City Directories Narrow Down a Date of Death

My 3rd great-grandfather, Denis Connell (O’Connell) is a man of mystery. I know very little about him, basically its just facts about his marriages and the birth of his children. That is all. For years I have gone with the notion that he died around 1900 (as do many others). The reason that date was chosen is because he appears in the 1880 Census with wife Julia and their three children. After that, there was no record of him.

WAS no record…when Ancestry released the City Directories I was able to find Julia in many of them. In Glens Falls and Granville, NY. All of them state she was the widow of Denis. The first city directory she was listed in as a widow was 1886. That takes an additional 14 years off the expected time frame for his death. It has now been narrowed down to about 5.5 years, from the 1880 Census through 1886 when the directory was written (I looked at the film and there is no sign of when this happened). However, I did learn that the 1882 – 1885 city directories are not available. So, I cannot use the directories to narrow the dates down more.

This does make me think about his burial-place more. His children from the first marriage are buried at St. Mary’s in Hudson Falls (which now belongs to St. Mary’s – St. Paul’s). Is it possible that Denis is buried there as well? Should I have been more thorough when walking the cemetery. Denis was not listed in the folio of transcriptions from the cemetery, I would have notated that when I originally found his son John. I notated all the O’Connell’s because I wanted to see if I could place them all into the family (which I was able to do successfully).

His second wife died in Vermont, where she moved to between 1897 and 1900. She died in VT, but her death certificate does not indicate where she is buried. I checked Find A Grave and Billion Graves, she is not listed on either. Maybe she is buried besides her first husband, Cornelius Salmon. That is another mystery for another day.

Where is Denis? When exactly did he die? What did he die from? Where is he buried? These are a few of the questions I have for the end of his life. There are so many more that have to do with his life, but answering these few would be a good start.