Thomas Fitzgerald Pension Record

A few days ago, Thomas' pension record arrived. It was sitting there between the front doors when we got home after getting our taxes done. I was so excited to see it there. I couldn't believe how thick it was. I was able to go through the file as a preliminary look over, but with all my school work, I couldn't really go through it until today. I have lots of information I'm adding to the file and filling in some holes, but it still doesn't give me anymore information on John and Emily. In fact, the only reference to John and Emily Fitzgerald made in the entire file is Thomas replying to the pension department that he was unable to access any family records about his birth as his parents are both dead. That recorded on 9 May 1913, which would be rather obvious that they would likely have died long before then, or they would both have been over 100 years old!
I did send a copy of the most current report this week to my Uncle Jack, who is my grandpa's only living sibling, to see if any new information helps him to remember anything about the family. I always look forward to seeing what Uncle Jack remembers, he always has stories about his grandparents. The stories make it all the more fun to do the research.

Mistakes to be Made

I know that everyone is bound to make mistakes. After all this time I realized that I had the years wrong on the death dates of my GrGrandparents, Thomas and Henrietta Fitzgerald. Funny thing is that I would have never noticed it had I not contacted Past & Present research to help me with some of my research in hunting down obituaries. Even more interesting is the dates on Thomas' and Henrietta's headstone are not what is in the offical death record. I believe I was once told that their headstone was placed much later after their deaths so it was probably done from memory or someone had the wrong year written down. I look forward to reading everything Past & Present Research has found for me. Perhpas it will give me some clue into my brickwall ancestors.

“Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.” -Bernie Johnson Reagon