Aaron Jones is my great-grandfather. He was born June 25, 1860 – before the state of Michigan started requiring the recording of such information. The date is only known from Aaron’s death certificate.

From his death certificate, we learn that his father was Thomas and that he was married to Margaret with the informant being Oscar. His wife was Margaret Lawhead and they married on February 7, 1886 in Saginaw County, Michigan – probably in either Albee township or Taymouth township, but that info has been lost. Oscar was one of 12 children of Aaron and Margaret. Because of that, I tend to believe the date of birth on the death certificate despite the 1870 census listing Aaron as 12 years old. Most of the other records agree with the 1860 birth year.

Sadly, Oscar didn’t seem to know the identity of his grandmother – Aaron’s mother. That actually would make sense because Oscar was born in 1904. The identity of Aaron’s mother actually comes from the death certificate of Aaron’s brother Matthew Francis Jones.

So, Aaron’s mother was Emmaline Groff (Grofe). Emmaline passed away in 1897 – 7 years before Oscar was born, so certainly possible that Oscar didn’t know her identity. Although I must say it seems a little strange since Aaron seemed to be a family man – one who cared about his family (and it was a large family).

Aaron was a laborer who had bouts of unemployment. On April 15, 1910 he reported on the census that he had been unemployed for 15 weeks. By the 1920 census though he was working for the railroad. He had also taken in the children of a daughter that had recently died (Rhoda Jones married George Reikowsky, but died July 25, 1917).

I failed to record what paper his obituary was found in and I can’t find it now online. Luckily, I saved a copy.