Did you ever find depressing family documents that bothered you?

[Anonymous]

My grandparents just moved in to an assisted living place, and we are going through there things and bringing them stuff or otherwise storing it, etc... I found the purchase of two cemetery plots in 1991 that my grandparents made. Cried a little bit after I saw it. :( And knowing they can't really take care of themselves 100% independently anymore makes that hit home more...

[AviatorTom]

I'm our family genealogist, and I've found and read hundreds of family documents. Some are very interesting, but I've yet to find one that upsets me.

Closest thing to that was the discovery that my mother had two other brothers who died hours and days after they were born, and that they are buried in unmarked graves, in the children's area of a cemetery. My sister and I tried to get simple headstones for them, but we couldn't positively identify where they were buried, so their graves remain unmarked.

[Asker]

Why weren’t they marked?

[AviatorTom]

Not sure. There are over a hundred graves of children who died shortly after being born in the children's area of the cemetery, and maybe 20 of them are marked. I'm guessing people couldn't afford it or didn't think it was necessary. Many of the burials are from the Depression Era. The cemetery has records of them being buried in the children's area but not a specific location.