Finding a Way Through: Part 4, the Conclusion

Photo Courtesy of @anniespratt

In Part 1 of "Finding a Way Through" I provided a list of tips to break through Brick Walls in your Family Tree, which I have been following throughout this study of Margaret Griffin.

In Part 2 of this series, I had great intentions of jumping in to researching my great-great-grandmother, Margaret Griffin, who had been a mystery to me for many year.

Last time, in Part 3, I got to work in earnest on discovering Margaret's past.

I had been looking for her obituary for a long time, but couldn’t find any record of death for Margaret Griffin in Alabama. I needed Broaden the Search to Louisiana and Georgia, where her adult children lived. I did some research on each of her children, to see if they took care of their mother after John passed away in 1925.

At last, I found Margaret was living with her son, James, in New Orleans in 1935. I knew that Margaret was buried in Gadsden, Alabama, and couldn't believe she had passed away in New Orleans. I lived in New Orleans as a little girl and no one told me that I had family nearby! I used this detail to do a search for Margaret Griffin in the “New Orleans, Louisiana, Death Records Index,” and sure enough, found a certificate confirming her place and date of death.

I followed this clue using my newly acquired Premium Newspapers.com subscription to search for various combinations of names like Margaret Griffin, Mrs. John Griffin, and included names of her surviving children. At last, there was an obituary for Margaret C. Griffin. She had passed away in 1935 at the New Orleans home of her son, J.L. Griffin. The obituary named surviving family, including my own grandmother, Mary Ann Griffin of Birmingham so I knew this was the one!

Surprisingly, there was a similar obituary for Margaret in the Gadsden newspaper as well, but I hadn't been able to access it in the past because it isn't available through the Basic Newspapers.com membership that I had through Ancestry.com. This time, it was much easier this time because
now I have the right tools!

This short remembrance of Margaret gave me the information I needed to learn about her past. She was survived by a brother, S. Roden, of Albertville, Alabama. I had a note from Margaret’s granddaughter that there was an “Uncle Saul” but it was a distant memory and she couldn’t tell me much about him, only that he had lived on a farm in Alabama.

This confirmed Margaret's maiden name was Roden and from there it would be possible to find her in childhood and find out who her parents are.

Now I searched for “Saul Roden,” and quickly found “Solomon Roden” of Albertville, Alabama. The pieces of the puzzle finally came together when I searched for Solomon and Margaret Roden together as children in the 1800s.