Baby Girl Del Principe
by Phyllis Zeck
Bertha & Gilbert, Phyllis & Corinne
I count on my favorite podcast, Genealogy Gems, to keep me up to date with family history news and technology. I listen to Lisa while driving or working at my desk and I get her weekly email newsletter updates. The databases I use for my genealogy research grows too fast for me to keep up with so I keep my eyes peeled for Illinois news. Lisa keeps me updated with new source additions at this link. Scrolling down to February 18th brought up the link to over 3.7 million records that have been added to the free index for Cook County, Illinois deaths at FamilySearch.org. If you don’t subscribe to a searchable database like Ancestry.com but you are researching your heritage, the Family Search website is a wonderful resource.
It was at the Family Search website that I discovered a death record for Baby Girl Del Principe, Auntie Phyllis and mom’s younger sister. I knew that Bertha and Gilbert had a third daughter but did not have much information about her. My aunt told me that Bertha lost the baby when Bertha fell down some stairs. You can read more about Bertha and Gilbert at this blog post from 2010. Auntie Phyllis was born in 1927, my mother Corinne was born in 1931, and their sister was born 04 Jan 1938. Click here Family Search to view the source information from Family Search “Illinois, Cook County Deaths, 1878-1994”. The actual record has not yet been scanned to FamilySearch.org.
I wanted to see if Ancestry.com had scanned the record. They had indexed the record but had not scanned it. Click here Ancestry.com and you can see that Ancestry included different source information than Family Search did. The family’s address was not included, but I found it interesting that the baby’s body was released to the Presbyterian hospital. I just assumed that Bertha was also Catholic but perhaps she was Presbyterian.
Auntie Phyllis would have been 10 and my mother almost 7 when Bertha was carrying this baby. What a devastating loss for my family. I’m so appreciative that we have access to these records. Having actual birth records sheds new light on this ancestor for me.
9 years ago by Lori Anderson
I wonder how far along she was…
9 years ago by Rob Winike
I remember that long terrible flight of stairs leading from the first floor apartments to the street entrance. That’s the same flight of stairs that Uncle Hank fell down while arguing and fighting with Uncle John. I remember mom standing at the bottom of the stairs yelling up at Uncle John, madder than hell. And I remember seeing her many times, on her knees with a bucket and scrub brush, scrubbing those old wooden stairs. I can even remember the smell of the wet wood. She’d stand at the bottom of the stairs, wearing one of those headscarf/turbans ladies wore while working, and admire her finished work. It’s a cinch none of the other wives in our building had her sense of duty!