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.

Nuns in the Family; How To Find Them

     Tracking down the nuns who grace the branches of my family tree has been a challenge, but a good learning experience. Unlike priests who kept their birth names upon ordination, nuns took a different name when they entered religious life.  With a little determination finding their new name is not terribly difficult, obituaries of parents and siblings are great for that.  Then the fun really begins.

     I've had a fair amount of luck finding photos of my Sisters.  If you can determine the order they belonged to, many of these keep archives dating back to the nineteenth century, some even earlier.  The Sisters of Saint Joseph in Rochester, New York, a teaching order, sent me a trove of information on my cousin Mary Esther Gunn.  Everything from a photo, baptism and confirmation records, next of kin information, and her obituary.  

   Another potential stumbling block, one never knows how a census enumerator may have decided to list your religious ladies.  I've found them under their names in religion, their birth names, and sometimes a combination of the two. Sister Cecilia was enumerated as Cecilia Vincent Gunn in the 1930 census.  In 1940 she was simply Sister Cecilia Vincent; she passed eight years later.  

     Yet another thing about nuns, they traveled around a good deal, you never know where they'll turn up.  One of mine from Owasco, New York, Sister Mary Camillus, surfaced as a Mother Superior in sunny Rio Vista, California.  In 1900 she was enumerated as "McGarr Sister M. Comillus", in 1910 as Mary Camellus.  You have to be persistent and keep an open mind.

Mother Mary Camillus, AKA Elizabeth McGarr

     Mother Stanislaus, born Mary Ann McGarr, was a sibling of Mother Camillus.  The censuses of 1870, 1880, and 1900 all list her as Mary A. McGarr, occupation Sister of Mercy.  She spent her religious career in various spots in northern New York near the Canadian border.  I found her photograph at the site Google Books, in the book titled, The Catholic Church in the United States, Volume II, The Religious Communities of Women, published in 1913.  There are many pictures in this book, it's worth checking out if your nuns were active around the turn of the century.

     Bridget McGarr, younger sister of Mother Stanislaus and Mother Camillus took the name Sister Mary Frances, changing it at some point to Sister Francis DeSales.  Later, she too became a mother superior.  She was also an author, writing a sweet little book called May Devotions for Children.  Of course I made it a top priority to obtain a copy.  Like her siblings, she joined the Sisters of Mercy who couldn't locate a photo of Bridget, neither could I, but they sent instead a lovely photo of a chalice given to her by her sister Mother Mary Stanislaus.  

"Given by her sister Mother Stanislaus on her feast day"

     The next generation seemed easier to trace.  Probably because they weren't being sent to the wilds of northern New York or the far west.  The Quigley sisters, cousins of mine and whose grandmother was a McGarr, are one example.  There were three of them who, like Mary Esther Gunn joined the Sisters of Saint Joseph.  All three of them remained in the area of their birth.  Naturally I wanted pictures of them and I found two out of three, not bad.  The oldest was Catherine Quigley aka Sister John Joseph, born in 1912.  She is the one I couldn't find much about other than she was teaching at St. Mary's in Canandaigua and living at their convent in 1940.  She is "Quigley Catherine Sr. John Joseph" in that census.  And if you don't think the indexers at Ancestry didn't totally mess that one up...

     Next born was Margaret Quigley in 1916.  I got lucky with Margaret; she attended Nazareth Academy in Rochester whose yearbook is online.  I found her graduation photo, but what I really wanted one of her in her nun gear.  I remembered her obituary mentioned one of the schools she had taught at was DeSales in Geneva, New York so I checked Ancestry to see if they had yearbooks for that school.  Indeed, they did.  Although Margaret, (Sister Delphine in religion), wasn't a student there, yearbooks also contain photos of school staff.  I wasn't sure which years she might have been there so taking her age into account I estimated.  The yearbook from 1968 had a lovely photo of her in front of her English class that looked a good deal like her graduation picture. 

Sister Delphine

     The youngest Quigley daughter, Rita, was born in 1918.  Rita too attended Nazareth, their yearbook is where I found her picture.  The 1950 census listed her under her birth name, Rita Quigley; occupation grade school teacher.  I'm still seeking a picture of Sister Rita in her nun's regalia, she lived until 2001 so I have high hopes although by then the habit had been discarded in favor of civilian clothing.

