Tombstone Tuesday/ I Wonder About Annie

     

     For a long time, I was unsure what to make of the child called Annie.  I saw her tombstone in St. Anne's Cemetery in Palmyra, New York right next to my 2nd great-uncle James White and his wife Mary Ford so I assumed she must have been their daughter.  On her small stone was engraved simply, "Annie 1890-1893".  I found no record of her baptism in St. Anne's records, only her burial in 1893 which matched the date on her stone.  The burial record gave her father's name as James White, so that's that.  Except... in the census of 1900, which asked women if they had children, how many, and how many of them were still living, Mary told the census taker she never had any children.  So was Annie adopted?  A niece or other relative?

     Mary, a native of County Laois, Ireland would have been 37 at the time of Annie's birth and James 41.  That's rather late to begin a family and there were no other children born to this marriage, but then again James and Mary didn't wed until 1887.  Today it occurred to me I had never located this family in the New York State census taken in 1892 when Annie would have been two years old.  Palmyra was a small town, it took only eight pages to enumerate it's residents that year, so I went page by page after an Ancestry search failed to turn them up.  Still nothing.  Ancestry wouldn't allow me to search by county, so I switched to Family Search which would.  They weren't listed anywhere in Wayne County, where Palmyra is located, so I tried Ontario, the next county over.  There they were!  James White, Mary White, and Anna M. White aged two living in the town of Phelps. 

     So little Annie was with James and Mary at the age of two-- she must be theirs I thought, and named for her grandmother, Anna Ryan White.  I recalled the census of 1910 also asked women about their children so I checked that one next.  This time Mary, now living in Palmyra, told the enumerator she had one child who was still living.  What?  All I can imagine is that Mary was so undone by her only child's death she couldn't bear to talk about it, certainly not to a stranger who came to her door asking intrusive questions.  I looked at the New York State Death Index, now coming online at Internet Archive, and found "Anna M. White" died 24 September 1893 in Palmyra.

     All the evidence points to James and Mary being Annie's parents.  The next time I'm able to look at church registers in Phelps I will look for her baptism there; since she isn't in St. Anne's baptismal records I think it's probable she was born in Phelps.  And I won't be at all surprised when I read that her parents were James White and Mary Ford.

    

Willie T. Revisited

     Two years ago I wrote a blog about my search for my 1st cousin 3X removed, John Sheehan, who left home one day in 1875 and was never seen nor heard from again.  I promised an update if I ever tracked John down or alternatively, if I discovered what had caused the unrelated death of his nephew William Thomas Sheehan seventy six years later at the age of only 52.  Well, neither of those things have come to pass.  John is still among the missing and it's clear now that I'm not going to get a cause of death for William unless I order his certificate from the state of California.  I've located a death notice for William, but he passed away in Los Angeles and those big city newspapers didn't devote much print to lengthy obituaries unless the deceased was famous in some way.

     So why am I writing an update?  Because I found something even better than a cause of death for William, I found a photograph!  OK, Ancestry found it I guess and sent me one of those little leaves, but I'm still excited.  It's so rare that I come across photographs.

William Thomas Sheehan (1899-1951

     
     William was 20 years old when this photo was taken.  The document it was attached to was his application for a Citizen Seaman's Protection Certificate which he filed in September of 1919.  The certificates functioned like  passports for seamen and were issued at all Great Lake and ocean ports by the collector of customs.

     This may have been William's first trip, the spaces provided for listing departures and arrivals is blank on his form, but there is a ship called the Pearl Shell noted on the application. Also included in the file is a notarized, handwritten affidavit from William's mother Lillian Putnam Sheehan giving his date and place of birth.  I found a reference to William's ship in a book online called International Marine Engineering, Vol. 23 that indicated the ship was an oil tanker that was part of the Merchant Marine fleet and had been taken over by the US government.  That would explain the 1920 census which says William was a machinist who worked for the government.

   Below is what is written on the back of the photo and I admit I'm stumped.  I get the "Citz" in pencil that must be an abbreviation of citizen, but the rest?  Any suggestions what it may mean would be appreciated.

    

Pursuing John Vincent's Pension: Act 2

     

     Well, some good did come out of my disappointing correspondence with the FGS yesterday concerning the War of 1812 Pension files.  I was so vexed that I scoured the internet for other War of 1812 pension sources.  And I found one that had some relevant information about John Vincent!  This time I'm sure it's the right guy, there are several John Vincent's in the 1812 pension indexes that are online in various places.  The indexes contain very little information and it's not always easy to tell if you have your man or not.  In fact I wasn't one hundred percent certain that John or his widow ever drew a pension, which is why I never ordered a copy from NARA, which if any of the John Vincent files was the right one?

     This time I'm positive it's him.  The database is at the Family Search site and is titled United States Revolutionary War Pension Payment Ledgers 1818-1872.  I know what you're thinking, different wars, but the description notes that a few 1812 pensions did sneak in.  Somehow, the file I sought was one of these.  I typed in John's name and waited.  Only two hits came up, the first for John Vincent from Indiana and the second for John Vincent no location.  The second hit did include a wife's name, Mary H*.  I wasn't sure what that could be, my John did have a wife named Mary but I'd never seen the initial H used for her -- I clicked it anyway.

     The page that came up was dark and hard to read, all I could see was the name John Vincent, Private, a dollar amount and--hold on a minute!  Someone had written Canandaigua on the same line.

