonderful resource the Missouri Digital Heritage site is. It has actual copies of death certificates from 1910 - 1959.

It was on that site that I found the death certificate of Mr. Langdon's wife, Sarah Elizabeth Langdon. Since her husband was buried in Missouri, I was intrigued by the fact that her body was sent to Woodlawn Cemtery in Jackson, Michigan. As I generally do when I find burial information, I create a memorial on the FindAGrave web site, if one does not exist. I made the entry in a Woodlawn Cemetery in Michigan, and placed a request for a tombstone photograph.

In a few weeks, I heard from a FindAGrave photo volunteer who said that Sarah was not buried in that cemetery. I did some more checking and discovered that the correct name of the cemetery was Woodland Cemetery, not Woodlawn as listed on the death certificate. So I changed Sarah's memorial on FindAGrave. Based on the maiden name given on the death certificate, I entered her maiden name as Irick.

Another FindAGrave volunteer who specializes in that geographic area and has created more than 60,000 memorials on the site contacted me. The maiden name of Irick was puzzling her because it didn't ring any bells. She contacted the cemetery with the information from the death certificate to locate the grave. The cemetery records matched the dates of birth and death, but the name on the tombstone was Sarah Grover. My FindAGrave friend did some more sleuthing since she was not aware of any Irick family in the area and she quickly determined that Sarah's maiden name was Quick, not Irick. Ah .... trying to decipher handwriting is not always an easy task!

From this point, Sarah's story began to make sense. Frank Grover was her first husband when they lived in Michigan. They moved to Missouri, where he died. His body was returned to Michigan for burial. After Frank's death, she married Jack Langdon. At the time of her second marriage, she was about 61 and Jack was 38. It was Jack's first marriage, so I know there's a story there! Now just to find it.

Sarah and Frank had a son. I'm speculating that he had something to do with his mother's body being returned to Michigan to be buried next to her first husband. And Sarah's tombstone carries the surname Grover, not Langdon. I think there's a story to be found there as well.

I share this scenario to demonstrate a couple things. One - things are not always as they seem and sometimes you just have to keep digging deeper to find information. And - genealogists are people who are very willing to help out another researcher in finding those facts. I probably would have left Sarah "Irick" buried in the wrong cemetery with a different surname had this wonderful lady not contacted me who was just as interested in the mystery as I was.

Since our correspondence, I've been able to add a few more members of Sarah's immediate family.

Success Story: Long Lost Relative Discovered!

William Kieran Langdon



I've been working on a timeline on William Kieran Langdon for several months. The story of a legal squabble within his family has captivated me. In summary, his parents were Margaret Kelly and Michael J. Langdon. He was born in 1885 in Texas, even though his death certificate says he was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'll go with Texas as that shows up on numerous census records.

Michael J. Langdon spent the last four years of his life in insane asylums in New York and Nebraska. A few years later, Margaret Kelly Langdon, as guardian of her son, William Kieran Langdon, had her son committed to the State Hospital in Nevada, Vernon County, Missouri where he resided for 15 years. Shortly after his release, he filed suit to obtain the portion of his father's estate to which he was entitled. His mother had appropriated much of his share of the estate for her own use. She had involved her brothers, Daniel Kelly (my great grandfather) and Michael C. Kelly as bondsmen on the money and they became liable for the bond. This portion of the case went to the Nebraska Supreme Court.

So - I began my quest to find William Kieran Langdon. His 1918 draft registration showed him working at the State Hospital in Nevada. For months, his entry in the U S Census records have eluded me. This past weekend I received a copy of a photograph of William Kieran Langdon playing the piano. The photograph made me go back to the 1920 and 1930 census records for Nevada, Missouri. There I found a Jack Langdon, born in Texas in 1885 and by 1930 was married to a woman named Sarah. His occupation? He was a musician in a dance hall in 1920 and in 1930 a musician and teacher. This was definitely starting to look like a lead.

Through the Missouri Digital archives, I discovered a death certificate for Sarah Langdon, who died in Nevada, Missouri on 14 November 1954. The death certificate lists her husband as Wm. K. Langdon.

Through the magic of Google news archives, I discovered some issues of the Nevada Daily News and after going through the the issues from 1957 discovered a notice of the death of Jack Langdon and one about the funeral rites for W. K. "Jack" Langdon. That last one was confirmation that the William Kieran Langdon I'd been seeking and "Jack" Langdon were one and the same person.

As I searched some more in the Nevada Daily Mail,I found some advertisements that showed he played piano at the movie theater, and that the Jack Langdon Red Hot Pepper Orchestra performed on Christmas, 1926 at a place called Haddock.

The 1957 death notice for Jack Langdon and his death certificate both state he was a retired taxi driver. Now I am curious how he went from being a musician to becoming a taxi driver. He left a wife at the time of his death, but Sarah had died three years earlier. His death certificate states his wife was Dorothy Langdon.

The few pieces of the puzzle that I discovered just make me hungry to discover even more!

What's in a name?

Something that makes locating long lost relatives a challenge are various spellings of names. It was just last summer that I found my first reference to my great, great, great grandfather who was born in Kilkenny, Ireland. It was a biography of my great great grandfather, William D. Kelly, that was published in a 1905 collection of local biographical profiles. It said his father was Keron Kelly. Right now, I do not know if this was the correct spelling of his name or not.

Two of Keron's great grandchildren may have been named after him. One was William Kieran Langdon, son of Margaret Kelly and Michael Langdon. I've also seen his middle name spelled Keiran.

The other great grandchild was the son of John Kelly and Eunice Derieg. His name has been spelled Kiron, Kiran and even Karen!