Rita Quigley AKA Sister Anne Paula 

     You might be wondering if it's worth the effort to trace an individual who never married or had children.  I say it is.  For one thing it satisfies my curiosity about them, for another it sheds light on the family life of my ancestors.  Also, their relatives are my relatives and one can never predict what may wind up in print about those family members in relation to the sisters.  For instance, the list of Mary Esther Gunn's next of kin supplied the names of her brothers and where they were living, along with names and addresses of cousins I was previously unaware of.

     I've had my best luck with the aforementioned family obituaries, church histories and news articles online, and the nun's order.  Too, yearbooks are now online at Ancestry.  Census records are helpful, but with so many variables can be very tricky to navigate.  That's where the family obituaries come in handy, they used to give the city of residence for survivors so one had some idea where to start looking.  Good luck!

I Love a Good Scandal; Or, the Strange Tale of Winifred V. Carpenter

     Still working on the unanswered questions in my tree, while waiting for those Irish records. Today, I researched this handsome fellow-

          

     Meet Charles Samuel Price Jr., the son of Charles Sr. and Martha McCallum. Charles Jr. is my second cousin twice removed.  A while ago, I found Charles in the 1930 census living in the village of Shortsville, New York!  That caught my attention as Charles had been born many miles away in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. What was he doing in Shortsville, New York?  Which just happened to be right next to the village of Manchester, where I grew up.  Then I noticed his profession, railroad detective.  That explained a lot.  Further research showed Charles' employer was the Lehigh Valley RR, founded in Pennsylvania.  At that time, and for many years after, it was the largest employer in the town of Manchester of which the villages of Manchester and Shortsville are a part.  My father, grandfather, and many other relatives all worked for the Lehigh.

     Returning to Charles' story today, I found his marriage in 1915 to Winifred V. Carpenter, the twenty-year -old daughter of Sanford L. Carpenter and Mary Slaght.  Charles was living in Rochester, New York then, working for Kodak.  He registered for the draft in 1917, was drafted, then was sent overseas from May of 1918 to April of 1919.  That may have been when his marriage to Winifred began to fail, for fail it did.  They were still together in 1920, but in October of 1922, it appeared Winifred married George O'Brien.

     That wasn't such an uncommon thing, wars and separations change people, they grow apart.  Charles and Winifred were far from the only couple who lost their way that year.  However, things weren't adding up.  Take a look at Winifred and George O'Brien's marriage record below.

     The first thing I noticed was Winifred's declaration that this was her first marriage.  The second was the name of her father, not Sanford Carpenter, but Sanford Joseph Price.  Her mother? Still Mary, but with the maiden name McConnell.  Sounds a bit like McCallum, the maiden name of Charles' mother, don't you think?  Another thing, the marriage was performed by a Catholic priest, Rev. T. Bernard Kelly.  Winifred's first marriage was performed by a Methodist pastor, she wasn't Catholic.  But George O'Brien was, as were his parents.  And had Father Kelly known of her earlier marriage to Charles Price, he would not have been sanctioning this one.  Mixed marriages were one thing, marrying a divorcee was quite another.  I'm sure his parents too would have been less than thrilled.  Did that account for Winifred's fibs about her first marriage and her parent's names; and for the fact their marriage took place forty miles from Rochester in Batavia?  Or could this have been a different Winifred?  

     I tried for a long time to find anyone named Sanford Joseph Price with no luck.  None of the few I did find were the right age or in the right place.  I also searched for another Winifred but no luck there either.  Then  I came across an obituary for Winifred's mother which settled the question- 

     It was the ex-wife of Charles Price who married George O'Brien alright.

     About ready to call it quits with Winifred, who after all wasn't even related to me, I came across this gem in the Elmira Star-Gazette dated March 16, 1927- "In Court chambers Monday a decree of divorce was granted in the following case: Charles S. Price of Wellsboro against Winifred V. Price".  What the what?  Charles divorced Winifred in 1927?  But she married George in 1922!  Was this part of the reason for the subterfuge in their marriage record?  The divorcee wasn't even divorced?  I suppose Winifred could have divorced Charles in Rochester without his being aware, but it seems like a stretch.

     Winifred was still in Rochester with George O'Brien in 1930, but I had trouble locating her in the 1940 census.  I was beginning to think I should be looking for a divorce, believing George had finally discovered her deceptions and left.  Then I found George, and there was Winifred, both of them living with their employer, J. L. Rosenthal, a Russian immigrant real estate agent, in the Rochester suburb of Brighton, as his housekeeper and butler!  According to that census, the couple were residents of Miami, Florida in 1935.  

