My Oldestest Brick Wall Is Still Gathering Moss

 

    To put it mildly, I've had the devil's own time tracing my McGarr ancestors, the family of my great-great-grandmother Maria on my father's side.  Maria was born somewhere in Ireland and at some point, came to America.  That was all I knew when I began.  Maria's granddaughter, my grandmother, had given me the names of Maria's children, her husband, James O'Hara, (in fact it was O'Hora), and the obituary of one of her sons that gave Maria's maiden name as McGraw instead of McGarr.  No wonder I struggled so in the beginning.  This was before the days of Ancestry and online censuses, forcing me to travel to a nearby town to view those records; there I made my first breakthrough.  In the censuses I found James and Maria along with all the children's names as Grandma had told me, but the surname was O'Hora, not O'Hara.  All the census records had that spelling though, as did the newspapers I later found on microfilm from the NYS library, so apparently Grandma had preferred the O'Hara spelling which she herself had used before her marriage.  Can't say I blame her.

     It took a bit longer to straighten out Maria's maiden name.  Finally a fellow researcher set me straight on that one and gave me a county, Kildare.  Now I would surely find the townland of  my McGarr clan!  How foolish I was.  It would be years before Irish church records came online and I was finally able to track the family down, but even that didn't prove easy.  The McGarr family lived in one of those parishes whose boundry crossed county lines.  I should have been looking for church records in the county of Wicklow, not in their home county of Kildare, and in the parish of Baltinglass to which their townland, Ballyraggan, (as I found in baptism records), belonged.  Then there was the fact the simple surname McGarr confused a surprising number of people.  In records it was variously spelled, McGah, Megar, Mager, McGare, etc... in only one instance did a church baptism record use the spelling "McGarr" and those search engines did not pick up the other versions.  But at last, find them I did; Maria's parents, along with siblings I never knew she had.  

   Using US records, I had earlier found two sisters of Maria who like her, made their first home in America in Auburn, New York.  Now, Irish baptim records revealed two more sisters and two brothers, the boys being the last children born in this family.  Richard McGarr arrived in 1839, and his brother John in 1842.  Then they vanished.  Unlike the two new sisters, I've never found a single reference to either one of the boys after their baptisms, and therein lies my brick wall.

     This complete lack of records concerning the pair makes me tend to believe they did not survive childhood.  They would have been quite young when the potato blight hit Ireland, John only three and Richard six.  Even though Kildare wasn't as badly affected as the western counties, hunger was not unknow and fever was rife in their area.  It may have had some bearing that their mother Anne was known in her community as a healer, a tradition passed down in the family from mother to daughter.  As late as 1899, her daughter Bridget Kinsella in New York was advertising her services in her hometown newspaper.  Its conceivable individuals stricken with fever or other illnesses sought Anne's help in Ballyraggan, thereby spreading disease to her sons.

     Another clue is the lease their father Daniel held for many years.  In most cases, it would have gone to his eldest son, or at least to one of the sons upon his death, but it did not.  Valuation Office records show that after Daniel died in 1875 it passed to Thomas Hughes, the husband of Daniel's youngest daughter Sarah.

     I have my doubts I will ever discover the fate of Maria's two younger brothers.  There are few early records available for Catholics, other than church records which in the 1800's didn't usually include death or burial information.  Civil registration didn't start until 1864, obituaries for their class were unheard of, and tombstones almost unheard of.  Did they contract one of the numerous diseases that plagued childhood, suffer from a deadly birth defect, meet with an accident?  Did they leave Ireland for England or the United States?  It seems if they came to America they would have settled near their sisters, at least initially, but no amount of searching has turned either of them up there or on the continent.  I'm not ready to give up however, you never know what might be discovered in a new database.  It took me well over a decade to find the county, (Queens), and parish, (Rathdowney), of great-great-grandfather James White; not until the advent of DNA, since the parish records for his era no longer exist.  But if the data is out there, I will find it.

You Know It's Bad When The Bishop Closes Your Church, or Rebellion In Auburn

     Auburn, a community in upstate New York, was home to an appreciable Irish population in the 19th century. The first had arrived by 1810, while my McGarr ancestors came over in the early 1830's and during the famine years.  As their numbers steadily increased the need for a Catholic Church was becoming apparent. To answer that need Father O'Dononghue, the city's resident priest, purchased the abandoned Methodist church on Chapel Street to serve as his congregation's home. Dedicated in 1830 as The Church of the Holy Family, it would serve the Catholic community of Auburn for the next thirty-one years until a new building, the one still in use today, was erected in 1861 under the auspices of Father Michael Creedon. January of 1868 saw the appointment of Reverend Bernard McQuaid, a member of the conservative wing of the American church, to serve as Bishop of the newly formed Diocese of Rochester, of which Auburn, formerly of the Diocese of Buffalo, was now a part. 

     Maybe it was due to a rebellious streak, or because they were used to operating without central church authority looking over their shoulders for so long, but the honeymoon, as they say, did not last. On the morning of Sunday, February 21, 1869, a large number of parishioners assembled at the church to protest Bishop McQuaid's decision to remove their beloved pastor, the Reverend Thomas O'Flaherty. In their displeasure, they took Father O'Flaherty's replacement, Father Kavanagh, by the arm and escorted him from the church building, refusing to allow him to say Mass. Needless to say, bishops generally do not brook interference with, let alone criticism of their actions. Bishop McQuaide was no exception, and his reaction was swift.

Bishop McQuaid

     The following day, warrants were issued, and five leaders of the protest were arrested on charges of disturbing religious worship. Among the group was William McGarr, a tailor from County Wicklow who had arrived in New York in 1850 with his oldest son William Lannes McGarr. Of course, one of my relatives was involved. The unusual middle name of Lannes bestowed by William upon his son was in honor of French General Jean Lannes, who aided the Irish during the 1798 rising. So there was indeed a rebellious tendency there.

     At their trial the following week Attorney Wright, for the defense, maintained his clients, "were simply performing their duty under the law, which declares the right of majorities to govern and express their preferences". "The right of the majority to govern", how precious, this man was clearly not a Catholic. The jury members were probably not either, they voted for an acquittal within five minutes and the prisoners were discharged.

