Titles Are Not Always What They Seem

      I sat down today determined to find more information on my 4th great-grandfather Johann Fiedler.  Johann, after immigrating from Germany in about 1775 at age fifteen, promptly took up arms in the New York State Militia during the Revolutionary War.  Years ago while visiting the Ontario County Archives Center in Hopewell, New York I copied his application for a military pension.  More than that, I held the actual document in my hands!  Now, I wanted to find a death date and more about his life and time in the military. 

     John, as he became known, was living in Victor, New York in 1840 where he appeared in the Veteran's Schedule that year, he was 78 years old and blind. He also was enumerated in the Pensioner's Census the same year, living with his son-in-law Henry Lash, (misspelled in the index as Trask).  His name does not appear in the general census since 1840 was a head of household only census, but that's okay, the other one is much better!  The general census does not include the information that John was blind, his exact age, or with whom he was living.  In that census he's just a nameless tick mark in a column.  At the Archives Center I also got a look at the Ontario County copy of the Veteran's Schedule which differs from the Washington D.C. copy found at Ancestry and Family Search.  Theirs, the D.C. copy, made no mention of John's blindness.  Local copies are worth seeking out, they are after all the originals and it's not unusual for there to be differences.

     Checking the Family Search site I found John Fiddler of New York in the Revolutionary War Pension Payment Ledgers. A much under-used database that can tell the researcher the ancestor's pension amount, his general location, and an approximate death date. Sometimes the actual date is penciled in. There was a problem however, the description of the entry said it was for New York City. That wasn't right, John lived in Victor in Ontario County, New York-- part of the Northern District. I clicked on the link regardless, and I'm glad I did. The entry wasn't for New York City at all. Look...

    The entry was for "New York, City of Albany".  That comma between York and City means something.  Talk about a rookie mistake Family Search indexer!  I have other ancestors who lived in Ontario County and their pensions also came through Albany. For instance, another 4th great-grandfather, Silvester Worden; he lived about ten miles from John and his pension too was through the Albany office. The place named on the ledger isn't the soldier's address, it's his nearest pension office.  In this case, Albany was closest.

    Pension payments were made every six months, the first one in March and the second in September. From the ledger I could see John's payments ended with the September 1842 payment, narrowing his death date considerably. I can assume he likely passed sometime between September of 1842 and March of 1843. That's some worthwhile information, even though nothing new about his military service turned up, every clue helps.

     By the way, the Revolutionary War Pension Ledgers database also contains some War of 1812 pensions.  The widow of yet another 4th great-grandfather, John Vincent, wife Mary Vincent Howland, nee Clements, appears in the ledgers, originally through the Albany agency, but on March fourth in 1864 her account was transfererred to Canandaigua.  Apparently, a new office was opened in that city. 

     These two examples demonstrate that wording of database titles, like "New York City", and "Revolutionary War Pension Ledgers", can sometimes be misleading.  Had I looked no further than the title, and not clicked on the link, I would have missed out on some great information.

How An Assumption Really Stymied my Research

 

     My 3rd great-uncle John O'Hore was born in County Carlow, Ireland in 1819.  He married in 1845, the same year the famine began, not knowing what was in store for him, and for all Ireland.  A year after his marriage, John and his wife Catherine McGarr did what many of their countrymen were doing, they took their newborn daughter and sailed out of there to America.  John and Catherine added to their family in New York, with seven more children born to them in Aurelius and Auburn in Cayuga County, that's a lot of mouths to feed.  In all the censuses except 1870 John was listed as a laborer.  The 1870 said he worked at the stone quarry in Auburn, as a laborer no doubt.  Not much money in that.

     John disappears after the 1871 Auburn City Directory is published.  City directories are not necessarily current.  It takes a while to compile all that data so they are usually being researched and put together the year before they are released.  Another item I found while seeking John's death date was a newspaper article showing his wife in the rolls of the Auburn overseer of the poor in September of 1872.  Another clue that narrowed it down was the 1874 city directory where Catherine is listed as a widow.  It looks to me as though John passed between 1871-1873.  I'm leaning towards 1872 due to Catherine receiving assistance that fall.

     Looking at all that information, I've always been under the impression they were not well off.  Especially after reading about Catherine's reliance on the overseers of the poor.  None of the census records indicated they were landowners either, so given all that, I never took the time to look at land records in Cayuga County.  It never even crossed my mind.  Well, maybe that one time when I saw "J. O. Hoar" on an Aurelius ownership map but I wrote it off as a misprint of the surname O'Hara, of which there were several in the area.  