     George passed away in 1947 and Winifred in 1974.  Both are buried in Holy Sepulchre in the city though not together.  George is in his family's plot with five others, perhaps they only owned the six graves?  But what an incredible story.  I wondered, did she fool George all those years, or was he in on it?  I'd love to know.

 

     

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It Was Meant To Be; Or How Rockwell and Matilda Found Their Groove

 

     Another year has gone, and I can't say I'm going to miss it.  Between numerous cases of Covid in my family, which I somehow managed to avoid, and my emergency surgery for a strangulated hernia last month, I'm not sorry to bid adieu to 2023.  It was also a disappointing year for genealogy with few new Irish databases appearing online.  The much-promised final group of early Irish death certificates never materialized, and I've all but given up on the Valuation Office posting their digitized records.  Since I'm spending a good deal of time resting while I recover, it seemed like a good time to look into some genealogical mysteries on the non-Irish side of my tree.

     One result was my last blog about what was said to be a  photo of Jeremiah Garner.  Another mystery was the marriage between my 3rd great-grandmother Matilda Taylor and Rockwell Rood.  My line descends from Matilda and her first husband Thomas Vincent.  Thomas and Matilda married in Saratoga County, New York around 1822 and made their home in Halfmoon.  They eventually migrated westward, first to Richmond in Ontario County, NY, then to Victory in Cayuga County where they had relatives living.  Thomas died there in 1842 at the age of thirty-nine, leaving Matilda with six children and a mortgage.  What became of her after that was unknown for quite a while.  All I knew was the mortgage fell into arrears and the land was auctioned.

     Complicating matters was a headstone back in Halfmoon bearing the inscription, "Matilda Vincent wife of Thomas", and one next to it inscribed, "Thomas Vincent"; no dates appear on either stone.  Many, including a published genealogy, attributed these graves to the Thomas and Matilda who moved to Victory, but it didn't make much sense that their burials had been almost 200 miles from that place.

     In 2019 I was able to prove Matilda had not been buried in Halfmoon but had remarried after Thomas' untimely death.  He's not there either by the way, Thomas actually rests in French Cemetery in Victory.  Matilda's new husband, Rockwell Rood, was born in Vermont and by 1820 was living in Reading, NY some eighty miles from Victory.  After that he moved on to Dix, about the same distance away.  How on earth did these two meet and conduct a courtship?  I never would have connected Matilda to the far distant Rockwell, but for the 1850 census of Dix enumerating her daughters, Mary, and Amelia Vincent, living in the same household with Matilda and Rockwell Rood and their two young sons.

1850 Census of Dix, NY

     It seemed the best way to answer this question was to dig deeper into Rockwell's family since I'd found no clues while researching him or Matilda.  I found Rockwell had been born in Sandgate, Vermont to Simeon Rood and Darmarius Munger in 1789.  His father Simeon was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, so he left some military records.  One of them was a document indicating Simeon's pension was transferred from Reading to Cato in Cayuga County in 1820, two years before his death.  That was very interesting, Cato is right next to the town of Victory!  However, 1820 was decades before Thomas and Matilda Vincent arrived there and I had found no indication Rockwell was ever a resident of that area.  Then again, perhaps some of Simeon's other children had been?

     I hit paydirt with Rockwell's younger sister Damaris Rood.  Damaris married William Hagar, and their first child, Esther, was born in 1816.  Two New York state censuses, the 1855 and 1875, gave Esther's birthplace as Cayuga County.  The 1820 through 1860 censuses place Damaris Rood Hagar in the town of Victory, meaning she was living there at the very same time as Matilda and Thomas.  It's entirely conceivable Damaris was occasionally visited by her brother Rockwell who was widowed around the same time as Matilda.

     I think my question is now answered, proving once again, it's not a waste of time to research individuals you're not even related to.

     

     

Photograph of Jeremiah Garner. I Think. I'm Pretty Sure.

 

     This photograph, taken in Canada, was posted to Ancestry a few years ago.  It purports to be of Angeline Peck (seated) and three of her sons by John Dent Collins, an Irishman from County Cork.  The females pictured are said to be Angeline's stepdaughters, the children of John's first marriage to Mary Anne Wright.  The girls were born in County Cork, the boys in Canada.  I have serious doubts about the lady in the back row, however.  She seems too long in the tooth to be Angeline's stepdaughter.  I wonder if she might in fact be Angeline's younger sister Eliza Jane who was living with Angeline and John as late as 1865.  Looking through censuses, it seemed to me the small boy must be Herbert Collins who was born in 1867 and passed away in 1871.  In the photo he looks to be three or four so it was probably taken about 1870.

