https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZq_HjKCRB4

Book of Mormon war graves, anyone?

That was a fascinating watch. Thank you for sharing.

Glad you liked it.

That was very interesting. Thanks for sharing. It was appalling to learn that the war dead of Napoleonic wars were valued for their teeth to be turned into dentures. Or bones for fertilizer.

Respect for the war dead seems to have evolved in the 20th century with the world wars and the advent of the US war registry unit for American soldiers at least to give a proper burial where possible.

I've been unable to locate a death record for an ancestor who died in Albuquerque, NM in 1881. Its death records are hit and miss for that era. Knowing its on family records that is where the ancestor died and was buried is not the same as knowing that's where he did without actual confirmation. No cemetery record, no gravefinder tombstone exists. Was he buried in a nameless grave somewhere that will forever remain unknown? Or perhaps cremated? Was cremation even an option then?

Amyjo Wrote:
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> That was very interesting. Thanks for sharing. It
> was appalling to learn that the war dead of
> Napoleonic wars were valued for their teeth to be
> turned into dentures. Or bones for fertilizer.
>
> Respect for the war dead seems to have evolved in
> the 20th century with the world wars and the
> advent of the US war registry unit for American
> soldiers at least to give a proper burial where
> possible.
>
> I've been unable to locate a death record for an
> ancestor who died in Albuquerque, NM in 1881. Its
> death records are hit and miss for that era.
> Knowing its on family records that is where the
> ancestor died and was buried is not the same as
> knowing that's where he did without actual
> confirmation. No cemetery record, no gravefinder
> tombstone exists. Was he buried in a nameless
> grave somewhere that will forever remain unknown?
> Or perhaps cremated? Was cremation even an option
> then?

https://www.cremationassociation.org/page/HistoryOfCremation

It's possible cremation might have been an option.

It might be he was buried in a makeshift grave on the side of a road somewhere. And that I find very discomforting.

According to the link you shared, cremation started in the late 19th century (in the US,) but on the east coast before branching out elsewhere. It's an interesting subject.

Per my religious notions I still prefer burial to cremation. The link above indicates by 2018 more than half of deaths will be cremated in the United States. That is mind boggling. I understand the cost of funerals is one reason people are opting for it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2019 11:54AM by Amyjo.

That time period is around when the railroad arrived. The town grew really fast and there were probably around 1000 -3000 residents in the area with new schools, and a couple of newspapers. It's usually possible to figure out where those newspaper companies got absorbed and local universities and libraries often have copies of the paper or microfilm. My wife had a family legend about her great, great great grandfather who died in 1849. One vacation when we were in Bristol England we visited a library that had copies of news papers going back hundredsd of years. We found the story about his death, and the family legend was partially true, we also found the house and street he lived on and the name of his birth place and eventually visited the tiny village where her family was from. All from an obscure newspaper story in 1849.

That's really neat you were able to visit there and find the newspaper clipping from that long ago. What would be the odds of that?

My ancestor came west with his mother, his wife, and possibly some siblings around the time following the Nauvoo evacuation. I believe they may have stopped off in southern Utah for a brief time before going south to New Mexico where he died in his early 60's. I know not what from. Then his wife goes back north toward Nevada where she meets someone else, gets married again and moves to Nebraska before moving westward to Wyoming to settle near some of her Mormon pioneer children.

By her move to Wyoming she ended up divorcing the 2nd husband, and had already left the Mormon church long before. She became a baptist. In the tiny country Mormon town where she spent her last days she was very involved with a smaller but devout Baptist fellowship. Some light had gone on for her since her introduction to Mormonism that led her out (Yay!) I'm curious if the same had happened to my great great grandfather who she'd stayed married to until his demise in New Mexico? It's very possible that they may have left TSCC together. There isn't any family history I've been able to find that documents their story of how they ended up there or their faith journey.

Finding an obituary would be terrific. Haven't been able to do that either on the ancestry sites I've been to. With generations of Mormon genealogists in tow you'd think someone would've found one by now if it existed, but maybe not. The other thing I wonder is the family records state he passed away in Albuquerque, but is that even accurate? Might he have died somewhere else but say in a neighboring county or town that we will never know. It's frustrating not to have more to go on.

It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The high point of my 16-year foray into family history was finding the grave of my g-g-g-grandmother's brother, killed in a college fracas in 1814. I was able to do so because a volunteer had compiled a roster of the small cemetery where he was interred, and published it on a free genealogy website. His tombstone was quite large: 20" x 40", set horizontally on the ground. I was probably the first family member to visit in almost two centuries: quite a moment for me.

(misfiled post)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2019 11:56AM by 3X.

Amyjo, you may want to check here: http://www.palaceofthegovernors.org/obitfiles/

But where are the remains of all the warriors slain during the Book of Mormon wars?

Ashes to ashes; fairy tales to fairy tales.

:)

Pixie dust to pixie dust.

:D

Maybe they have all been resurrected so no bones or remains can ever be found:)

Thanks for the video link Matt, I enjoyed watching it.

They "slide away under the earth" when a shovel comes near them, like the treasures Joseph Smith used to find with his seerstone.

...the Soylent Corporation had made arrangements for the eventual and complete disposal of any residual remains. Those remains were probably consumed during that era. Most of the survivors had a memory of seeing Edward G. Robinson leaving the battlefield, and entering some sort of auditorium. He seemed happy......

matt asks:
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> But where are the remains of all the warriors
> slain during the Book of Mormon wars?

The slain warriors are figments of the imaginations of a club of flim-flam lads which cobbled together a long and boring book of fiction and stamped the name of their sock-puppet Joe on the thing.

Cults aplenty were founded on bogus books like this.

Remains of fictional soldiers will never be found.

Still, may they rest in story-book peace.

At Herxheim they recently found a mass grave from the stone age, approx. 7000 years ago
It contains the bones of 500 men, women and children.

No battle wounds were detected but their bones show the typical cut marks found on bones of slaughtered cattle.

Moreover,some bones were obviously cooked . Other bones showed that they were smashed to get at the bone marrow.

Seems cannibalism was not foreign to Europe in those days.

Are yet undiscovered. Hmm.