     The congregation was still not backing down, however. The following Sunday they again refused to allow Father Kavanagh to say Mass, infuriating the bishop who summarily locked the church doors and suspended Father O'Flaherty. Father O'Flaherty wasn't helping matters with his inflamitory statements to the local press denigrating the bishop, appealing his suspension to Rome, and later suing the bishop for libel. Though he failed to pursue his suit.

     The doors of Holy Family remained closed until April the 11th when the bishop himself took to the pulpit, giving the congregation a good dressing down for their scandalous behavior and singling out fourteen of them by name, saying they would be refused the sacraments unless they publicly begged pardon for their actions. I would be willing to wager William McGarr was among the fourteen though the article failed to mention their names or whether they complied. I would think William did as the bishop asked since two of his children were married at Holy Family three years later. Bishop McQuaid then went on to attack Father O'Flaherty, accusing him among other things, of appropriating to himself $600 in church funds. At some point, he took the extreme step of excommunicating the priest.

     The story was not quite finished though. On New Year's Day of 1893, the New York Times announced, "Father O'Flaherty Restored". After twenty-four years, Mgr. Satolli, (papal delegate), had seen fit to remove the bishop's sentence of excommunication, thereby restoring Father O'Flaherty to the priesthood. When asked, Bishop McQuaide refused comment.

The Sad Story of Charles Garner; Or, Don't Forget to Check Those Extra Census Schedules

     Today I was looking at my family tree profile for Private Charles M. Garner, my third-great-uncle.  His story is a tragic one.  Charles was born in the spring of 1836 in rural Cayuga County, New York, to Jeremiah Garner and Clarinda Wood.  He led a simple life; he acquired a farm and in 1860 married the widow Mary Conley Gibbs.  Two years later their first child, Harriet Amelia, was born.  A typical, quiet life that was about to be shattered by national events.

     The war began on the 12th of April 1861, when Confederates in South Carolina fired on Fort Sumpter in Charleston Harbor.  While most Americans believed the conflict would be short, the opposite proved true, and as hostilities dragged on Congress passed a conscription act in March of 1863.  As required, Charles registered for the draft in June of that year.  Within a month he received a notice like the one below.

Civil War draft notice

     

     Charles began preparations for his departure, spending time with his mother, (his father had abandoned her by then), and friends, putting his farm in order, and no doubt worrying how the wife he was leaving behind would manage without him.  He wasn't aware then, nor was Mary, that he was also leaving behind an unborn son.  Albert was born on May 14, 1864 indicating Charles probably reported for duty in August of 1863.

     Now assigned to Company I of the 97th NY Infantry, Charles arrived in Washington D. C. near the fall of 1863, in time for some minor battles followed by the setting up of winter camp.  In May of 1864 his regiment, now under the command of General Grant, moved south to Virginia to participate in the Richmond-Petersburg campaign.  Around this time Charles received word of the birth of his son.  Part of Grant's strategy called for the destruction of a section of the Weldon Railroad in order to isolate Petersburg.  Charles' company I was to be part of the assault.  The battle commenced on August 18th with heavy Union losses, but by the end of the day they held a precarious grip on the railroad.  The following day saw another attack by the Confederates, halted only by the last-minute arrival of Union reinforcements.  When the smoke had cleared, the Confederate supply line had been taken, but so had Charles.  

  

     Now began a dreadful wait for Mary, who knew only that her husband had been reported missing in action.  How or when she learned he was a prisoner of war is not something I've been able to find, but from the Smithsonian's web site I discovered soldiers on both sides were allowed to exchange mail.  Prisoner's letters were collected and opened at designated sites, censored, then sent on their way to anxious friends and relatives.  It's possible Mary heard the disturbing news of her husband's capture from Charles himself.

     Prisoner exchanges, done routinely early in the war, had ground to a halt in mid-1863 over the south's refusal to treat black and white soldiers equally.  After his capture Charles was initially confined at Richmond, then in early October he, along with five thousand other soldiers, was transferred to Salisbury prison.  At the end of October another five thousand prisoners arrived.  Those huge transfers along with the Union blockade, which was causing shortages of food and medicine all over the south, in addition to the rising numbers of untraded prisoners, overwhelmed Salisbury and conditions there were rapidly deteriorating.  Prison hospital records show Charles was admitted in mid November of 1864 for treatment of diarrhea, released two weeks later, then readmitted on December 22nd.  He died there two days later, Christmas Eve, from diarrhea.  The NY Town Clerk's Registers, available on Ancestry, attribute his death to exposure and starvation.  In all likelihood it was a combination of all three factors.

     As I looked over the hints on Charles' page, I saw one for New York's 1865 census.  That couldn't be, he was long deceased by then.  Pulling it up I saw it was indeed Charles, along with Mary and their family, his occupation-- Army.  Investigating further, I read the instructions given to census takers that year which stated they should include the names of those who had died since the first of June, the official date of the census.  Charles had been gone six long months, did Mary not know that?  Checking Schedule III of the census, Inquires Relating to Officers and Enlisted Men, I found Charles listed as a prisoner who died at Salisbury but with a caveat, that is difficult to read...

    

Looks to me like it says, Reported Dead Family Cannot Ascertain anything about?

     I take the above to mean the family had received no information about the manner or time of Charles' death.  Was he enumerated because Mary was still hoping for a miracle?  It seems she was.  As I looked at Schedule VII at the end of the census, Deaths of Officers and Enlisted Men, I saw Charles' name was not there, his family had not given up on him.

    Mary finally had to accept the hard truth of Charles' death, and she did marry again about four years later.  Her new husband, Mortimer Hilliker, was a Michigan farmer in which place Mary and her children took up their residence.  Hopefully she found a bit of happiness, but I would not be surprised to find that on quiet evenings when the endless farm chores were done and the stars twinkled overhead, Mary's thoughts sometimes drifted back to her young, lost husband.

