Establishing Evidence
When researching Fairview and New Hope burials, we compile as much documentation as possible to strengthen the case that a person is indeed buried in one of those cemeteries in the older, segregated section. This page describes the different resources and documents that are used in order to establish evidence of their internment so that they may be included in our list of confirmed persons. The memorial will have their names engraved into granite so that they may be forever remembered, and those who remain unnamed, unconfirmed, or unknown will be also be honored.
Click here to read about our research including descriptions of ongoing research practices. If you would like to see a sample of the primary documents listed below, please visit our historical documents gallery.
If you have information regarding someone buried here, or if you do not see the name of an interred loved one you believe is laid to rest in an unmarked grave, please contact us so we can honor them together.
Establish Evidence of Internment
A State Death Certificate Listing Fairview, New Hope, or Liberty, Missouri
The strongest piece of stand-alone evidence is a publically available Missouri death certificate, or an out-of-state death certificate preferably with the specific cemetery named. Sometimes a funeral home outside of Liberty or Clay County would list only Liberty, Missouri. After looking at hundreds of death certificates from 1910 to 1969 and cross referencing them with other records, we have found that a general listing of Liberty is acceptable since it means that the person was buried at the only two available Liberty cemeteries at the time: Fairview and New Hope. A death certificate verifies the race of a person which is critical to identifying and honoring the African American community in Liberty. It also provides valuable information about the deceased's parents, spouse, and other relatives who report the information. Conversely, a death certificate can verify that a person with no connection to Liberty was buried in one of its cemeteries. Such a person might have been traveling through Liberty at the time of death. Sometimes for children, the death certificate is the only legal record that documents their existence. Since census records happen only every ten years, it misses all of the children who were born and died between the decades.
Funeral Records or a Funeral Program
Another strong piece of stand-alone evidence is a detailed funeral record. The funeral record is created by the funeral home, and the information is supplied by a relative. Because it is a paid service, funeral records are pretty reliable regarding correct spelling, birth dates, listing relatives' names, and reporting the cemetery. One can also see information like who helped pay for the funeral and when monthly payments were made, suggesting that people are related to the deceased, or the financial contributor is a good friend or leader of the community. Sometimes a funeral record was created for a stillborn or newborn but a death certificate was not. Sometimes parents are left off of a deceased newborn's funeral record because the parents are not married and are trying to hide the situation. That might also account for some of the missing death certificates. The most frequently used funeral homes of the documented Fairview and New Hope burials were Church-Archer-Pasley and its previous iterations, Hill Funeral Home whose records are at the Clay County Archives, and Watkins Brothers of Kansas City, Missouri.
Headstones
A headstone for an older burial is sufficient for recording a person as buried at Fairview. Who can argue with an old headstone? Someone ordered the marker to be installed at some expense, and it is hard to discount that evidence. Along with the idea that the person who died was local in this small town before being able to conveniently travel longer distances, then it increases the likelihood that the person really is a resident who is buried in that spot. It is helpful if dates or a spouse or parent is also listed on the marker. Where a headstone becomes less reliable evidence is when a modern, mid-20th century, family group headstone is installed with names listed for people who are still alive. After installing a family headstone with everyone listed but no death dates, the living people go on with their lives, and sometimes they move away or are buried elsewhere. The death date will not be engraved, and the person might be buried with a new spouse in another location. Sometimes transporting the deceased a long distance, say from California, might cost too much for the people paying for the funeral, and the person never made it back to Liberty. Further documentation of the burial such as a funeral record or obituary can confirm the final resting place.
Newspaper Obituary
An obituary or even a short line in a newspaper that says a person died and was buried in Fairview, New Hope, or Liberty, Missouri, is also reliable evidence. Since most newspaper listings do not report race, then it needs to be cross referenced with additional information that confirms race, such as a census record. If a child was too young to have been listed in a ten-year census record, a parent name who is documented elsewhere is sufficient.
Establish Residency and Family Relations in Liberty, or Clay County, Missouri
Will and Probate Records
A will or probate record usually does not state the internment site, but it can establish a death date and location of the family residence. It will also list surviving heirs, so in addition to proving the deceased's death date and residency, it also names living family members who might not have been previously identified. Another clue a researcher can discern is the absence of known children from previous records, suggesting the possibility that those kids died before the parent.
