CIVIL WAR VETERAN 

Bruce Moody

Although Bruce Moody’s death certificate indicates that he was buried in Sunnyside Cemetery, his grave stone is located in Long Beach Municipal Cemetery, Lot 88, Blk E. It is one of the “fallen” stones, flush with the ground. Find A Grave’s website has entries for Bruce Moody in two Long Beach cemeteries: Municipal and Sunnyside. These cemeteries are side-by-side and somewhat difficult to tell apart. No dates of birth or death are in the Find A Grave Municipal listing, but full genealogical dates, mother, father, sibling’s names, and reference to his spouse are in the Find A Grave Sunnyside listing.

photo: QHGS

To find documented genealogical evidence about Bruce Moody—date of birth, date of death—several online databases were visited in the following order:

1. To establish the fact that Bruce Moody served in the Union Army, we consulted National Park Service. U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007, and Historical Data Systems, comp. U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009.

These two sources provided the following information: 

“Bruce Moody enlisted on 11 February 1865 in Illinois and served with the 43rd Regiment, Illinois Infantry in Company K as a Private, was promoted to Corporal, and was mustered out at Little Rock, Arkansas on 30 November 1865.”

2. To find out if Bruce was a Civil War pensioner, we looked for him in the National Archives and Records Administration. U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. 

This source provided the following information:

“Bruce Moody filed for an Invalid pension in Illinois on 5 February 1889.”

3. We examined the California, Death Index, 1905-1939 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013, and found the following information: 

“Bruce Moody, born about 1824, died on 5 October 1921, in Los Angeles county.”

4. And, using information from source three, we located a digitized image of Bruce’s death certificate on the FamilySearch® website at California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994, index and images, FamilySearch, Los Angeles, Long Beach > Death certificates 1921 nos. 600-900 > image 84 of 326.

This source provided the following information:

“Bruce Moody was born on 3 November 1823, in Ohio. His father, was Thomas Moody, and the name of his mother was unknown to the informant. Bruce died, aged 97 years, 11 months, and 2 days, on 5 October 1920, at his daughter’s home in Long Beach at 1083 Cherry Avenue. He had resided in California for 18 years and lived in Long Beach for 18 years. The death certificate says that Bruce was buried on 7 October 1921 in Sunnyside Cemetery, and the mortuary in charge of his interment was Holton & Son. The death certificate informant was his son-in-law, Bert Smith, the husband of Bruce’s daughter Margaret.”

RESEARCH TIP: Find A Grave is a wonderful resource, but it is only a tool for genealogists to use, and it doesn’t always have accurate information—after all, data on it is provided by human beings, and errors can creep into entires. Because of conflicting information: a grave stone found in one cemetery; a death certificate that lists another cemetery as the burial place; and, listings in two different cemeteries on Find A Grave, more research needs to be done to “prove” the actual resting place of Bruce Moody. Cemetery card indices need to be searched at both cemeteries, and newspapers need to be consulted to see if Bruce’s obituary and/or funeral announcement sheds any light on his place of burial. The QHGS Blogger thinks it is much more likely that Bruce Moody is buried in Long Beach Municipal Cemetery than to assume the death certificate is correct and that he is buried in Sunnyside. Why? Because Bruce’s wife’s grave stone is next to his stone in Long Beach Municipal Cemetery. The inscription on her monument reads: “Mother Sallie A. Wife of Bruce Moody” above the dates of her birth and death. However, a hunch like this is not enough! When conflicting evidence is present, all avenues of research must be explored exhaustively.