     

     

To Colorize Or Not To Colorize; In Which I Compare The Ancestry And MyHeritage Technology So You Don't Have To

     When MyHeritage announced the release of its colorization technology, there was a hue, (no pun intended), and cry from traditionalists who likened it to drawing a mustache on a cherished photograph of great-grandma. I intensely dislike colorized movies, so I saw their point, it wasn't something I was terribly interested in pursuing but then again, adding color to photos is not all that new.  One can see civil war era examples that were hand tinted by the photographer in the early 1860's.  So I cautiously stuck my toe in and have since tempered my opinion somewhat. I uploaded a few of my photos to the MyHeritage site, only a few because that's all they allowed without a subscription. Then I noticed Ancestry had also jumped on the color bandwagon. Since I do have a subscription there, I decided to first try colorizing the ones I had already done at MyHeritage, just to see how they compared.

     The image of my great-great-grandmother Anna Ryan from Tipperary on the left is the original, the one in the middle was done at MyH. and the one on the far right is from Ancestry. I think Ancestry's technology did a better job in this instance.  There is too much red in the MyH. version.  In the case below however, MyH. definitely wins out. Pictured is John White, brother of James, my great-great-grandfather from Queens County Ireland. John's original on the left looks quite washed out with the face and hair blending together. The middle image is from Ancestry and MyH. is on the right. In my opinion the use of more saturated color worked well here, giving more definition to the forehead, and left facial areas.



     Neither website has very sophisticated technology, but I have to admit I enjoyed seeing the effects on my black and white pictures. Black and white is actually a misnomer, those old photos are grayscale, which doesn't lend itself to picking out minute details.  Below is a photo of my second cousin Inez Worden and her baby sister Gladys taken in 1914 and colorized at Ancestry.  When I saw it the first time I was amazed at how much I had missed!  The lake in the background really pops when colorized and the details in Inez's dress stand out much more.  I hadn't even realized that was a lake behind them.

     The same goes for the MyH. picture below of  my grandmother, (far right), and her siblings with their father taken about 1919, shortly before his death.  The background is really enhanced by color.

     The image of Terrence Sheehan above was done at Ancestry and is what I mean by the technology being unsophisticated. I know the color is completely wrong because US Army uniforms during World War 1 were not blue, they were khaki.  A professional colorizing a photo like this would never have chosen blue for the uniform.  On the other hand, it is free with a subscription.

     After trying the process, I have to say there are some circumstances where I find colorization somewhat jarring, like the weird blue uniform, but others where it is useful.  I'm still attached to the originals that reflect the historical period in which they were taken, and I would never discard them.  In only one instance have I replaced the profile image of an ancestor on Ancestry with the "improved" version, and only then because MyHeritage's "enhance" tool repaired the blurred photo.  Having said that, I also enjoyed finding details that were hiding there all along, but I had missed and would have continued to miss had I not given colorizing a try. 

You Probably Did Not Know This About Census Records. I Know I Didn't

     

     Back in the dark ages before newspapers were digitized, indexed, and readily available online, I ordered the microfilm of my ancestor's hometown paper from the New York State Library.  In it I found a trove of wonderful information, along with one article that confused me.  My second-great-aunt's husband, Patrick O'Neil was irate that the census showed an extra child in his household.  Now how did he know that I wondered?  Perhaps he was shown the entry at some point?  I really didn't pursue it at the time.

     Years later while visiting the office of the Cayuga County historian, I copied the 1850 census record of Elizabeth McGarr Burns, my third-great-aunt.

     After I later subscribed to Ancestry, I accessed the same census on their site to attach it to my online tree.  Surprisingly, it was very different than the one I had transcribed in the historian's office; the one on Ancestry contained four individuals with the surname Thomas and William Condon had become a Burns.  What was going on, had I make a mistake?

1850 census of Aurelius on Ancestry

     After a little research I found the answer.  Up to the year 1880 there were several copies made of the census.  One copy was kept locally, in some cases one was made for the state, and the third copy was sent to the Federal Government.  The copy I used in Auburn was the local copy, the ones seen on Ancestry are Federal copies.  Somehow, in transcribing the census for Washington the surname Thomas was mistakenly inserted.  As we know, the more hands involved in recording documents the greater the chance for error, but to add a new, very different surname seemed quite careless.  

     This could seriously impact ones family tree.  Initially I had discounted the Burns clan in the 1850 census found on Ancestry as probably the wrong family.  It makes me wonder how many seemingly missing census entries are in fact hiding under false names and facts?

     While studying all this, I also found the answer to the question of how Pat O'Neil knew he had acquired another child in 1880.  Not only were there multiple copies of early censuses, up until 1870, they could be viewed, unredacted, immediately.  The 1880 census left a few facts out of the local copy to offer some privacy, but none of this waiting 72 years as we presently are required to do.  Once it was published in 1880 Patrick was free to read it.  We should be so lucky.

     

There's Just Something About An Old Cemetery

 

     One of my favorites on You Tube is a series called Sidestep Adventures.  It's an amateur enterprise consisting of videos made by a man named Robert and his sidekicks as they explore cemeteries in Georgia.  The older and less accessible the better.  This series featuring titles like, "Abandoned Cemetery Found in The Woods", and "Civil War Soldier Found In Abandoned Cemetery", kept me amused all last winter while a snow-covered ground made cemetery rambles unpleasant and unproductive here in upstate New York.

     A few days ago, it felt as though I had stepped into one of those videos myself.  There is a very old burial ground in Auburn, New York called Cold Spring Cemetery that I'd long wanted to visit.  This was the first Catholic cemetery in Auburn and many of the city's famine immigrants are interred there, including relatives of mine.  An inventory done in 1964 listed several McGarr and O'Hora stones, as did another done in 1984, so bright and early one morning my friend and I set out on the fifty-mile drive.

     While most of the cemetery is mowed, there is a section near the center that is completely overgrown with small, thorny trees and heavy brush.  I'm usually not deterred by that sort of thing when in pursuit of an ancestor's burial place, but this situation would have required a machete which I did not think to bring.  Next time!  You can see the jungle in the photo at the top of this page behind the large tree in the center. There are more graves to the left of that and behind it, so I'm pretty sure there are some inside the overgrown area as well.  There's also a view of the thicket in the picture below.

