Saturday, February 7, 2015

William Wisner's Obituary

I had requested some lookups at the Waukegan Public Library in Illinois, where the Wisner family lived the the second half of the 1800s. I had requested to see if they could find some birth mentions in the local newspaper, and just because, I also asked for an obit. They couldn't find any birth announcements, but did find the obit! It was for William Wisner, and although it was only 2 lines long, it was still significant. They sent me the clipped image, and it was poor quality, but you could still read:
 WISNER - Died at Avon, Ill., Nov. 25th 1877, of old age, William Wisner, aged 94 years and 8 months. He passed away like going to sleep.
The newspaper was the Waukegan Weekly Gazette, from Saturday December 8, 1877. It was an important find because death date for William that I had was August 25th, instead of November.

It is also interesting here that they give his age in years and months. I had seen a few different dates for his birth. The one that I thought was most correct was one that was listed in William's own Bible records, that someone was so kind to send me copies of. Here is a transcription of those records. It says he was born March 27, 1783, which is 94 years and 8 months from when he died, so everything lines up.

After looking at the transcription again, it looks like in the Bible records it also mentions William's death date as November instead of August, so again it's another confirmation that November is the correct date.