The first cemetery reburial card that caused me problems was that of Catherine Kelly. The card states that Catherine died 1 July 1872 in San Francisco at the age of 44. She was buried at Calvary and reburied 21 Oct 1890 at Holy Cross Cemetery.
I didn’t really question this until I came across the card for Joseph Kelly. Joseph died at the age of 5 months on 14 May 1874. Who did Joseph belong to?
I decided to locate Joseph’s obituary and found myself with more problems. The obituary for the child who died on 14 May 1874 is not for Joseph but for Ellen Josephine Kelly. I have a card for Ellen Kelly, but it says she died on the 22nd Oct 1866 at 5 days old.
Clearly, Ellen was the one who died in 1874. I don’t know if Joseph died in 1866, if there was a Ellen #1 who was born in 1866 then an Ellen #2 who was born in 1874, or Joseph was a corruption of Josephine and there really was no Joseph. Is your head spinning yet?
What I do know is the child who died at the age of 5 month in May of 1874 was the daughter of Martin and Catherine (Dolan) Kelly. Unless the doctors performed some sort of medical miracle, Catherine was dead by a year and a half when Josephine Ellen was born.
I noted in an earlier post about the reburial of Michael Kelly. Michael was supposed to have died 8 July 1882 according to his tombstone. After not being able to locate an obituary, I tried the previous year. Bingo! Michael died in 1881. So, I already know that errors have occurred this family plot. Since I don’t know how the information for the reburials was collected I don’t know how accurate it is. What I know is that the dates don’t add up. I’ve got more research to do!