     That brings us to the adult male seated next to Angeline.  John Dent Collins died the same year his son Herbert was born, so it isn't John.  Marriage records show that in 1870, Angeline became the third wife of my great-great-great-grandfather Jeremiah Garner, who apparently had a mid-life crisis, left his wife back in New York, and ran away to become an inn keeper in Canada.  And marry twice more.  And then leave Angeline in Canada to return to New York after his first wife's death, in time to be buried next to her.  Passing strange.

      Assuming I'm right about the young child being Herbert, and this photo being taken in 1870, Jeremiah would have been fifty-four years of age.  The man in the photo could be that age, but when I first viewed the image, I was somewhat skeptical about this being Jeremiah.  Mostly because there was no real proof or provenance, and I'm just a natural born skeptic.  I contacted the individual who originally posted the photo, who conceded she wasn't positive about her identification of Jeremiah, but seemed to believe the lady was indeed Angeline.

     After spending the last few days studying this family, I have to say I'm beginning to come around.  Who else could this man logically have been?  The gardener?  In 1870, photos were still being taken exclusively by professional photographers.  It wasn't until eighteen years later Kodak would introduce the first camera for home use; a box camera that came preloaded with enough film for one hundred photos.  After one had used all the film, the camera, along with $10, was returned to Kodak for the photos to be developed and printed.  The photos and the reloaded camera were then returned to the customer.  But that was in the future, the picture above would no doubt have been taken by a photographer.

     The question remains, is that Grandpa Jeremiah?  Is it?  I wish I could say I was positive it's him... but I'm not.  I really do think it is, it makes sense that it would be.  I know he married Angline in March of 1870, and looking at the leaves on the small tree in the background it's obviously well past March in Canada. I would think if a photographer was hired to come out and snap a family photo Jeremiah would certainly have been in it.  Judging from the background, that may even be his hotel the family is posed in front of.

     

     

     

Derafada You Say?

     While researching, I tend to get bogged down in details.  I'm aware of this, and it does slow me down, but I enjoy it and when I find what I'm seeking it reassures me I'm on the right track.  Today I was looking at Daniel Welch, (or Walsh), who coincidentally married two cousins of mine who don't appear to be related to each other.   Daniel first married my cousin Catherine Lawler, from Rathdowney in Queen's County, around 1846 in Ireland.  About ten years later they and their two young daughters immigrated, settling in Palmyra, New York where Catherine died in August of 1865 at about the age of fifty.    

     Long ago I visited the parish office of Saint Anne's in Palmyra, and copied all the birth, marriage, and death register entries that seemed relevant to my family. It was in those records I had found Daniel married Ellen Hogan, another cousin of mine, in 1866. Like her husband, Ellen was born in Tipperary, to Darby and Dora Hogan.  There is no indication Ellen and Daniel were acquainted in Ireland.  Indeed, it was unlikely, Ellen was twenty-one years younger than Daniel.

     Today I noticed their marriage record contained the names of Daniel's parents, John Walsh and Mary Quinn.  Having those names enabled me to locate Daniel's baptism along with those of four of his siblings, all in the Parish of Moyne and Templetuohy in Tipperary.  The address his parents gave in each case was Derafada.  That's when my penchant for detail and second-guessing myself kicked in, did I have this right?  How did Daniel and Catherine, living in different counties, get together?  I needed to know.

     I ran a search at Google Maps for Derafada with no results.  A general Google search produced nothing with the exception of a few sites containing histories of unrelated families.  After some thought, I tried the site called SWilson which has tons of Irish genealogy info, the Seanruad townland site, now called "The Core", Tithe Applotments, and Griffith's Valuations.  None of them had anything on Derafada. Lists of Tipperary townlands were of no help, nor was Google Books.  Running out of ideas, I was about to give up when I tried an image search.  No Derafada came up, but something almost as good did.

       This is exactly what I was hoping to find, right above the Walsh's parish, Moyne and Templetuohy, was the Lawler's parish of  Rathdowney.  Being familiar with Rathdowney records, I knew there was a huge gap during the decades surrounding the famine.  Fortunately, the Lawler's lived right on the border of Queen's County and Tipperary.  I'd had some luck finding Rathdowney relatives in Templemore records, (just above Moyne and Templetuohy), and I'd be willing to bet the Walsh family in Tipperary lived near the border as well.

