I am quite literally drowning in O'Horas. My great-great-great O'Hora grandparents had five sons, at least four of them came to America from County Carlow, initially settling in Auburn, New York. Their oldest son John had five sons and their son Michael had a whopping ten sons that survived. Their other sons also had children but they didn't pose a problem for me in figuring out who's who in Auburn; Edward followed his dreams of wealth to California's gold fields and my great-great-grandfather James moved his family to Manchester, New York. John's five sons never married; which was a very good thing as they were hellions of the first order who actually earned the sobriquet-- the O'Hora gang. Still, they were in the mix in Auburn.
There were of course many daughters as well, but since they didn't retain their maiden names after marriage their children didn't enter into the seemingly bottomless pool of O'Hora's in Auburn. The Auburn newspapers were filled with articles about various O'Hora's but it's difficult sometimes to know which Michael, John, or Edward had died or was being arrested. Especially when researching later generations by which time there were multiples of multiples of all the common forenames they were so fond of, though usually if someone was in trouble it was a member of the gang mentioned above.
One of the most useful methods I've found to differentiate between individuals of the same name is to concentrate on finding their addresses. While news articles didn't always give ages, they often gave the home address of the person mentioned or in the case of a death notice, the address where the funeral would occur back when those were held at home. I've actually made a spreadsheet for the O'Hora's using the streets and street numbers found in newspapers, city directories, and census records. In the federal census of 1900 thru 1940, and the New York State censuses from 1905 onwards, the street the family lived on is written in the left hand margin.
When I see the address 302 State Street in Auburn I know that was the home of Michael O'Hora from Ireland with the ten sons, and that he or one of his sons or grandchildren is likely the subject of the article. Others of the ten brothers lived in Throop, right next to Auburn. Being so close they still appeared in Auburn newspapers but living outside the city set them apart. John's sons moved around quite a bit, but with the spreadsheet I can spot them. Using this method I can usually find the right O'Hora even if he happened to be staying with his parents or a sibling rather than at his usual address.
No comments:
Post a Comment