     One of the stones I most wanted to see was that of John McGarr, the brother of my third-great-grandfather Daniel McGarr.  Daniel never left Ireland, but John came to Auburn in the late 1830's where he opened a grocery and saloon.  In New York State's 1855 census, John stated he'd been in Auburn for seventeen years.  That would make his arrival year 1838, and though I've found those dates as given by the immigrants are often off by a few years, John married Mary Kelly at Holy Family Catholic Church in Auburn on 21 September of 1840, so an immigration date of 1838 is probably pretty close.  Luckily, we did locate Uncle John though his stone was in sorry shape like many of the other markers there.

The flag is for John's son Daniel, who died in the Civil War and is buried here

     We also found a few O'Hora stones, but most were so broken and eroded they were all but illegible.  Exploring the other side of the cemetery we noticed a path of sorts leading into a wooded area on its border.  No more than a few yards in we began seeing remnants of gravestones, some nearly intact.  Clearly the graveyard had extended into that area.  This was the point where I began feeling like I was in one of the You Tube videos, especially when that snake slithered under a fallen stone in front of me.  Unfortunately, none of the tombstones in that area could be read, but finding Uncle John made the trip a great success in my eyes.

     I snapped the photo below as we were leaving, while reflecting on the lives of the people who were laid to rest all about me.  They were driven from their country, endured a long, horrendous voyage across the North Atlantic by sail, and then battled prejudice and poverty to build a new life on these shores.  Only to end up here, in a slowly crumbling cemetery so far from home.  After all they'd been through, it seemed to me the least they deserved was to be remembered, if not a well-tended grave.

Networking; In Which Is Found Aussie Relatives, A Cranky Cousin, And A Castle

     

     It's so annoying, you find a promising lead, you write an email, and you wait.  And you wait and wait.  But occasionally, you get lucky.  Most of our ancestors were not only children, they had siblings who married and had children of their own.  Every so often you find a descendant of one of those siblings, your cousins; and sometimes, if you're even luckier, those cousins have amazing stories to share.

      In my case, one such cousin lived in Australia!  I had no idea I had a cousin down under.  But when I found a DNA match whose tree contained the surname O'Dwyer and wrote to her, this is what I received in response--

"Hi Ellie, I live in Brisbane.  My great-grandmother Alice O'Dwyer arrived here in about 1876.  She was born in Tipperary about 1855.  Her father was Andrew O'Dwyer."  

     That was incredible!  I'm sure she meant to add another great to that description, but this is my family.  My third great-grandmother, also named Alice O'Dwyer, was the paternal aunt of this Alice.  Comparing notes with my DNA match was immensely helpful to my research.  Using Irish civil registrations, I was able to locate the younger Alice's family living in Churchfield, County Tipperary, the very same townland my grandma Alice lived in.

     Two incredible bits of luck came from the McGarr side of my family, one was an old letter shared with me by a cousin living in Florida.  Written by a relative who had known them, it contained a firsthand account of the children of John and Mary Kelly McGarr.  John was one of the earliest McGarrs in Auburn, New York arriving from Ireland in about 1840, well before the famine and was, I believe, the brother of my third-great-grandfather Daniel McGarr who remained in County Kildare.  This wonderful letter confirmed many facts I'd found through my research, while giving some insight into how family members regarded one another.  For instance, the author showed jealousy towards several of John's children who were financially successful, calling one, "the real snooty one", remarking that another married, "a fancy detective", and "the least I can say about Kate is she lost a child while in the south. She had plenty of money".  I wonder, what was the most she could have imparted about the unfortunate Kate, who actually lost three children in the south in quick succession from scarlet fever?  

     The other was a McGarr DNA match who sent me copies of family letters from her great-great-aunt, a native of Baltinglass, County Kildare along with a photo of her great-grandfather standing  in front of the shoe store he purchased in Rochester, New York after immigrating.  I live in a suburb of Rochester, enabling a visit with my new cousin, always a bonus. 

John Quigley left in front of his store

      My latest genealogical blessing came from another DNA match, this time on the Travers side who hailed from the Castledermot area of County Kildare.  Early Catholic records survive there, but many of them are so faded that page after page are completely illegible.  After introducing ourselves at Ancestry my cousin and I exchanged email addresses since Ancestry doesn't allow for sending images.  I sent her death certificates I had, and she sent me typed pages of family reminiscences and interviews along with a copy of the will her third-great-grandmother Catherine Bede, (wife of John Travers), made at Ballyvass; John being the brother of my third great-grandmother Mary Travers O'Hora.

      I'd found the civil registration of Catherine's 1887 death from accidental burns but always wondered about the circumstances.  Those family notes held the answer, Catherine was blind in her old age and her shawl had caught fire while at the hearth or possibly from a lit pipe.  The unfortunate lady died shortly after in the local infirmary whose employee reported her death.  I was never positive I had the right Catherine since no townland was given on the death certificate, just the infirmary's address, but with details from the notes, I now believe it's definitely her.

     There were other personal mentions in the Travers notes, like a reference to a family expression, "the Travis eye".  The author maintained this was a compliment akin to having a twinkle in one's eye.  Interestingly, Travis was the name used.  Another line caught my attention, the quote of an unnamed family member, "I can still look up the hill and see the castle".  There is something wistful, almost melancholic, about this line that captures my romantic imagination.  It was obviously a reference to Kilkea Castle that sits between Kilkea, where my third-great-grandmother Mary Travers was born, and Catherine's Ballyvass.

Kilkea Castle

     

     One could spend a lifetime researching and still not find details like the ones contained in a family's personal memories and letters.  My great good fortune to have connected with such generous researchers, happy to share what they have, more than makes up for all the queries that went unanswered. It also inspires me to keep writing those emails.   

     

The Man Who Vanished

     

Phantom--Something apparently seen, heard or sensed, but having no physical reality.  That definition accurately describes James M. Garner.  Since my visit last week to the first known home of my Garner family, Martha's Vineyard, I've been reviewing the sources of information I've acquired over the years while studying them.  

     Among the most informative is the 72-page War of 1812 Pension Application file for Thomas Garner Jr. that can be viewed free at Fold3.  That is where I found his place of birth and his age, along with verifying information about his daughters Clarissa (Lamphere) and Lucy (Robison), both of whom submitted depositions for the application and who settled in Summerhill, Cayuga, New York along with Thomas and his first wife Prudence Lamphere, who was their mother.  