Census Records
The backbone of researching the African American community and its Fairview and New Hope burials in the 19th and early 20th century are the census records found on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. The 1870 federal census is the first time that formerly enslaved people are all named in a community, listing their separate households, jobs, and ages. Building family trees based on these census records as well as other records that establish Liberty residency, relationships, and lifespans lets a researcher see several families interact, grow, work, and continue beyond the earliest generations. While census records do not prove that a person was buried in Fairview or New Hope, it does establish Liberty residency and a connection to their family members, some of whom are known to be buried in Fairview and New Hope. Census records give clues about who might be buried at Fairview or New Hope, and from that information, the researcher can look for a death certificate. When a single headstone with limited information can be paired with a census listing of that person, one can discover a whole family and further leads to who is possibly buried in the unmarked graves.
Another kind of circumstantial evidence that a census record can provide about the lifespan of a Liberty resident and possibile Fairview burial is the absence of a previously documented Liberty resident. In one census record, the person is listed with a spouse and maybe children, and in the next census record, the spouse is alone and lists himself or herself as widowed. However, this information is best paired with additional documentation about the death and burial. There are plenty of people in the federal census records who report themselves as widowed and a researcher can easily find the spouse living one county over!
WWI and WWII Draft Cards
Draft cards found on Ancestry establish residency, employment, marital status, and the names of wives or parents on a specific date. It tells a researcher if the man remained in Liberty or moved away. Aside from the 1940 federal census and any city directory listings, WWII draft cards are some of the latest, most reliable documents tracking a man's basic information.
1890 Veteran Census and the Widow's Pension
Finding a Civil War veteran listed on the 1890 Veteran Census establishes their location and their survival to that documented date. When that veteran isn't listed, sometimes a researcher can find his wife who is applying for a widow's pension, thus documenting her verbal report that her husband is dead and possibly buried nearby.
Establish Existence and Relationships
Marriage Records
While marriage records do not prove Fairview and New Hope burials, it documents a Liberty, Clay County, or other nearby residency. It also traces a woman changing her last name, making it easier to find her later records like a death certificate. One can also track multiple marriages and name changes. Some of these multiple marriages are due to divorce, but they might also be circumstantial support that a spouse died and the surviving spouse married again.
Even before the 1870 federal census, newly freed couples getting married in Clay County in 1865 and 1866 listed their names for the first time on a legal document, and they listed their children who were born before the State of Missouri allowed the parents to get married. Whole families were documented, along with the children's ages. In a time of shorter lifespans and high infant mortality, some of the people listed in the earliest marriage documents did not live to be reported in the 1870 federal census. Tracing a family as far back as their earliest marriage record reveals information about maiden names, former enslavers' last names, children who might not have survived to 1870, and offers a more complete picture of the earliest documented African American families of Liberty. It also reveals possible clues about the earliest deaths and burials in Fairview Cemetery.
Secondary Sources
and Word of Mouth
Family Lore and Interviews
Sometimes there is no documentation of the existence of a person, much less his or her death date and burial. This could be an infant who did not receive a death certificate and was not reported on a federal census. It could be a person of any age who died in the 19th century when the records were inconsistent and scant. It could be enslaved people who were never documented even after 1865. If a descendant provides details about an ancestor and reports the family lore that the ancestor is buried in Fairview, that ancestor may be listed as "believed to be buried" in Fairview Cemetery after reviewing the information.
Find A Grave Website
Findagrave.com is a helpful secondary source but not as reliable as primary evidence. Anyone can create an account and create new burial listings. Most of the time that can be a helpful start, and the listing creator might include further information from a death certificate or obituary. However, mistakes can happen so that people have duplicate listings and are buried in multiple cemeteries, and there is no way to correct these errors unless the person who owns the listing is willing to make the correction. Pictures of headstones can be helpful, but they don't always include exact plot locations. In our research of African American families in a small community, FindaGrave could not help us verify race or specific locations of every burial in the cemeteries.
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