Hard to read, but the last word is Canandaigua

 Mary lived near Canandaigua for a time after John's death, but where was her name? Looking to the left I saw a name that had been crossed out.  It did look like the forename Mary, the indexers at Family Search thought it said Mary, for they had written "Mary H" in the description.  There was also a surname and it began with an H.  So the H wasn't a middle initial at all, it was all they could decipher of her last name.  I enlarged the crossed through surname and-- Oh. My. Goodness! It read "Howland".  Which was the name of Mary's second husband, and there-- the payments to Mary H stopped in 1864.  That is the year she died, it's her.

      Admittedly, I don't know much more now than I did before I found the ledger, but I did learn that John was a Private in the service and most importantly that a pension file does indeed exist for my direct ancestor John Vincent.  Now if they will only put it online...

Today's Tirade -- 1812 Pension Applications

Doublespeak- evasive, ambiguous language primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable

     I can't imagine I'm the only totally frustrated researcher who has waited in vain for more images of the War of 1812 Pension Applications to appear on Fold3.  It has literally been years since the last batch was released.  You may recall the very successful campaign which raised $500,000 to pay for the digitizing and posting of the files, which was to be done in conjunction with the National Archives which holds the records and the Federation of Genealogical Societies.  Things were moving along, but then everything ground to a halt with letter M.  That's it, up to letter M then nothing.  And as luck would have it, my ancestor's name begins with the letter V.  

     The FGS Facebook page about the project hasn't been updated in nearly a year and the Fold3 site is equally mum.  When I inquired about the delay a year ago, this was the response--"there are persistent security issues and process control challenges with NARA’s internal operations"-- huh?  Today I tried again to get an answer to what was happening and got this reply-- "NARA has recently experienced some challenges managing their numerous work flows and processes...".  Did they realize how inadequate the first explanation was and revise it with a different but equally annoying excuse?  All I'd like to know is what is the problem?  And why the reticence to share that information with the individuals paying for the project?  It's much easier to be patient if one understands what is happening, (or not happening in this case), and why.

     The person who responded to my query did volunteer that an announcement concerning the project is expected from the FGS on August first.  After all the secrecy, I'm hoping this means something has changed and the project will resume, M is an awfully long way from V.

     

    

Maria Vincent No Longer Among The Missing

   

     Looking through some posts about my Vincent family today I noticed a blog written before I had located all the children of John and Mary Clement Vincent, they being Matilda, Thomas, Maria, and Janet.  That blog noted one child,  Maria, had yet to be traced.  Happily, that is no longer the case.

     Maria Vincent was born in Saratoga County in 1806, probably at Halfmoon like her brother and sisters.  She married  Morgan Dunham, (Donham in some records), the son of William Dunham and Eleanor DuBois, in Saratoga County around 1830.  A deed from Saratoga County shows Morgan selling land there in 1831 which may be when the family migrated westward to Ontario County, New York.  They were certainly there by 1834 when their daughter Juliaette was born in Bristol, New York on June 22nd.  The 1840 NY census also places the Dunhams in the county, living in Richmond, New York, as was Maria's mother Mary Clement Vincent, now twice widowed and listed under her second late husband's surname of Howland.  Maria's sister Janet was there in her mother Mary's household though in 1840 she is only a tick mark in a column.  Maria's brother Thomas Vincent with his family also resided in Richmond in 1840.  All the Vincent siblings and their mother were together in Richmond except Matilda Vincent Irish who lived in Victory, New York in Cayuga County.

     Maria and Morgan would have four daughters and three sons in that order, all of whom would survive to adulthood.  Sometime in the early 1840's the Dunhams packed up their children and moved to Pittsford, New York where Morgan had a brother, about twenty miles from Richmond.  By that time the other family members had also sold their property in Richmond and joined Matilda Vincent Irish in Victory.  Pittsford would have been quite a change for Maria.  While Richmond was a rural farming community, her new home was booming.  The Erie Canal had come through town in 1825, while 1842 saw the arrival of the Rochester & Auburn Railroad.  Pittsford was a prosperous, expanding community at the time Maria and her family arrived though she wouldn't get to enjoy it for long.

     Maria died a  month before her 43rd birthday from dysentery on 18 July 1849 in Pittsford.  In the days before refrigeration intestinal diseases were common, especially in the warmer months giving them the name, "summer complaint".  With the exception of Janet Vincent Wetherel, who would attain the age of 78, none of the Vincent siblings had long lives; their mother had to endure the deaths of three of her four children.  Matilda Vincent Irish passed at 46, Thomas at 39, and of course Maria at age 42.  Her husband Morgan would marry twice more, first to a woman named Sarah whose surname is given on the Find A Grave site as Etts, then in 1870 to Hannah Sutherland who would outlive him.

     With all the Vincent children now accounted for, I'd really love to know what caused the death of my 3rd great-grandfather Thomas Vincent, only son of John and Mary, at the young age of 39.  The historian of Cayuga County where Victory lies, wrote me that several epidemics swept through the town in the 1840's, carried by travelers and pioneers.  We see this in the cases of Matilda Vincent Irish and her two year old granddaughter Mary Jane Wetherel who both perished during the 1847 epidemic.  So far a lack of records has confounded my search for Thomas' cause of death but it may turn up one of these days.

     
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