The family of Johnny Kiyawasew, an 11-year-old who died in 1943 while enrolled at a Catholic-run residential school in northern Alberta, found his grave in 2013 after decades of searching for answers, CBC News reported.

Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation and the University of Alberta said they are now conducting extensive research into the stories of other children, including many of Johnny’s relatives, who attended St. Francis Xavier Residential School in Calais, Alberta, and never came home.

According to provincial records, Johnny died of pulmonary tuberculosis in a hospital in High Prairie, where he is buried, more than 75 kilometres from the school.

“My parents, like my dad, was never told about nothing. They wrote a death certificate without his knowledge or nothing,” said Robert Kiyawasew, Johnny’s younger brother. “It’s not right… the church should have told my dad that he had passed away.”

His older sister Roseann, working with a private investigator, located the gravesite in 2013. “That caretaker said, ‘I know exactly where he’s buried and I’ll show you where,’” Robert Kiyawasew said. She died afterwards; he visits whenever he can. “To see that lonely little grave, out there all alone,” he said.

Sheldon Sunshine, chief of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, said research shows many children enrolled at St. Francis Xavier died from tuberculosis and malnutrition. “It’s not data, it’s people,” he said. “It is heartbreaking.”

The school’s narrative at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation — a history prepared by the Government of Canada in response to litigation — says at least five children died at the school in 1943. It quotes a 1943 document describing the building as “falling to ruin” and a danger to children’s health, and noting that some deaths the previous winter had been attributed to “the lack of comfort” from poor heating.

Raymond Frogner, senior director of research and head of archives at the centre, said residential school records were disorganized, inconsistent and unreliable because church groups and provincial and federal governments managed them without coordinating. Many church records are unavailable, carry conflicting dates or are withheld once found, he said. “It’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle back together when the pieces are missing.”

Sunshine said church officials have repeatedly told Sturgeon Lake researchers they will release a student’s documents only to someone with family ties. “How do you have family ties when a lot of them are passing away?” he said. “It’s going to limit us to finding all of our children.”

Robert Kiyawasew, himself a day school survivor who said he was punished for speaking his language, said the work must continue. “We belong in our culture. Our heritage is our right to be like that,” he said.

Sunshine said the First Nation will keep piecing together the stories of children enrolled at St. Francis Xavier who never returned. “If we don’t know where these children are, how can we find closure for some of our families?” he said. “Talking about intergenerational trauma? That’s part of it.”