Sometimes I think my whole family tree is a mystery....people who came from nowhere and disappeared into thin air, people who changed their names so many times it's impossible to determine who they were, people who moved around so much you'd swear they were only one step ahead of the posse. However, there's a gen-you-wine unsolved mystery dangling from the branch of the family tree that is supposed to hold my grandmother. I'm pretty sure no one on this list is going to know anything about my grandmother....my family is pretty obscure......but I'm just looking for suggestions on how to find the answer to the puzzle. Okay.....Grandma. Her maiden name was probably Nancy Savannah Smith, although she never, as far as I can determine, used the "Nancy." Everything I've ever found on her including her marriage license just lists her name as Savannah Smith. In 1881 she married my grandfather in Howard County, Indiana. His name was Allen Moore, so of course Grandma became Savannah Moore. They had some youngun's......probably five all together although only three of them lived to adulthood. My father was the only surviving son. At some point the Moore's moved from Howard County to Adams County, Indiana, but I don't know just when that event took place.......which means I don't know WHERE Savannah died. I haven't found any death record for her in either county. So here's the story of her death.......and please keep in mind that this was told to me by my father and as near as I can figure, he was still pretty young when his mother died.....young enough to end up in an orphanage since his father's health was so bad (TB) he couldn't take care of his family. Youthful memories can be distorted, but I'm certain he told the story the way he believed it. Savannah had a new baby, a little boy, who was still so young he had not yet been named. One day she ate her dinner, then got the baby and sat down to nurse it. In a very short time she became violently ill, began to convulse, and before anyone could do anything to help her, she died. Within minutes, the baby boy died in exactly the same manner. A doctor was summoned and he came to the house. (Now as incredible and improbable as this next part is.....this is what Daddy said, and what he apparently believed.) Since the doctor suspected that Savannah had been poisoned, he decided to do an autopsy. He opened her abdomen and removed her stomach, which he set aside in some sort of container......a pan, Daddy said. Then he proceeded to do his duty.....which was to prepare the body for burial. When he was finished and went to look for Savannah's "stomach," it had disappeared, and never was found. Daddy said the "hired girl" was suspected of having deliberately poisoned my grandmother. Now, whether or not Daddy's version of what happened is exactly correct, one thing seems pretty certain. And that is that he spent his life believing his mother had been murdered. As he aged and became somewhat senile, he became afraid that someone might put poison in his food, and I believe that is a very normal reaction in an aging mind to a childhood trauma. The fact is, I think Savannah died from accidental poisoning. I read a book on Indiana history a few years ago that spoke of a weed that grew wild in that state. A weed that cattle liked to feed on. That weed didn't bother the cow, but it poisoned the milk for human consumption. The book went on to say that since most milk was drank by children and nursing mothers in the last century, there was a number of deaths in those categories before the cause was discovered and the weed was eradicated. I think this was probably the cause of her death. Whether Savannah's death was accidental or deliberate, it seems reasonable to me to expect that there would have been an investigation of some sort, yet I've found no information about it in either Adams or Howard County. As far as I've been able to figure out, there was no newspaper story about it.....although I can't know that for sure sine I don't have a real good idea of WHEN her death occurred. My best guess is that it was sometime between 1891 and 1900 since she was definitely still alive in 1890 and any time after 1900 my father would have been old enough not to be placed in an orphanage. I've posted this story on several lists, so you may have read it before. I sent a letter to a person in Howard County last fall who was said to probably have information about where the old sheriff's records might be stored, but he never responded to the letter. The Kokomo genealogy librarian has searched through the records she has available which apparently include the old newspaper records, and she has found nothing. I was in Adams County a few years ago and searched courthouse records and death records.......nothing! I feel like I'm at a dead end on this, yet I feel so sure that this woman did not die without it being noted somewhere. So, does anyone have a hint on where I could look next? I've been looking for a death record for this lady for YEARS so any hint or idea someone might come up with would be appreciated. Thank You. Julie