     Having some time to kill today, I took a look at the NY land records available at Family Search.  They are indexed now so it's much easier than it used to be to search them.  I was astonished to find entries for John O'Hore there!  In Aurelius!  Looking up the deed the index had led me to, I found the purchase of half an acre by John O'Hore from William Stringer in 1854.  Now where did I file that map...

     

     Found it.  In about the middle we see John's property.  The name a bit below his is W. Stringer, the deed described the property as abutting William's property, we definitely have the right land.  But is it really my John?  Looking further at the other hits, in 1860 John sold the land back to William Stringer at a $60 profit.  I found it a little strange that Catherine was not mentioned in the transaction.  In that era, women had dower rights to property owned by their husbands.  Usually, the deed would note that the wife had been examined separately from her husband and had agreed to the sale.

     After that surprise, I decided to search the index for anyone named O'Hore in 1850 -1870 in Cayuga County.  Up popped Catherine in 1872.  She appeared to be selling the very same land to William Stringer again.  Now I was really confused.  The opening sentence was, "I Catherine Hore of Auburn 'widow of John Hore', for $40 dollars to me paid by William Stringer...".  It then described the same land.  How odd.  I went back and read over the language of the deed more carefully, which given the archaic legalese and bad handwriting can be a challenge.  I didn't get it all, but what I did was enough.  It was a release of the property sold by John in 1860.  Why would a release be needed?   The next sentence answered that question, it specifically mentioned Catherine now relinquishing her dower rights.  Which she had not previously done in the 1860 deed.  

     This cleared a lot up.  It proved my John was indeed the man on the map, he did own land, and the date of 23 March1872 on the release is further evidence John passed early that year.  I'm not sure if William Stringer was looking to tie up loose ends, or if Catherine needed cash, but she did get some remuneration for her release.  And I was reminded of the importance of really exhausting ALL the records before coming to any conclusions. 

Widow Of A Revolutionary War Soldier? Or Who's Your Daddy?

   

     

     For over ten years now, I've been attempting to prove that my third-great-grandmother Matilda Taylor, wife of Thomas Vincent, was the daughter of John B. Taylor of Halfmoon, New York in the county of Saratoga.  It's been a hard go, and while I still lack concrete proof, I've gathered quite a bit of circumstantial evidence.  The possibility first entered my mind when I found the name of Thomas and Matilda's first born son-- John Taylor Vincent.  It seemed to me there was a good chance the infant was named for Matilda's father.

     I believe Thomas and Matilda were both born at Halfmoon, where they were living in 1829 when their first child, Mary Ann, was buried at Newtown Cemetery that September.  They were still there in July of 1832 when the phrase "Thomas Vincent of Halfmoon", appeared on an indenture for land purchased in the town of Victory, New York where Thomas would die ten years later.  Of course, I checked Halfmoon for a John Taylor and the census of 1800 shows one in town, not far from Jeremiah Vincent, and John Vincent [Sr.] who was Thomas' grandfather.  I believe Jeremiah Vincent was a relative of my Thomas, probably his father's uncle*.  Furthermore, John B. Taylor, besides living near Jeremiah, served under him in the Revolutionary War.  In fact, Jeremiah Vincent was a witness on John B's pension application in 1833 and John B. acted as witness for Jeremiah when he applied for a pension. Also, John B. in his application states he had lived at Halfmoon since the end of the war so Matilda, whose birth took place in 1802, must have been born there.

     Finding John B's Revolutionary War pension application was exciting but unfortunately didn't shed any light on the question of his children.  It did however provide his birthplace as Dutchess County.  I looked in vain for a widow's pension since it seems Rebecca outlived John, but the two probably weren't married before the end of the war in 1783, which at that time disqualified her as the widow of a soldier.

     Find A Grave shows a burial that took place in Galway, Saratoga County, in 1839 for John B. Taylor and one for "wife" Rebecca in 1845, no photos of any headstone, but with dates. Since I trust Find A Grave about as far as I can throw them, as always I sought and found another source for West Galway Cemetery.  As I suspected it had more information than Find A Grave, with a transcription of the actual inscriptions on the stone, and is likely more trustworthy.  

     The census of 1830 shows John B. still in Halfmoon, but I can't rule this1839 burial out even though it's not in Halfmoon. Galway is only twenty-five miles distant, and it's always possible a child of John and Rebecca lived there and took their parents under their roof in their declining years.  I do wonder if Rebecca was John's second wife given the twenty-year difference in their ages indicated by the dates on their grave markers, but so far even her last name remains a mystery.  Furthermore, looking at the pension ledger containing John B's pension, payments to him stopped in March of 1839 tending to confirm that is indeed him buried in Galway.

