Walter Brown 1849-1908

Walter Brown was bedeviling me in terms of "closing the door" on his life.  Walter was Grampie Brown's younger brother.  Unlike Grampie (William S. Brown), Walter was born in the United States.  Though an early census record indicates he was born in Albany County, a later census indicates he was born in Michigan (where his sisters settled).  I am more inclined to believe he was born in New York State since that earlier census record was recorded much closer to the actual event.  I have the family pretty well documented and I don't believe they were in Michigan in 1849, but I could be proven mistaken one day in the future.

Walter apparently worked with metal--his occupation was listed as tinsmith and metal laborer over the years.  He came from a long history of blacksmithing and tinsmithing seems not too far removed from that.  He married Sarah Armstrong and lived in the Buffalo NY area.  Sarah and Walter had two children William and Maria.  Again, not easy to locate yet another William Brown in Buffalo but the search will continue.

This case was cracked when I found Grampie Brown living with Sarah after Walter died.  I'd had this death notice but wasn't sure it was the right Walter until I found that little tidbit.

Further evidence was located in a gravestone picture located somewhat by accident while following Ancestry.com leads:

This picture wouldn't have made sense without knowing a little about Walter's wife Sarah.  It's in Holy Cross Cemetery (presumably Buffalo though I'm not sure).

This is a case where several small clues lead me to conclude that our Walter Brown died in 1908:  the gravestone combined with the newspaper obituary combined with the census record.  None of these, standing alone, would lead to such a conclusion but TOGETHER they paint another picture of one of our family members.  It brings me great satisfaction to hunt these clues down and try to match them up.  I'm embarrassed to admit how many of these clues have been right in my files all along but that's a different story for another day.