Finding the Death Record of Charles Luther, 1919

Charles Luther (or Lutter), born in the 1860s in Germany, is likely a close relative of my great great grandfather, Herman Lutter (1860-1924).

I searched for Charles in:
Germany
Newark, New Jersey
Chicago, Illinois
Wisconsin
Brooklyn, New York
Connecticut

He was last seen in the 1915 New York State census in Brooklyn with his wife, Therese (Turnow or Doanow) and eight of their children.

In 1917 in Brooklyn, Therese, a divorcee, remarried to Frederick Brink. They eventually moved to Connecticut.


I sought a death certificate for Charles Luther because it could show his parents. I needed more information on Charles to figure out his relationship to my Lutter branch.

Well, I found Charles's death certificate. He returned to Newark, Essex County, New Jersey and died February 28, 1919 at the Newark City Hospital from pneumonia.

How do I know that this is the death certificate for the correct Charles Luther?

Burial was at Cemetery of The Evergreens in Brooklyn. The cemetery kindly responded to my burial inquiry. Charles Luther was buried in 1919 in the same plot as Theresa Brink, who died in 1949.

Charles' birth, 1862 in Germany, is a close enough match.

Charles' occupation was carpenter on the death certificate. In the 1884 Newark City Directory at 40 Rankin, living with my Herman, was Carl Luther, a cabinetmaker. In the 1910 federal census in Brooklyn, Charles was a carpenter.

Charles' residence on the death certificate was 290 Bergen Street in Newark. In the 1920 city directory for Newark, Charles C Lutter Jr, carp, resided at 290 Bergen. No other Lutters or Luthers are listed at this address.

Clara R was my great great grandmother, Clara Uhl.
Herman was my great great grandfather. Clara was his first wife.
Howard was the son of Clara and Herman.

Was Charles Luther a junior? Maybe it was an error in the city directories. Maybe he was not named after his father, but rather an uncle. Wilhelm Lutter is consistently listed as the father of Herman Lutter and his brother, Otto. Perhaps their father was Wilhelm Karl? Charles Luther named a son Charles William. (And another Otto Herman.)

Guardianship proceedings took place in Newark in 1919 for Charles "Luther or Lutter." These records are not online. The Charles Luther I seek would have left behind three children under the age of 18 (Alice, Charles William, and Otto Herman), so a guardianship would be consistent.

The death certificate stated that Charles Luther was married, though Charles himself was the informant. If Charles remarried after divorcing Therese in 1917, that record could provide the names of his parents. I need to check the Archives for a possible marriage.

The local papers were no help. Charles received a mere entry of his name in the Newark Sunday Call.

Frederick Brink (1846-1930), the second husband of Therese Turnow, is also buried at Evergreens Cemetery, but with his first wife, Christiana Rueger (1851-1893). They married in 1875 in New York City and had a few children together. I am still reconstructing his family. In 1894, one year after Christiana's death, Frederick Brink remarried to Dorothea Kloppmann (1851-1915).

Below are their obituaries from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

The Death of Elizabeth Duryea, 1901

After discovering that Elizabeth Duryea, widow of Joseph Henley (born Jones?), remarried to Augustus B Palmer in 1885, locating her death certificate was the next step.

According to her obituary in the Jersey Journal, Elizabeth died on March 4, 1901 in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey.

Note: GenealogyBank.com is not a free site.

New Jersey death certificates are not online. Death certificates are available on microfilm at the New Jersey State Archives, but are only filed alphabetically from 1904 through 1948. For a death in 1901, there is fortunately an index and it is online.

Using Ancestry.com's index of the New Jersey death index, two people named Elizabeth Palmer died in 1901. The image icon next to the entries links to the index, not the certificates.

Below are some of the microfilm rolls at the Archives for New Jersey deaths for the years 1901, 1902, and 1903.

The correct Elizabeth Palmer was death certificate number 3469.

According to her death certificate, Elizabeth was buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Queens, New York. The gravestone does not bear her name. She died of cancer of the breast.

Her parents are listed as Joseph L Scott and Sarah M.

Death certificates are great for finding out the prior generation- except when they aren't.

Elizabeth Duryea was the daughter of Sarah Moffitt (1815-1896) and John H[orton] Duryea. Elizabeth was born in 1836, a year likely accurate because Elizabeth was born after her father died in New York City in April of 1836.

Elizabeth lived her childhood in New York City with her mother's sister, Elizabeth Moffitt (1804-1886), wife of VanRensselaer Terry (1801-1857).

Elizabeth's mother, Sarah Moffitt, remarried to Joseph Scott. Elizabeth never knew her biological father and may have regarded Joseph Scott as her father. Or maybe the person providing the information for the death certificate thought that Joseph Scott was Elizabeth's father.

Elizabeth knew that her biological father was John H Duryea. She provided his name, not the name of Joseph L Scott, when she married Augustus B Palmer in 1885 in Jersey City.

Birth records are best for determining names of parents. Marriage records are good because the two people whose record it is- the marrying couple- provided the information themselves. Death records contain information provided by someone who may not have known the parents of the deceased, making them unreliable without supporting records.

Chasing Charles Luther Across the Globe

Charles Luther is a possible brother of my great great grandfather, Herman Lutter (1860-1924). They were both born in what is now Germany.

Interest in this relation was renewed with a DNA match at Ancestry.com.

Charles Luther may have lived in Newark, New Jersey with Herman in the 1880s. Charles relocated to Chicago, Illinois and lived with Alexander Lutter, who may have been another brother. Alex Lutter witnessed Herman's marriage to Clara Uhl in Newark in 1888.

In Chicago Charles married Theresa Doanow in 1887. That marriage record did not provide the names of parents. (I wrote to the church but have received no response yet.)

Charles and his family moved to Wisconsin and then to Brooklyn, New York. The final census entry I found for him was the 1915 New York State census.

In 1920 federal census for Brooklyn, Charles' wife, Theresa, was remarried to Frederick Brink. 

The New York City marriage index gave 1917 as the year of Theresa's remarriage.

So I searched for a death record for Charles Luther in Brooklyn from 1915 through 1917, but found no match.

Charles' death record may contain the names of his parents, necessary to show the relationship to my branch.

I ordered the marriage application of Theresa Doanow/Luther and Frederick Brink through the New York City Department of Records and Information Services. (The index was made available through actions of Reclaim the Records.)

I'm glad I ordered this record. Theresa Tornow (morphed from Doanow- remember that spelling is inconsistent) divorced from Charles Luther three days before marrying Frederick Brink.

The records sent included a copy of the divorce decree. The copy is not great, but here it is.

The date of death for Charles Luther is not limited to the date of his wife's remarriage. I need to keep searching in Brooklyn and anywhere he lived or his children lived. He may have married again, too, which would be great because his parents should be on such a record.

The family tree now looks like this: