The Last Years of James Dingle

Research Note by Wesley Johnston

Last Updated 7 Oct 2012

Where did James Dingle (born 1800 at Egloshayle, Cornwall and lived at Oshawa, Ontario) spend his final years? Where and when did he die? Where is he buried?

What is known with certainty

The last definite record that I have found for him isthe 1881 Census of Oshawa, Ontario. The widowed James, age 81, is living with the family of his son William Thomas Dingle.  His wife Mary Ann Keam had died in 1873 and is buried with William Thomas Dingle's family in Lot 101 of the South Presbyterian Section of Oshawa Union Cemetery. But James is not included on the monument there.

What do other trees show?

Many trees on Ancestry show James Dingle died in Hillsboro, Montgomery County, Illinois in the USA. The dates are either 1893 or the specific date 7 Aug 1892. For now, I am carrying him with this place of death on the specific date. However, none of these many trees have any documentation for the date or the place.

Is there an Illinois death record for him?

The Illinois Secretary of State pre-1916 death index can be searched at http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/databases/death.html Recording of deaths in Illinois in a somewhat systematic way began in 1877. Certainly there are omissions, particularly of young infants. However for adults in 1892 or 1893, the coverage was relatively thorough in recording deaths.

The death index coverage list (http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/databases/deathlst.html) specifically includes all reported Montgomery County deaths in the period Dec 1877 - Dec 1915. Thus if James Dingle did indeed die in Montgomery County, Illinois, there should be an entry in this database for him.

However none of the following searches found such a record.

- Statewide: DING (returns all entries with surnames starting with DING)

- Montgomery County: DI (returns all entries with surname starting with DI)

- Montgomery County: DANG (returns all entries with surname starting with DANG) - also DENG, DONG, DUNG, DYNG, TING, BING, RING, SING, KING

Is there an Ontario death record for him?

The Ancestry index of Ontario deaths can be searched at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=8946 but there is no record that I have been able to find with many variant searches.

Bottom Line: Nothing is establsihed about his date and place of death

The bottom line is that, despite all the trees showing him having died in Hillsboro, Montgomery County, Illinois, none of them show any documentation of those facts, and the Illinois database that should hold such documentation does not hold any such documentation. So I am removing his death place and date from my tree.

One aspect that I have not yet pursued is to see if any of his children moved out of Ontario. It seems unlikely that at an age over 81 he would have gone very far. But the trains could have taken him anywhere. So this cannot be ruled out.