Hello all,
Would anyone like to share any tricks for finding US deaths that happened during the Social Security gap (after the administration had begun, but before too many people were using it for retiree benefits)? I have numerous people in my tree from that time period whose deaths I have never located, but I will share one in particular as an example:
Lillian "Lilly" Steel was born on 26 Aug 1873 in Omaha, Douglas, Nebraska, USA. As far as I've yet found, she continued to live in Omaha till her marriage. She married George Andrew Loveland on 6 Jun 1900, probably in Omaha (but I have not found proof). They had two known children, David and Grace, and the family lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA until sometime before the 1930 census, at which point they are recorded in Wellesley, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA. I have found several ship manifests for her after the 1930 census, so it appears she and her husband spent their retirement travelling fairly extensively, until such time as she appears to have been widowed (from around 1940 on, she is always listed as travelling alone). Based on the manifest records, she and her husband appear to have moved back to his birthplace, Norwich, Windsor, Vermont, USA, late in his life, and she seems to have continued living there after he died. The last evidence I have found for her is a magazine index transcription which indicates that she wrote an article for a Vermont history magazine in the early 1950s (I've not personally seen the article). After that, she just disappears from every record/database I've yet tried.
Similarly, once her daughter Grace moved out, she too dropped off the records that I've searched so far. (Though that is likely a different problem - since I don't find her listed as Grace Loveland after that, she most likely married. Although she could have died and I'm erroneously presuming she married instead.)
Anyone have any tips for how to locate people who simply disappear, and in particular, how to locate US deaths in the gap I mention above?