All it takes is a clue...Coward or Cowaret?

Due to the advances of technology, indexing, and digitization, many times in our genealogy research so many of the documents and records just seem to materialized. However, it takes a clue to two for the computers to do some of the work for us. This is one such case.

I was watching the Ancestry Extra webinar posted on April 28, 2020 on the Ancestry Facebook page about using the Canadian newspapers available on Newspapers.com presented by Anne Gillespie Mitchell . Since I have a subscription that includes the Publishers Extras I figured I do a quick check on one of my ancestors, Kathleen Adeline Martin, my 1st cousin 3x removed, and the spouse of Alex Coward. She died on 26 Oct 1858 and was buried in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. I already had a number of records concerning her travels between Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Ketchikan, Territory of Alaska, USA.

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 29 April 2020), memorial page for Kathleen Adeline Martin Coward (11 Jul 1887–26 Oct 1958), Find a Grave Memorial no. 52022423, citing Pioneer Cemetery, Whitehorse, Yukon Census Division, Yukon, Canada ; Maintained by Velvet Withers (contributor 49050024).

I wondered if I could find an obituary and learn where she died.

It was fortunate that one of the newspapers that has been digitized and is part of the Publisher Extra collections is the Whitehorse Daily Star. Just by typing in her preferred married surname of "Cowaret" the article about her death and funeral was the first to appear in a list of 24 matches in that newspaper.

"Mrs. Alexander Cowaret Dies Here," The Whitehorse Star, 30 Oct 1958, p. 9, col. 6; digital images, Newspapers (www.newspapers.com : accessed 28 Apr 2020).

I hope you noticed that the memorial for Kathleen has her surname as "Coward" and the newspaper article recorded her surname as "Cowaret". The story goes is that after she married Alex Coward in 1929 she did not like the name so, the couple was known as Mrs. Cowaret and Mr. Coward¹.

From this article it would seem that she died at home, probably in Minto. But this is where other notices we might overlook can provide additional details. The"Notice To Creditors And Claimants Estate" provided more details almost six months after her death.

"Notice To Creditors And Claimants Estate," The Whitehorse Star, 16 Apr 1959, p. 6, col.46; digital images, Newspapers (www.newspapers.com : accessed 28 Apr 2020).

Here we learned that she died in the Whitehorse General Hospital and not at home and the home is possibly closer to McCabe Creek and not Minto (8 km separation). We also have confirmation of the preferences of the surnames for Kathleen and her spouse Alex.

What about her husband, Alex Coward? I had nothing about him in my genealogy database other than a name. Again, the newspaper in Whitehorse gave me a starting point. In the 5 Nov 1959 edition of The Whitehorse Star I came across this article titled "For Hawaii" where it is reported that:

"Hawaii looks like a good place to spend the winder after putting in more than 40 years in the Yukon, so that's where Alex Coward went last week...He said he definitely would not come back to the Yukon..."

The article includes little details such as:

• born in 1885 in Cairo, Illinois, USA
• came to the Yukon on 13 Aug 1913 to trap
• Alex and his late wife resided in Selkirk until 1952
• his wife died 26 Oct 1958

So I now had a few more clues about Alex.

I entered those details into my cousin-bait tree on Ancestry. Almost immediately I had 8 possible hints. Several of those hints didn't make sense but one of the hints was from the "Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current" collection that links to Newspapers.com. Could this be him?

"Windsor District Obituaries - Alexander Coward," The Windsor Star, 7 Oct 1961, p. 12, col. 3; digital images, Newspapers (www.newspapers.com : accessed 29 Apr 2020).

Definitely looks like him. He passed away in Windsor, Ontario, Canada on 6 Oct 1961. It looks like I will have a bit of work to do finding and recording some of the details of his life.

As for Coward or Cowaret, it is quite simple. Kathleen went by Cowaret and Alex went by the surname of Coward.

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1. Archives Society of Alberta, Fonds yuk-243 - Kathleen Cowaret fonds description, https://albertaonrecord.ca/kathleen-cowaret-fonds.