     Contained in the file is a request dated June 1856 by Thomas asking for a replacement pension certificate, his having been destroyed by fire.  Three witnesses signed the request, his second wife Lany, a neighbor named Aaron Murphy, and James M. Garner.  I'd read those papers many times before, but it was only today I noticed James M. Garner's signature off to the side of the other two.

Signature of James M. Garner; three lines up from bottom on the left

     I immediately set about attempting to identify James M. Garner, but with no success, the man simply didn't exist.  I checked census records and found a James Gardner born between 1811 and 1820 living in Sempronius in 1840, about eight miles from Summerhill, that seemed promising, but he had disappeared from that place by 1850.  The census that year did show a James Gardiner born 1817 living in Niles, seventeen miles from Summerhill, but his birthplace was New York.  Thomas was in Vermont in 1817 where he married Prudence and his other three children were born.  None of the entries I found ticked all the boxes for age, residence and birthplace, ditto the 1855 New York census and the 1860, 1865, 1870, 1875, and 1880 censuses.

     I next checked the public family trees at Ancestry, then tried a search of the entire site--zilch.  Same result at Family Search, Google Books, and a broad Google search.  My favorite newspaper sites turned up nothing either.  This made no sense at all, we weren't talking ancient history here, James was alive in the 19th century.

     I'm at a loss as to where to look next.  I know James M. Garner existed, though it seems just long enough to witness Thomas Garner's signature before evaporating into thin air.  This has happened before; I once found a notice in an 1818 newspaper informing Erastus Galloway that he had an unclaimed letter waiting in the town I knew my Galloway family had recently moved to.  After years of searching, I've still never discovered a single thing about him.  Erastus was a family name, two members in that line named a child Erastus in later years and I'm sure there's a connection, but who the man with the letter was remains as elusive as James M.  But I'll be looking...

A Genealogy Vacation or, Nothing Compares To Being There

     I've just returned home from Martha's Vineyard; beaches, sunsets, and best of all, (other than family time), genealogy.  Does it get much better than that?  No. Unless of course one travels to Ireland.

     Ever since I learned that my 4th great-grandfather, Thomas Garner Jr., was born at Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard in 1773, to Thomas Sr. and his wife Ann Williams, I've been curious about how the family arrived on the island and just as importantly, why?  Martha's Vineyard, and the views it offers, are absolutely gorgeous; but why would a person choose to live in such an exposed and sometimes dangerous spot, (particularly during the Revolutionary War), surrounded on all sides by the North Atlantic?  I doubted it was the scenery that drew them.  Not being a native, I was at a loss as to how to  answer these questions but after much online research I had a good idea where to begin looking... the Martha's Vineyard Museum.

     After trudging through town in 80-degree temps the museum, at the top of a large hill, loomed before me.  There is a bus system, but it's still a hike from the stop to the museum.  Once inside though I easily found the research library presided over by a librarian with the delightful name of Bow Van Ripper.  After some discussion and my mention of another Garner close in age to Thomas Sr. who had married Timothy Coffin on Martha's Vineyard, Bow offered an intriguing insight, maybe Thomas was from Nantucket?  He informed me the surnames Garner, Coffin and Williams were old, well known names on that neighboring island.

     This would actually make sense.  Volume three of The History of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, written by Charles E. Banks and available at Family Search, contains a paragraph about Thomas "Gardner" and his wife Ann Williams.  The author notes they resided on Mill Road in Tisbury but were both strangers to the island with Ann being among the first Williams found in Vineyard records, on the occasion of her marriage to Thomas in 1768.  Looking through the records I could see there weren't many Williams in that place, with none born there until the mid1840's, and those three births were all to the same couple, John and Roxena Williams. 

     The surname Garner has several variations, the most common being Gardner though I also saw it spelled Garnder in Nantucket vital records where there were numerous Gardner's. Those last two spellings were the ones I found in Nantucket records, but from other online sources I could see there were indeed people spelling it "Garner", living on Nantucket in the 18th century; I can only assume they were recorded in vital records under one of the name variants.  Vital records from Martha's Vineyard show the surname was much less common there, there were only two Gardner births, those of Thomas and Elizabeth Gardner, (with Garner in parenthesis), the children of my Thomas and Ann born1773 and1776 respectively.

     One of the online sources that showed Garners on Nantucket is a site picturing the newly restored home Richard Garner Jr., who settled in Salem, built on Nantucket for his son Richard Gardner, a whaling captain who was lost at sea.  A current site including both spellings of the surname! It's conceivable my Thomas Garner was a grandson of the drowned captain or of John Gardner who was a brother of Richard Jr. who also came to Nantucket.

 Built 1722-1724 on Nantucket by Richard Garner, Jr. for his son Richard Gardner 3rd

     Other vital and military records contained many instances where the two names seemed to be used almost interchangeably.  But of course, there were also individuals whose surname actually was Gardner, people not related to me; untangling them would be difficult if not impossible.

     I had hoped to stroll down Mill Road but for several reasons that was not to be.  Firstly, in the year 1892 the town of Tisbury was divided into Tisbury and West Tisbury.  That meant in Thomas' day Tisbury was much larger than now.  There was a Mill Road in West Tisbury, also the area of oldest English settlement, so assuming the road's name hadn't changed in the intervening years, today's West Tisbury is where Thomas actually lived.  The other problem was West Tisbury is largely residential, I didn't spot any tourist buses heading there and it was too far to walk, especially since I wasn't convinced today's Mill Road was the same as Thomas and Ann's Mill Road.  My family had already humored me with a trip to the research library so I contented myself with a glimpse of the West Tisbury area from the ferry.

     Though I didn't learn many new, definite facts about Thomas Garner Sr., I did get to see his island, and the Tisbury librarian telling me my family names were common on Nantucket was major! Who knows how long it would have taken me to figure that out on my own?  Too, I had never considered my family may have included whalers.  Seeing Martha's Vineyard and its sandy soil in person vividly illustrated how difficult farming would have been there and brought home why residents turned to whaling.  By the 1730's however, the whale population around the two islands had been seriously depleted, forcing whalers to search further afield for their prey.  Now voyages could last for years, which might explain the small size of Thomas Jr.'s family.

