Friday, January 28, 2011

Funeral Card Friday - Michael & Catherine (Undersander) Hengel

Inside data pages of Michael & Catherine Hengel funeral card

Most of the funeral cards I have are for single individuals.  This particular card happens to be for a couple - Michael Hengel and Catherine (Undersander) Hengel.  They are from my wife's maternal line.  I was totally new to funeral cards until my wife showed me some that she had.  I don't know if they're just not part of my family's tradition or what, but I had never seen one at the few funerals I had attended from my family.  It's interesting to me that this card has both people in the couple, as they died 14 years apart.  Is this common?

Other things I've noticed: Some cards are "single page" with an iconic image on one side and the data and prayers on the other side.  Others are a "double page" folded style with iconic images on the outside and data and prayers on the inside.  Some are in black & white or sepia tone, but many have full color images.  Some of my people have multiple cards with different images on the outside, but identical text inside.  I feel like I need to collect the whole set.

Outside of Michael & Catherine Hengel funeral card

These cards are nice little reminders of the departed, but don't contain enough data to be very interesting from a genealogy standpoint.  That said, while scanning a bunch of these, I did come across a few that added more specific dates or locations for people, so they're not useless for sure.

I'd better quit here and post this while it's still Funeral Card Friday!  What's the best information you ever got from a funeral card?  Post in the comments below!

Funeral Card Friday is a genealogy meme created by Dee Welborn of Funeral Cards & Genealogy and has been an ongoing series in the Geneablogger community.  If you're interested in funeral cards, I strongly recommend you visit her blog!

2 comments:

  1. I've gotta say, I've never seen a double like this. I thought you were going to say they died the same day in an accident or something, but 14 years apart! I think that's pretty unusual!

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  2. I think I have one other double-person card like this, who died a while apart. The vast majority of what I have is single-person, two-page cards. Thanks for the comment!

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