Negative Evidence

Have you ever found a piece of evidence but been unable to find any other evidence to support that original piece of evidence? That’s what is frustrating me with some of my Purple Heart reserch.

Attached to the sign for the Nemaha County Courthouse is a bronze plaque identifying those who died while serving their country.

In my 11 Nov 2022 post, War Memorial, I trascribed the names. The plaque and a transcription is also found on the Historical Marker Database. Both transcriptions show a ‘Richard Bieri’ following George Bieri and before Richard Bindel.

I wrote about the service and death of Harry Bieri in my 23 Jan 2024 Purple Heart post. My 30 April 2024 Purple Heart post discusses the service and death of George Bieri.

Since I hadn’t posted about Richard Bieri, I started trying to find his information. My typical process is to start with the local newspapers. The Seneca Free Public Library has digitized the Seneca area papers and the Mary Cotton Library in Sabetha has digitized the Sabetha newspapers. Since these papers have provided a wealth of information for my previous Purple Heart research, this is where I typically start. A search of both sites for “Richard Bieri” resulted in no results in the Seneca papers and a 1983 article in the Sabetha papers.

A search of Newspapers.com for “Richard Bieri” between the dates of 1941-1945 found several articles. Some of those articles referred to a Richard Bieri attending ‘radar and electical engineering school’ in 1945. Narrowing the search to 1945 did not uncover any article about the death of Richard Bieri.

Thus, I turned to Find A Grave. A search of that site was also disappointing. The only Richard Bieri who died between 1938 and 1948 was a one year old child.

A search of the 1940 census for any male Bieri living in Nemaha County, Kansas did not turn up a Richard Bieri.

Broadening the search to Kansas and adjoining states was also negative for a Richard Bieri. I modified my search to look for someone named Richard whose last name was similar or sounded like Bieri. That search found over 300 men nationwide but only 5 in counties adjoining Nemaha county, Kansas and none in Nemaha county.

Turning to draft records, I also did not find anyone living in or near Nemaha county in the draft records available thru Ancestry.

A search for a Richard Bieri who died in the 1940s of FamilySearch and Ancestry public trees also found nothing.

All of these negative findings has led me to conclude that the plaque is incorrect. I believe that the given name of Richard is incorrect. Since there were two men with the Bieri surname with ties to Nemaha county who died during WWII, I believe their names were the intended names.

George Beiri

Harry Bieri