Hello, Genners,

In response to Hope Gordon's inquiry about NYC cemeteries Ada Green
<adagreen@att.net> wrote:

<<Some of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the NY area are not computerized, most
notably Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn and Baron Hirsch Cemetery on Staten
Island. As has been written many times in this discussion group, the only
sure-fire way to find out where someone is buried is to order their death
certificate. Please read the JGSNY Cemetery FAQ's at
http://www.jgsny.org/cemfaqs.htm, especially FAQ #6.>>

I would agree with Ada that death certificates are in most instances the best way
to find out where someone is buried. However, in my husband's family we have one
individual who would never be found the usual way.

Per her official death certificate, my husband's married and childless great-aunt,
Sarah Geist Abramson, died at the age of 27 on March 29, 1918 in Manhattan at
Polyclinic Hospital. She was buried at Mt. Carmel Cemetery located in Cypress
Hills, Queens on March 31, 1918.

In 1955 or so, after her parents had passed away, her brother[s] had the body
reinterred at a Geist family plot at Acacia Cemetery in Richmond Hill, Queens
where the name on the stone and in the cemetery office records reads "Sarah
Geist". No mention or record of the Abramson name.

Acacia's non-computerized records indicate that the body was reinterred >from Mt.
Carmel. Mt. Carmel has no records in their computerized data base about the
burial or the removal of Sarah's coffin. To them, she doesn't exist. Perhaps if
pressed and shown the death certificate, Mt. Carmel employees might find old
interrment records to verify the burial unless, of course, the old records have
been destroyed.

So, in this particular case, on could get the death certificate and go to the
"computerized data-base" cemetery where she once had been buied and never be
able to find the grave. I had to make quite a few phone calls to figure this one
out as all the parties involved [Sarah's husband, her parents, her brothers
and their wives] are now deceased. The surviving nieces and nephews never heard
much about her and couldn't provide more than a scant few clues.

As always in genealogical research, "the game is afoot."

Shana Tova,
Shellie Wiener
San Francisco

Researching the usual suspects:
GEIST, TRAUB, GOLD, LEAHER - Kutno, Poland
SCHWARTZ, SPORN - Buczacz, Galicia
SCHER - Austo-Hungarian Empire