     The next obvious step would be to get a copy of Matilda Taylor Vincent's death certificate, but that's already been done.  The lines where her parent's names should be were left maddeningly blank.  I've exhausted obituary searches with no useful information turning up, so I'm at a loss for now.  I should mention there was a Reuben Taylor also living at Halfmoon early on, maybe he's my next search...

* I don't understand why, given all the evidence to the contrary, but there is disagreement in online trees as to the father of John Vincent, the husband of Mary Clements and father of Thomas Vincent.  For some reason, most come down on the side of Capt. Jeremiah Vincent. There is absolutely no proof of this and none is provided in the trees. This is partly why I ordered his records from NARA, hoping something contained in them would settle the question-- which it has.

    The records, being his wife Mary's approved application for a widow's pension, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that my fourth-great-grandfather, Private John Vincent of Halfmoon, died of disease in February of 1814 at Plattsburgh during the war of 1812, seven long years BEFORE Capt. Jeremiah made his will in 1821 in which he named his living son John I. Vincent an executor of his estate.  That, taken with the 1817 guardianship of John's children, granted to Mary and her brother John Clements, rules my John out as the Captain's progeny. 

Iskenius: Letters From Home

 

        A photograph-- the dream of every genealogist, the holy grail of family research.  Through them, ancestors that we could only imagine, come alive as we look across the centuries into their eyes. One of my most cherished possessions is a tintype of my great-great-grandmother Anna Ryan, born in 1831 in Tipperary, Ireland.  A close second would have to be personal letters.  I haven't had as much luck in that department, but that changed recently.

     While looking at my German ancestors a short time ago, I noticed a new hint for the Clements family, a book titled, "Palatine German Immigration to Ireland and U.S.", by Hank Z. Jones.  As I quickly skimmed through it, I came across this note from the author-

      Well, that's nice for someone I thought, wish it was my Clements family.  Then I read the note and preceding paragraphs more closely... Johannes Clements?  I am a direct descendant of Johannes, it WAS my family!  Now I needed to find those letters!  A Google search was disappointing, but it found a book containing the translated letters, "The Iskenius Letters: From Germany to New York 1726-1737".  Unfortunately, it's currently out of print and the closest copy is in a library sixty miles away.  Google did, however, point me to one of my favorite sites, JSTOR which I wrote about in a blog ten years ago.   https://elliesancestors.blogspot.com/2014/02/irish-articles-on-jstor-free.html

     On the JSTOR site I searched for the Iskenius Letters and was rewarded with an in-depth article written by F.J. Sypher, (also author of the book in the distant library), titled, "Voices in the Wilderness: Letters to Colonial New York From Germany". The article didn't print the letters in full, but it did include several long excerpts talking about events in Germany and family news, just the sort of thing family historians love. The very title of the article is from the closing lines of a letter sent from Germany in which the writer laments the lack of response from New York and likens his letters to an unheard voice vainly calling into the wilderness of the new world.  

     The article and excerpts contained a good deal of information about 18th century Germany as the family knew it, the family address, (Flammersfeld), along with the names of Johannes Clements' parents which I did not have before-- Johann Huprecht Clements and Catharina Elizabeth Iskenius.  This was the first time I ever saw the surname Iskenius.  I find German research harder than Irish.  The main problem being I don't speak or read German, let alone old German.  It was wonderful to find a primary source already translated by someone who did, but I wanted all of the letters.

     As they say, where there's a will there's a way and in this case, the way was an interlibrary loan.  In just under a week the letters were in my hands, and just as I had hoped, there was even more to be learned from them than appeared in the excerpts.  Family names, deaths, addresses, and chilling descriptions of the threat of looming war in the Rhineland.

 

     Catharina was a widow well into her fifties when she undertook the arduous voyage to an unseen, unknowable place with her eldest son Moritz. The letters make clear Catharina's brother Georg facilitated her and Moritz's immigration, but not why.  At the time, her son Johannes was already living at Philipsburg Manor on the Hudson River, where Catharina and Moritz joined him in 1826.  There were two other sons, Phillipus and Johannes Huprecht as well as a daughter named Christina.  Christina died at age five, but I'm unsure about the boys. They do not appear in records in America, and they are not mentioned in the book of German Palatine immigrants. Nor are they named in any of the letters, all of which do inquire about Moritz and Johannes in America and talk extensively about family members still in Germany.  It suggests they may have died as well, for surely if they were still living Georg would have spoken of them to their mother.