     Another discovery was the Quaker connection.  One of the reasons the elder Richard Garner left Salem was the persecution of Quakers in that place. Many of his coreligionists did the same, indeed, the birth records of the Garner children were found in Quaker records.  All this gives me several new avenues for research, not to mention a reason to visit Nantucket next year.

     

     

            

     

     

Sometimes The Internet Makes Me Smile; In Which I Avoid A Trip To The County Offices, A Canal Moves, And News Arrives From Ireland

      For some time now, I've been seeking the naturalization petition of my second great-grandfather Philip Power, from the tiny townland of Cullencastle, (sometimes Cullen Castle), in County Waterford, Ireland.  It seemed the likeliest place to find this record was Wayne County in upstate New York, but while those documents have been placed in large bound books in the County Clerk's office in that place, those books don't contain an index.  Adding to the task, Lyons, the city where the office is located, is a bit of a hike for me and the civil servants there are less than helpful.  I'll leave it at that.

     On a whim, not really expecting much, I pulled up Google and typed in, "Wayne County New York Naturalizations".  To my utter surprise there were hits, like this one--   https://www.ongenealogy.com/listings/wayne-county-ny-genealogy-records-online-at-familysearch/

     The green links took me to Family Search whose genealogy devotees HAD indexed the images!  When will I learn to pay closer attention to their online catalogue?  I clicked on the first link with a  beginning date of 1855 which was Declarations of Intent, where I struck out.  However, right on that page was a link to Naturalizations, the same one labeled Naturalization of Aliens, 1855-1905, above.  And there I found him, Phillip Powers.  For some reason in the US they always tack an S on the end of his name-- 

     Which reminds me of the excellent news from Ireland.  I have corresponded with the site irishgenealogy.ie, the one that hosts the Civil Registrations, and word has it the remaining early death records are being worked on and will hopefully be posted by year's end.  There is a good chance those records hold the death date of Edmond Power, father of the above Philip Power.  Now wouldn't that be grand?  It would feel like I'd finally tied up my Power family loose ends.  For five minutes anyway, until I thought of something else I needed to know about them.  But back to the naturalization petitions...

     Feeling like a kid in a candy shop I began a search for another second great-grandfather of mine, James White from Rathdowney in County Laois.  I had his declaration, but I had never located his naturalization...until now that is--

    

     There was no doubt this was my grandfather, one sponsor was Darby Hogan who I'd found associated with James in other records; the other was William Ryan with whom James can be seen living in the 1855 census of Palmyra, New York, the same year this record was filed.  Then there is the distinctive way James formed the letter J in his signature at the bottom of the document, it was identical to the signature on his declaration.

     I spent another hour looking through the naturalizations, then before signing off I switched to another family line, this one on my mother's side.  I'd had such good luck with the internet I decided to do a check on Phebe Galloway, who like her husband Daniel Gray seemed to have passed away before 1860, leaving three young children.  I've always been curious about what happened to Phebe and Daniel and I run searches on them every so often.  Two of their children did well, but the middle child, George Edward, led a very troubled life that would end in his suicide in 1897 at age forty-three.  He married and was the father of two sons, neither of whom reached adulthood. The first passed at age eight in 1883; the second in 1896 at age sixteen in a drowning accident while swimming in the canal near their home in Port Byron.

     I was a little confused by news articles maintaining the drowning occurred close to the Gray home.  The Erie Canal is quite a bit north of their former home, not what I would call nearby.  The articles mentioned a bridge in the neighborhood so I ran an image search to see what turned up.  I did find a bridge in Port Byron, the wrong one as it turns out, but the accompanying article did explain the canal location given by the newspapers.  Unlike today, at the time of the accident in 1896 the Erie Canal ran smack through Port Byron!  In the early 1900's New York moved the canal to follow the Seneca River, north of town.  Who knew? 

     I will never cease to be amazed by the incredible internet that makes information so readily available to those in search of their ancestor's stories, and nit pickers like me who need to be able to picture exactly what occurred and where.  

  

   

     

The Demise of Big Ed McCabe

     

     The year was 1914. While the pretty lakeside village of Canandaigua in upstate New York was strung with garlands and lights twinkled in shop windows enticing Christmas shoppers, Edward McCabe and his roommate Thomas Burns were busily downing drinks in a village saloon. Later the two men caught a train to Holcomb, the small hamlet where they resided. Edward, the son of my second great-grandfather James O’Hora’s sister, was born in Auburn, New York to Irish immigrants Patrick and Mary O’Hora McCabe. Now at age 55, Edward was a large man, over 200 pounds, and in top shape from the physical labor he performed on area farms. A news article described his physique as magnificent, using his nickname, "Big Ed". Edward possessed a long arrest record, begun in his teenage years for petty robberies and assaults. His friend Thomas Burns was an Irish immigrant and at age 33, a younger and much smaller man than Edward. Both were farm laborers and bachelors who enjoyed their liquor, and they brought with them on the train that day a jug of whiskey.

     Witnesses would later testify that after disembarking at the station in Holcomb, the men were overheard arguing loudly over who contributed more to their living expenses. The two eventually returned to their shanty a short distance away where they resumed drinking. The argument continued off and on throughout the evening as the liquor flowed. No doubt weary after the day’s exertions, Edward McCabe stretched out on his bed. Burns, still angry, took that opportunity to attack, unexpectedly striking Edward with a shovel using such force that the blow cut Edward’s nose and lips in two vertically, and left a jagged wound down his forehead. He fell from his bed, or was pulled from it depending on which news account one reads, and lay helpless on the floor as Burns continued his assault, stomping and kicking Edward, breaking his ribs and inflicting internal injuries.

     Early the next morning, December 10th, Edward was found by two hunters, who upon hearing moans emanating from the shanty entered and found his bloodied form still lying on the floor next to the shovel. He was rushed to Memorial Hospital in Canandaigua  where he gave a deathbed statement detailing the attack and naming Thomas Burns as his assailant. Edward died of his injuries in the early morning hours of December 11th. His death certificate gave his cause of death as, "Hemorrhage and shock due to lacerations of head, fracture of ribs and other injuries, probably homicidal”...

