Part 733h – Brunhammer Doherty Genealogy – 1854 Death and Burial – Great-Great-Grandfather Audley Holmes – Murdered?

Good Day,

And at times in my genealogy search and research I am always looking for some iota of information that may “spice-up” the droll work of the collecting and organizing of ancestor associated data and documents. Well, I can say that these next two pages from the Calvary Episcopal Church Record Book may just provide me with a new “mystery” to try and solve. Or maybe I should say, at least learn about the related details.

On Page 53 of the Calvary Episcopal Church Record Book, in the section titled “Communicants” it is indicated that “Mr. Audley Holmes t” of “Tamaqua t” is “Deceased Dec. 16/54”. The entry is somewhat misconstrued as the ditto marks in the Date column indicate “Dec 23rd 1850”. It appears that the person who entered the previous information may have mis-written the actual year of the previous entry.

From the registration it looks like great-great-grandfather Audley Holmes is being removed from the Church’s Communicants’ role. His death is recorded in the “Dismissal” column: “Deceased – Dec. 16/54.”

Here is Page 53 of the Calvary Episcopal Church Record Book as I downloaded from Ancestry.com.

On Page 67 of the same Record Book, in the “Burial” section, I discovered the following entry:

BURIALS

DATE – Dec. 16th do. (1854)
NAME – Audley Holmes
PLACE OF INTERMENT – do. (Tamaqua) Ch. yard.
AGE – 30 years.
/Murdered./

Here is the image of the page.

I only report as I find them. Could gg-grandfather Audley Holmes have been “murdered” on 16 December 1854? Did the catastrophe happen in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania? If anyone has any knowledge and family history of this possible heinous act, please get in touch with me.

Enjoy,

Jim