     Not all the letters are intact, some of them are faded or torn, others are discolored from the tape used for repairs at some point and unreadable.  While I am thrilled to have them, I can't help but wish that some of the letters from America to Germany had survived.

What's A Kloof? And Why It's Important to Know

                                          Thomas Clements and Geertrury Koens 1766

     I spent today deciphering the marriage record of my fifth-great-grandparents Thomas Clements and Geertruy Koens, and just may have found Geertruy's parents in the process. Having spent most of my research time on Irish Catholic Church registers, those of the church Thomas and Geertruy belonged to, the Dutch Reformed, are not familiar to me.  At least these were not written in Dutch. The above entry reads, "1766 Ap. 12 Reg; Thomas Clemens Y.M. from Philipsburg and Geertruy Koens Y.D. bo. in the Kloof; both liv. in the Kloof; Rec'd Certif. to the Kloof after the 3d proclamation".

     What the Kloof was I had no idea, and a Google search didn't do much to enlighten me. Online dictionaries defined it as a ravine. Geertruy was born and lived in a ravine? And what was meant by the 3d proclamation? Was that a church thing like Vatican Two? No idea what YM and YD were either.  On Ancestry I found a tree that gave Geertruy's birthplace as Woonatig de Kloot, but Google found that as confusing as I did. It did have "Kloot" in it though, so I ran a search for woonatig alone and found it just means "residence", it's not a place name.

     Also at Ancestry I found a hint asserting Geertruy was born at Poughquag and her father was Johan Jurgen Kuhns. It had his 1739 marriage record from the Lutheran church in New York City.  Johan was from, "the Kloot", of Bachway it said!  He married Anna Margaretha Bucken after three "publ", publications? Could those be marriage banns? Could the Kloot in Geertruy's marriage record be the same as the Kloot of Bachway? Checking Google again, this time for Bachway, I discovered that place is called Poughquag today. Things seemed to be falling into place. I don't ever take online family trees as gospel, but the thoroughly researched book, "Palatine Immigration to Ireland and US", by Hank Z. Jones had the same information.

     After poking around the net for a while, I came across the Dutch genealogy site of genealogist Yvette Hoitink which explained much of what was puzzling me. The letters YM and YD were abbreviations for jonge man and jonge dochter, Single man and single woman. In this case the letter J functioned like the letter Y, not uncommon in that time and place.  The site confirmed the three proclamations were indeed marriage banns. Typically, three of them were issued with the wedding soon following. According to Yvette, the banns were so important that some churches recorded the banns and not the marriage.

     I always flip to the front and/or back pages of record books to check for any notes, and in this case I found in the church register front, "pages 15 to 361 marriage banns". Excitedly I turned to page 15 and began searching, but it soon became apparent the banns were mixed in with the marriages or else someone had gone back and later added "married" to most of the entries. Some said the marriage had not actually taken place. I was unable to find records of both marriage and banns for my ancestors.

                                     Johan Jurgan Kuhns and Anna Margaretha Bucken  1739

     I'm glad I took the time to take a good look at this and determine exactly what the records contained, now I'm sure Geertruy was born in America, that this was a first marriage for her and for Thomas, and there is a good chance her father was Johan. Hank Z. Jones thinks so...

The New Research Year Begins

 

     Fall.  The very word makes me cringe.  My lovely perennial borders are now filled with dejected looking plants losing their leaves and sulking while a few brave roses struggle to bloom.  Granted, the toad lilies are in their glory, as are the mums and asters, but not much else is doing in the garden.  Even the hummingbirds have packed their wee bags and departed on their tropical vacations.  This is my cue to prepare for hibernation and resume the only thing that keeps me sane during these long fall and winter months-- genealogical research.

     I've already made a remarkable discovery this week.  A previously unknown McGarr aunt has been identified!  My great-great-grandmother Maria McGarr O'Hora was born in County Kildare in 1826.  I long ago found her baptism as well as those of her six siblings in the church records of Baltinglass Parish in County Wicklow, but something about those records niggled at me.  After Maria's birth in 1826 there was not another baptism recorded in this family until that of Bridget in 1831.  Anyone doing Irish research for that time period knows it was typical for a baby to arrive every two years, maybe three, but not five.  I always wondered about a missing child, but after meticulously combing the baptism records several times I could find no trace of him or her.