     I wrote the above in 2013 and that was where the story ended for many years. Edward's family buried him in Auburn and Burns disappeared into the New York correctional system.  I tried to find what had become of Thomas Burns but had no success. Until that is, Ancestry added prison records to their collection. I knew Burns had been allowed to plead guilty to first degree manslaughter and had been sentenced to 6 to 19 years at hard labor in Auburn Prison, coincidentally in Edward's hometown, but nothing more. Now, in a database called New York, Auburn Prison Records 1816-1942, I found him being admitted there on March 11, 1915.  In another section, I found his discharge on March 27, 1918.  He only served three years for manslaughter?  That was disturbing.  But after staring at the page for a few moments I noticed something else.  Written in red in the left margin was, "To Gr. Meadows". What was Gr. Meadows?  Green Meadows?  Maybe another prison?  Perhaps he wasn't released after all, just transferred.

     I tried a Google search but nothing of note came up except, there were a few hits for a place called Great Meadow Correctional Facility, maybe that was what Gr. stood for.  Referring back to Ancestry I found a database called Great Meadow Prison Parole Register 1911-1929; and there I discovered Thomas Burn's parole on May 7, 1920. 

      I still don't think five years was enough time for such a vicious attack. I'd love to know what became of Burns after his release and one would think there would be mug shots. Various records and news articles reveal he was born about 1882, served in the British Army, immigrated around 1904 from Ireland, lived in Syracuse for a time after his arrival and seems to have known Edward in Auburn before they lived together in Holcomb. That may not be enough information to follow up on him, but it's worth a try.

Records Across the Sea

    

      Working on my tree today I came across a very useful fact pertaining to my White family from Queens County Ireland, now known as County Laois. My newest find is a small article, just a few lines, noting that James White of Marion, New York was notified of the death of his cousin Judith Flynn Durkin. It doesn't seem to offer much, but oh my goodness, it in fact bears out my theory that the Whites of Palmyra, where my James lived, and the younger group of Whites living in nearby Marion, were related to each other. The White family has been among the most challenging I've traced. The root of the problem lies not only in the destruction of Irish census records, but also the loss of church records in their Parish of Rathdowney, covering exactly the years when famine era immigrants would have been being baptized and their parents married.

     Fortunately, upon arriving in America, the Whites clustered around the town of Palmyra, New York. The records they created at St. Anne's Catholic Church in that place survive and are actually more useful than the Irish version would have been. Almost all of them contain parent's names, even the burial records for men and single women. With few exceptions, married women's burial records tended to include their husband's names rather than their father's. Try finding the burial record of a Catholic in Ireland in the mid 1800's.

    One thing I've been interested in, was the relationship between my second-great-grandfather James White and the younger James White who lived in Marion. Both were born in Ireland, but married in Palmyra. James the younger's church marriage record identified his parents as William White and Anastacia Delahunty. My James' parents, (again from marriage records), were James White and Margaret Keyes. As it turned out, James the younger's birth in 1850 came late enough that his baptism was recorded in Rathdowney, it confirmed his parent's names as found in his marriage record.

     I had pieced together a tree for the Irish born Whites, but a good part of it was guesswork. Educated guesses, but with the Irish records gone, there was nothing in black and white connecting them all. Using parent's names found in those Palmyra records, that I had spent hours in the church office copying, I was able to identify several groups of Whites in the parish. I searched for those families in Rathdowney records with minimal success, only a few later born siblings turned up, but it was progress.

 

In St. Anne's Cemetery, Palmyra, New York

     The article reporting the death of Palmyra born Judith Durkin tied her and young James White of Marion together in a very real way.  Why does that matter?  Because Judith was the child of Michael Flynn and Mary Fitzpatrick, whose mother was Julia White and her father Andrew Fitzpatrick, as seen in Mary's marriage record.  I was 99 percent sure Mary Fitzpatrick was a close relative of  my James White, as upon her arrival from Ireland she resided in Palmyra with Catherine White Ryan, my James' sister.  She also acted as sponsor to one of Catherine's children, with Catherine returning the favor after Mary's first child was born.  Mary's husband Michael Flynn was born in County Leitrim, well over one hundred miles from Rathdowney, it seemed doubtful they knew each other in Ireland.  That meant the only way the deceased Judith Durkin could be a cousin of James the younger, was through her grandmother Julia White and his father William White.  

     Church and census records in Palmyra and naming patterns suggest Mary Fitzpatrick's mother Julia White along with William White, Catherine White, and my James White were all siblings, children of James and Margaret Keyes White.  William who remained in Ireland named his first son and second daughter James and Margaret, as did my James in America; he also named his fourth daughter Julia and fifth son William, while Catherine named her first and only daughter Margaret.  I couldn't find baptisms for the elder Julia's children in Ireland, their names are unknown except for Mary Fitzpatrick, but that one I'm sure of.  In addition to Mary's marriage record, the St. Anne's baptismal register reveals the priest there originally wrote Mary's maiden name as White when recording the baptism of one of her children, later crossing that out and writing Fitzpatrick instead.  It seems in his mind she was closely associated with the Whites.

     While I'd give my eye teeth for those Rathdowney parish records, or even better, the census records, I'm ready to say this whole group were relatives from Rathdowney Parish, and my second-great-grandfather was known to Mary Fitzpatrick and young James in Marion as Uncle Jim.

     

Is It Julia? Or, Label Your Darn Photos

     Last week I wrote about Julia Whalen from New York City who spent part of four summers at the farm of my great-grandmother Ellen O'Hora, under the auspices of the Fresh Air program.  Since writing that blog, I've spent some time building a tree for Julia in the hope I could definitively say that the person I believe to be her in census records, in fact is.  As I carefully considered all the evidence at hand, two photographs from among the collection I inherited from my great-aunt suddenly came to mind.  I was able to identify a married couple featured in one of those pictures, maybe I could do it again.

     The majority of the photos are not labeled.  I can recognize my great-aunt, grandmother and great-grandmother in many of them and several were identified by other relatives, but I'm left with some that have no identity.  The two that occurred to me as I pondered Julia are among the unlabeled.  One is of a young girl posed with my great-aunt, in the other she is with my grandmother and great-grandmother.  It dawned on me, this girl could conceivably be Julia.

