Hoyt Family Tree
I have general information about the Berry family and where they lived. I want to make sure that I add more specific vitals for Lottie’s parents if they are available. There is an online family tree that reports that Joseph Hooper Berry was born on 10 Mar 1839 in Elizabethtown, Union, New Jersey, and that he died 22 Mar 1907 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan.1 He married Charlotte Eugena Dwight on 22 Oct 1868 in Wayne County, Michigan. She was born in 1844 in Michigan and she died on 26 Sep 1875 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan.
A search for Michigan Death Records at www.deathindexes.com (a GREAT site) shows that certificates are available online for Michigan from 1867 to 1897 at FamilySearch.org and from 1897 to 1920 at the Library of Michigan.
Joseph H. Berry’s certificate can be found here. The dates above are confirmed and his parents are named as John Berry and Catherine Hopper, both born in England. The informant at his death and the doctor who completed the medical certificate portion was his son-in-law Dr. Edwin Lodge. Joseph was buried in Elmwood Cemetery.2
Searching for Charlotte’s death record proves problematic though. She isn’t in the database. Therefore, I decided to try navigating page by page to see if she was mis-transcribed. When I began the process, I was presented with a list of microfilm numbers to begin narrowing my search. Not knowing those off the top of my head, I opened another tab and navigated to the card catalog record for the death records. There I found this little note: missing Oceana County to Wexford County, 1875. Proof that catalog records should be checked!
I’ll have to keep looking for confirmation of Charlotte’s dates. Maybe the cemetery…
1. “reblady”, “Read – Berry Family Tree,” member tree, Ancestry.com (http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/25883569 : accessed 28 Aug 2011), entry for Joseph Hooper Berry.
2. Michigan Department of Community Health, death certificate 82 (1907), Joseph H. Berry; digital image, “Death Records, 1897-1920,” Seeking Michigan (http://seekingmichigan.org/ : accessed 28 Aug 2011).