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| Aftermath of the fire that destroyed the 1890 census |
Irish immigrants Margaret Welch and Michael O'Hora, (the brother of my great-great-grandfather James O'Hora), were a prolific couple. They produced twelve children between 1855 and 1877 in Cayuga County, New York, and even more amazingly for the mid-19th century, they kept every one of them alive to adulthood. I had accounted for all twelve children with the exception of one, Mary Ann, born in about 1863. I knew from several of her brother's obituaries that Mary had at times lived in New York City and Jersey City, along with her sister Margaret O'Hora Murphy, and had picked up a husband with the surname Seeley at some point. That was all I had.
I began with the New York State Marriage Index, brought to us through the perseverance of the good folks at Reclaim the Records who sued for their release. Nothing turned up there, so I next searched New York City marriages, nothing there either, or in the New Jersey index. That was odd. Next, I checked census records, the closest I came was a Mary and Charles Seeley that could have been the right couple, but that really didn't pan out. Then in the 1910 census I found a Mary A. Seeley, wife of Frederick W. Seeley. Now that looked promising, this Mary was born in New York, both of her parents were from Ireland, and she was of the right age, but there were two young men listed as stepsons to Frederick in the household, Alexander and Joseph Farquhar. That couldn't be right, I'd never heard that name before, and none of the obituaries I'd read had ever mentioned another husband for Mary. Still, the youngest son, Joseph, wasn't born until 1888 and none of those obituaries were that early, so it was a possibility, however unlikely it seemed.
Rechecking the obituaries, I saw that any reference to Mary Seeley had stopped by 1921, she wasn't included in her brother Michael's obituary that year, nor her brother John's in 1922, though all the other living siblings were listed in both. The 1909 obituary of Henry O'Hora, "Mrs. Mary Seeley, of Jersey City NJ", and the 1910 obituaries of James and Thomas O'Hora, "Mrs. Seeley of NYC", were the last mentions of Mary Ann. She must have passed away between 1910 and 1921. A search of Find A Grave turned up a burial for a Mary Seeley who died in 1917 and was interred in Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City. I visited the cemetery's website and did a search for Mary Seeley; when the result page came up, there was a wee button titled, "Additional Deceased in Plot (1)". Clicking the button I found, Frederick W.! That 1910 census was looking better by the minute. The death date of Mary Seeley in Holy Name fit my timeline nicely, in addition to her age, current residence, birthplace and parent's birthplace. But who were those Farquhar's?
New York City vital records aren't included in the New York State indexes, so I did a separate search in the NYC vital records database. This is what came up--
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| O'Hara! That is awfully close to O'Hora. |
The Old Fulton newspaper website was my next stop; if only I could find something that definitively tied the Farquhar's to the O'Hora's I could be certain Mary Farquhar was my girl. And after several tries, I did find it, in an estate settlement in 1923--
To Jennie O'Hora, Margaret Murphy, Frank O'Hora, Patrick O'Hora, Anna O'Hora, Alice O'Hora, ... numerous other O'Hora's... (but no Mary Seeley) ... and finally, the very last names, Alexander, and Joseph Farquhar. They were all requested to appear in court in Auburn if they wished to contest probate of the will of Mary's brother John O'Hora. I recognized all these names as children and grandchildren of Michael and Margaret O'Hora, Mary's parents.Now I was convinced this was my Mary Ann, but I wanted more, I wanted that O'Hora/Farquhar marriage record. Just to see what happened, I added the two boys to Mary's tree on Ancestry. Alexander's WWII draft card came up, his birthplace-- Rochester, New York. Rochester! That changed everything. I know Rochester genealogy, I live in the neighborhood, I know where to look and what's available. First I checked the city's, "Rochester Historic Marriage Records", database, figuring Mary Ann may have tied the knot in Rochester since her first child was born there. Nothing came up. But I wasn't done, next I searched the, "Rochester Churches Indexing Project", and found this--
There it is, Mary's first husband was Joseph Farquhar just like on her son's birth certificate. Look at the bride's parents' names, perfect. Everything had conspired against me finding this marriage, starting with no available census in 1890 to find the couple in. They should have been in the Rochester marriage database but weren't, and they weren't in the New York State Marriage Index either. I checked that index manually since I now had a year, and pages 361 to 421 were missing. Right where Mary O'Hora would have been. I can't explain why Joseph Farquhar wasn't listed other than it had only been a few years since New York State began requiring that marriages be reported, and compliance wasn't quite up to snuff yet.
That left but two loose ends, what became of Joseph Farkuhar, and when and where did Mary Ann wed Mr. Seeley? Back to the New York City Vital Records site where I struck out. However, Ancestry has a death index for NYC, there I located Joseph's death and the number of the death certificate. Using that number I found the actual certificate on the NYC site--