Great-Aunt Alice O'Hora Shannon is on the right

Great-Grandmother is on the left, Grandma on the far right

     I have no doubt it's the same girl in both photographs, the question is, is she Julia?  I know the time period is right and the girl's age appears also to be right.  The photo with Grandma looks like it was taken at an earlier date than the top photo but that gets me no closer to figuring out who she is.  The fact that I don't recognize this young lady does tell me something however.  Most of the people in my aunt's photos look familiar.  There are three or four I've no idea who they are, but for the most part I know them.  This girl appears only in these two photographs.

     I'd love to know if it really is Julia Whalen. I've written to the owners of two family trees on Ancestry in which Julia appears, but I've had no response.  One tree had a picture of Catherine Whalen, a sister of the Julia Whalen who I suppose from my research to be the correct Julia.  It could be nothing more than wishful thinking on my part, but do you see a resemblance?

Catherine Whalen

    In the end I cannot say the two top photos are of Julia.  They well may be, but I can't prove it.  I'm still hopeful I'll hear from one of the tree owners, or perhaps  someday a picture of Julia will appear on Ancestry.  How cool would that be?

 

Like a Breath of Fresh Air

 

Shortsville Train Station 1920's

     

     One summer afternoon in 1926, readers of The Shortsville Enterprise picked up their newspaper and saw this on the front page-- "Shortsville and Manchester have completely surrendered to the Fresh Air children from New York City, sent out through the New York Tribune's Fresh Air Fund".  The article's early date surprised me, I had believed the Fresh Air program to be a more recent invention but after some online reading, I found it actually began in 1877.  That year the Rev. Willard Parson, a former resident of New York City himself, asked members of his small congregation in Sherman, Pennsylvania to provide a country vacation for some of New York City's neediest children.  As a former New Yorker, Rev. Parsons personally knew social workers and missionaries in the city who could help him in selecting the children.  His efforts were so successful, the New York Tribune offered their support as sponsors and would go on to underwrite the construction of summer camps.  By the year 1895, over 100,000 of these disadvantaged children had visited, "Friendly Towns".

Ellen O'Hora

     Another surprise, was to read that among the crowd waiting for a child at the train station that July day, was my great-grandmother Ellen O'Hora.  Ellen, a widow by that time, lived on the family farm with her three children and her brother-in-law Michael O'Hora.  Her daughter Mary, my grandmother, would have been thirteen years old that summer, her older daughter Alice fifteen and her son Edward ten.  Their guest was Julia Whalen who would spend two weeks in her new environment, surrounded by trees, chickens, horses and pigs.

     An unnamed host offered his opinion regarding the visitors, "The farm is a happier place because of them and it does us old folks as much good as it does the children to have them here".  Julia must have agreed with that sentiment because the following July she was once again sojourning at the O'Hora farm as she would in 1928 and 1929.  Every July the Enterprise published a list of local families hosting children, so after finding Great-Grandmother's name missing in 1930, I wondered why Julia had not returned?  The Great Depression had begun when the stock market crashed in the fall of 1929, but the Fresh Air program was still up and running; other local families were hosting children in 1930.  It's a little known fact that the stock market rallied in early 1930 only to crash again in April beginning a decline that would drag on for years, but the worst was still ahead in 1930.  Unless Julia had found a job in New York, I doubted the economy had ended her visits.

     Perhaps the reason Julia did not return after 1929 was that she had simply grown out of the program. There were age limits, but unfortunately none of the newspaper articles I found mentioned Julia's age.  If that was the case, it must have been a sad parting in 1929.  I would love to know if Julia and Great-Grandmother or any of the O'Hora children kept in touch, which gave me the bright idea to see if I could trace her. I wasn't overly optimistic I would find Julia in teeming New York City, there were well over five million people residing there in 1920, but I decided to give it a go.

   I started at Ancestry with a search of the 1920 census using the birth year 1914 plus or minus five years, figuring it was likely Great-Grandmother would have requested a child around the same age as her own children.  Surprisingly, only three possibilities came up, even when I increased the age range to ten years.  One little girl caught my eye right away, Julia Whalen born in New York on 7 July 1911; that put her right in between my grandmother born in 1912 and her sister Alice born in 1910.  

     In 1920 Julia was living in Brooklyn with her mother and stepfather, Annie and Bernard Laughlin, both of whom were natives of Ireland.  Julia's two sisters, Nora and Catherine, were also part of the household.  In 1925 I couldn't locate Bernard or Annie, but Nora and Catherine resided with their older sister Mary and Mary's husband John Reilly; fourteen year old Julia was not with them.  I found her living with David Douglas and his wife Kate in the Bronx.  Kate Douglas, fifty-six, was from Ireland, perhaps she was a relative?  Indeed, after consulting NYC marriage records, I later found she was the sister of Julia's father.  By 1930, eighteen-year-old Julia had been reunited with her sisters in the Reilly household.  At that age Julia would definitely have been ineligible to participate in the Fresh Air program any longer.

      In an attempt to find Julia's father, I checked Family Search which has a database of births in New York City for the years1846-1909, Julia wouldn't be included, but her older sister Nora Whalen should be.  After a search for Nora, daughter of Annie, there she was-- born 19 October 1907, which fit nicely with her birth date in census records.  The parents were Patrick Whalen and Annie Molloy.   Having Patrick's name, I could more easily go back further in census records.  In New York's 1915 census, Annie was already a widow with five children, including Julia.  Going back to 1910 I saw Patrick (gardener) and Annie living in Brooklyn with their children.  Earlier still, the 1900 census listed Patrick (day laborer) and Annie still in Brooklyn with their first child Mary, the one who later gave her younger sisters a home. The NYC death index at the Italian Genealogical Group site shows two Patrick Whalen's died in Brooklyn between 1910 and 1915, one in 1912 and one in early 1915. The Patrick who passed away in 1915 must be my man, the youngest child in this family, Catherine Whalen, was born in 1915. Poor Annie was pregnant when she lost her husband!

     There were of course two other possibilities for the Fresh Air child; Julia Whalen born in 1919 and another one born in 1916.  Both of these girls however, were living in families with two parents present and their fathers were working steady jobs, making the first Julia seem the neediest of the three by far.  I lost track of Julia after 1930.  New York didn't take a census in 1935 and by 1940 she was probably married.  Perhaps someday I'll learn the rest of her story...