Careen Maria LERENA

Died 27 June 1947, buried in the Cape. Almost certainly of this family - the Cape Lerenas are one cluster - but no record yet ties her to a parent. Found 10 Sep 2026. HER INTERMENT ENTRY WAS READ ON 8 OCTOBER 2026, and it moves the grave. Maitland Road Cemetery, Record of Interments, page 4706, entry 423. The line reads: surname LERENA, forename as this register has carried it, FE, age 2 WKS, late residence ending '...Victoria R[oa]d'; allotment ROMAN CATHOLIC, Cons. No. 1, GRAVE 7719. THAT IS MARY SEPTIMA TAYLOR'S GRAVE. This archive already held her burial as 'Maitland Road Cemetery interment register p.3215 entry 163, Nov 1935 ... Cemetery no 1, grave 7719A' - the same cemetery, the same allotment, the same number. A baby of two weeks was laid in the grave of a woman who had died twelve years before her. AND IT IS MAITLAND, NOT NEWLANDS. Work-list row 106 records the family's account, from the cemetery office via Cheryl's sister Patricia, of an unmarked grave at NEWLANDS carrying only the word LERENA and holding three people. The register puts these two at MAITLAND ROAD. WHAT IS NOT SETTLED BY THIS PAGE: whether Pablo Armando is there too. He died in 1950 and this opening is 1947, so he is not on it. THE FORENAME COULD NOT BE RESOLVED. The scan is about 1,100 pixels across a whole opening, and at that resolution 'Careen' and 'Carmen' cannot be told apart - CARMEN would be the commoner name in this family by far. The reading this register already carried is kept, and the doubt is recorded rather than resolved in favour of the likelier guess. THE PLATE WAS RE-READ AT FULL RESOLUTION ON 8 OCTOBER 2026 and three things changed. THE GRAVE IS 7719 B, not 7719. Mary Septima is 7719 A and Pablo Armando is 7719 C: this is one plot with lettered places in it, and the register names it 'In Plot of R. P. Lerina'. SHE WAS BURIED IN HIS GRAVE. That is evidence she was his, and it is not proof - a plot holder may bury a grandchild, a servant's child or a lodger's. THE NAME IS CAREEN, NOT CARMEN. The doubt recorded earlier the same day was answered by the clerk's own hand: the letter in dispute is the pointed r he writes in Frederick two lines below, and is not the three-arch m he writes in mary one line below. Carmen was the likelier name and it is not what the page says. AND HER LAST RESIDENCE WAS 42 VICTORIA ROAD, BELLVILLE - not 7 Forth Road, Newlands, where Pablo Armando and his executrix Rose Lilian Theys both lived. Cheryl's reading that Rose Lilian Theys was the mother now has a fact to answer: the child died at an address in a different suburb. THE REST OF THE LINE: Roman Catholic allotment, Cemetery No. 1, depth 3 1/2 feet, officiating Bosman, undertaker Human - and Human & Pitt appears as a firm elsewhere on the same page, which is worth noting beside Mary Septima's undertaker in 1935, L. Pitt, without being pressed into a conclusion. AND THE REGISTER IS NOW EXHAUSTED ON HER PARENTS, 9 October 2026. Every column of the 1947 opening was catalogued from the header row: No | DATE | NAME | SEX | AGE (Years, Months) | LATE RESIDENCE (Town or Village, Street) | [CAUSE OF DEATH - REDACTED by FamilySearch] | DATE OF DEATH | BY WHOM CERTIFIED on the left page, and ALLOTMENT | Cem. No. | No. of Grave | Depth Below Surface | POSITION | Officiating Minister | UNDERTAKER | PARTICULARS OF BURIAL on the right. THERE IS NO INFORMANT COLUMN AND NO PARENT COLUMN. Her 'By whom certified' cell is BLANK; her date of death reads 27 , confirming the index. ONE NEAR MISS WORTH RECORDING: this register DOES name a parent when a child has no name of its own - entry 430 on the same page reads 'Gordon, Child of ...' - so the convention exists and she falls outside it precisely because somebody had named her. THE CAPE CIVIL REGISTRATION IS NOW THE ONLY ROUTE LEFT, and FamilySearch's full-text search does not reach South Africa.