52 Ancestors Challenge Week 15: "How Do You Spell That?" - My Third Great Uncle, Private Benjamin F. Losee

All genealogy researchers have encountered errors in spelling. I don't like to call them errors really. I prefer to call them alternative spellings, but let's face it, April, sometimes it's just wrong. Anyway, it can be very hard sometimes to convince novice researchers that spelling is not a big deal. Just because a name is spelled differently than what you are expecting to see does not mean that record ... or headstone ... does not belong to your specific person. That's right, a headstone.

Early on in my foray into genealogy I encountered Benjamin Franklin Losee's name recorded on a Civil War Memorial plaque at Freeport Memorial Library in Freeport, New York which is on Long Island. For many years I worked to learn my connection to Ben and details about his life and death in the American Civil War. I knew I had to be related to him. My Losee family lived in Freeport for many generations, as did my Smiths but Losee is not Smith. It is not nearly as common a surname.

Ultimately, I came to learn that Ben was my 3rd great grandfather's brother. During his lifetime he lived on the Losee Family property which is now Stevens St. in Freeport, right near the border of Roosevelt on the east side of Main St. 

I only have an approximate date of birth for Ben. However, I know for sure he was a private in the 139th New York Infantry, Co. A. From his military pension file I know he died of disease in Point of Rocks, Virginia but even the U.S. War Department did not have an accurate date of death for him. I also struggled for years to find where he had been buried.

His remains were interred in City Point National Cemetery, Hopewell, VA. According to some papers, he died in the Fall of 1864. Other documents state he died October 1, 1864. However, his new headstone says December 5, 1865. Oh yes, a new headstone.

Part of the reason it took me forever to determine Ben's burial location was because he was buried under a headstone with the surname "LOSA" even though his military files, which contain handwritten letters signed by Ben himself, clearly say LOSEE. 

It also took me forever to get the headstone replaced.  It was quite an ordeal. A letter to my congresswoman got it corrected though. However, I had to supply the government with proof of the correct spelling by submitting to them copies of Ben's signed letters straight form the government's own files. Oy! But here it is though - - the original stone as it appeared in about 2000 and the new one that I believe was erected in 2004.