My mother's mother's parents were Samuel Wilson and Anna Regina Cruice. I've had information on Gramma Wilson for a while. I remember her from the few times we visited Florida, where she lived near my grandparents.
I had little on my great-grandfather, Samuel WIlson, who died many years before I was born.
From census records, I was able to get his birth year, abt 1872, and that he was born in Ireland. Nothing on the date of his death. My aunt thought he might have died in the late 1950's but I was unable to find any records.
I finally stumbled on findagrave.com. I think I tried using this a year or two ago, with nothing of use turning up. Maybe I've gotten better. Or the database has gotten better. Or both. But this time I got a hit.
I had no idea where my great-grandfather was buried. But on findagrave.com I was able to search all cemeteries in their database in Erie County in New York State. The trick for me was to first click on "Search for a cemetery" on the right column of the menu list, which bring me to this page http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cs. That let me narrow the cemeteries to Erie County and let me enter in "Samuel Wilson" into the name field. And there it was:
grave marker for Anna and Samuel Wilson
My great-grandfather, Samuel Wilson, was born 30 Aug 1874 and died 30 Apr 1946.
I tried a quick-and-dirty request for his birth certificate from the Civil Registration Service in Dublin, Ireland. Fortunately, a "no record found" only cost me 2 Euros. The Irish Family History Foundation (ifhf.rootsireland.ie) also turned up nothing. But I'll keep searching.
Update (29 Oct 2011)
Received information on Samuel Wilson's naturalization on 13 Jun 1928. This indicates his birth date as 30 Aug 1871 (age 56 in 1928), not 1874.