     Now, sitting down at the computer after my summer sojourn, one of the first things I did was check to see if anything new had been added to my favorite websites.  At the newspaper site, Old Fulton, I ran a broad search using names from my McGarr tree-- Shortsville, O'Hora, Quigley.    Nothing.  Then I substituted O'Hara for O'Hora. The name changed over time depending on who you were asking and being a tiny place, there was only one O'Hora or O'Hara family in Shortsville.  That search brought up quite a few hits, with this description of one article particularly grabbing my attention, look at the last three lines--

     What the what?  It read, "Mrs. Elizabeth...", and "two sisters, Mrs. O'Hara of this place and Mrs. Quigley of Rochester".  I knew exactly who Mrs. O'Hara was, it was Grandma Maria.  I knew who Mrs. Quigley of Rochester was too, she was Maria's sister Anna.  I excitedly clicked on the article dated 1904 --

     There had indeed been another child born to Daniel McGarr and his wife Anne Donahoe!  I don't know why her baptism was not recorded, but it's not the first church record problem in this family.  The names in the baptism record of their daughter Bridget were so badly mangled and some even omitted by the parish priest that it took me and an employee of the heritage center in Wicklow to figure out it was in fact Bridget's baptism.  

     The article contained some important information, I now had the missing sibling's given name, her husband's name, names of her children, (surviving ones anyway), her death date, and amazingly, a residence.  She had been in Shortsville, New York for fifty years.  The same place her sister Maria lived, as had their late sister Bridget.  Talk about hiding in plain sight.  I felt slightly embarrassed she had been right under my nose, though in my defense the name Elizabeth Barrett meant nothing to me until the names O'Hara and Quigley were tossed into the mix.  Her age in the obituary is off, but in the census records I discovered for her, in which she herself had given her age, she fitted in nicely between Maria and Bridget.

     But now something else was niggling, surviving son Frank Barrett. His name was somehow familiar.  Searching my tree, I found Frank, or Francis, had married Mary Ann Fitzpatrick, a sister of Andrew Fitzpatrick, who had married Winifred O'Hora (O'Hara) Grandma Maria's daughter.  I had been looking at the Fitzpatrick family for a while, hoping I could link them to my Fitzpatrick's from Queen's County, Ireland.  Now I wonder if there was a Kildare connection, one Fitzpatrick child married the daughter of Maria McGarr, another married a son of Elizabeth McGarr.  Of course, it could be just a result of their proximity in this country.  It's certainly not rare for siblings to marry brothers or sisters from another family.  It is however, another research avenue to go down...

A New Way to Waste Time; In Which I Restore Angeline

   

     This post is a follow-up on a recent blog post containing a photo that may, or may not, be my great-great-great-grandfather Jermiah Garner.  I've written lots about Jeremiah, who led an out of the ordinary life, and since my blog is searchable you can read more about him if you are so inclined.

     

     This is the photograph that started it all.  It was labeled, Jeremiah Garner and his [third] wife Angeline Peck, the couple in the front row. I had my doubts about this photo.  For one thing, the lady seated next to Jeremiah looks older than him to me; Angeline was younger than Jeremiah.  She also seems a tad old to be the mother of the young child standing next to her.  However, it's a sad but true fact that women don't age as well as men.  I've looked this up in my research and it has something to do with hormones, or a lack thereof.  Which we are not going to delve into further in this blog.

     Today I thought I would take another look at this puzzle, so I uploaded a close up of Angeline from the group shot to my favorite photo editing site, BeFunky.com

     It appears poor Angeline may have been suffering from hair loss at the time this picture was taken.  Various illnesses and syndromes could be responsible, it's not the first time I've seen this in my tree.  BeFunky has lots of tools to play with, and I've used them many times, but today I noticed a brand new plaything, Old Photo Restorer!  I had to try that.

     After restoration, this is what Angeline looked like...

     That is remarkable!  And much, much better than the job Ancestry does at restoring photos.  I had one more trick up my sleeve though.  I uploaded Angeline's image to my Paint application, then shaded in more of the bonnet she appeared to be wearing.  Apologies for my clumsy editing, but Paint doesn't really allow for fine detailing.  

    I had noticed BeFunky also offered a colorizing tool, so of couse I tried that too...

     You can see Angeline now looks younger.  No spring chicken, but I could easily believe this lady was around the age of thirty-nine, which she would have been at the time.  After my edits,  Angeline's age in the photo no longer really concerns me.  I'm still going to keep digging though, it's hard to trust that online photos are always who they claim to be.  For instance, there is one circulating on Ancestry right now purporting to be the wedding photo from Angeline's first marriage (see below).  

     Angeline was twenty-six years of age when she married John Dent Collins. I think the lady in this photo looks a good deal older than twenty-six, and the groom looks nothing like other portraits of John Collins online.  Then again- 

    

      Nope, she still is over twenty-six.