     The above map indicates they were practically neighbors so the mystery of how they met was solved.  It also explains why I was unable to find a marriage record for Daniel and Catherine, they were likely married in the bride's home parish, the one with the missing records. I'm now confident in saying I have Daniel's parents and birthplace correct as well as his marriage to Catherine Lawler.

 

      

Of Naming Patterns and Expectations

 

     At various times I've applauded and cursed the Irish Naming Pattern.  A name like John Ryan in Tipperary renders it practically useless if not a hindrance due to the lack of originality in names, while more uncommon given names can make it a gift.  The thing is, there are times when the pattern falters.  A sickly infant not expected to survive may not be given the typical name, one born soon after the loss of a family member may be given the deceased's name out of respect, a child born on the feast day of a locally favored saint might bear that person's name; there are a number of reasons the pattern may not have been followed to the letter, but most often it was.

     For instance, my great-great-grandmother Anna Ryan, born in Goldengarden, Tipperary in 1831, was the daughter of Cornelius Ryan and Alice O'Dwyer.  Anna immigrated to America as a young woman, followed later by her parents.  In New York she married James White, from Queens County, the son of James White and Margaret Keyes.  Their first child, a son, was born a year after their marriage and predictably was named James, after his paternal grandfather.

     Two years later Alice, named for her maternal grandmother arrived, followed by the births of Margaret named for her paternal grandmother, Mary named for her maternal aunt, and Julia named for her paternal aunt.  Then at last another boy was born and finally, Anna's father, now in New York, would get his namesake. Only he didn't.  That child was not christened Cornelius, but Thomas.  What the what?

     Had I somehow missed a child?  Julia was born in November of 1864 and Thomas on the first of December in 1866.  It's possible a child was born in 1865 and didn't live long I suppose.  The New York census of 1865 for Wayne County is not online, nor is the mortality schedule for that year, and the newspapers were silent on the matter. This puzzled me for quite a while.  It wasn't until 1876 that a son to be named Cornelius White entered the world, after the birth of two brothers before him.  He was born when Anna was forty-five years old, and probably thinking her child-bearing days were behind her.  

    A good deal of time was spent looking for any trace of an earlier Cornelius White, there had to have been one, didn't there?  But none was found.  Then I had the opportunity to visit the Family History Library in Rochester and was able to view the registers of Saint Anne's Catholic Church in Palmyra, New York where the family were parishioners.  There among the baptisms was this--

     Please excuse the orange highlighter, I was pretty excited about this find at the time.  The first baptism was for Cornelius White on December 9, 1866, son of Jacobo White and Anna Ryan.  The second was that of his twin brother Thomas.  Thomas' sponsors were Cornelius Ryan Jr., (Anna's brother), and his wife Anna Hennessey.  So, there had been a baby named Cornelius after all, the pattern had not been broken!  In fact, this family was almost a textbook case.  Their only deviation was in not naming their third daughter Anna after her mother, but that wasn't really uncommon.

     Of course, now I wanted to know what had happened to Cornelius so I began collecting clues.  He would have been three in 1870, but only his twin brother Thomas appeared in the census that year.  Ditto the 1875 NY census.  I scoured the 1870 mortality schedule, but he wasn't listed there.  The burial register from Saint Anne's doesn't commence until 1868, but he's not there either.  We know Cornelius was alive to be baptized in early December of 1866, the last mention I've ever found of him.  All of which leads me to believe Cornelius likely passed in 1867.  The causes of death for young children in the 1870 mortality schedule for the family's location were scarlet fever, lung congestion, and diphtheria, in that order.  Of course, I can't say what illnesses might have been circulating in 1867.

     There is very little I can say.  But I have questions. Were you called Connor like the grandfather whose name you bore?  Were you a happy baby, or were you fretful and not thriving?  What caused you to leave so soon?  With no obituary I'll most likely never know what befell wee Cornelius, but at least I know he was here and lived for a short time in an age when it was ridiculously easy for small ones to slip away...

No, Natives Did Not Steal Your Father

 

     This coming June will find me on the Massachusetts Island of Nantucket, which my research on Martha's Vineyard two summers ago indictes may be the place my 5th great-grandfather Thomas Garner was born.  I'd love to confirm that hypothosis, so I have the entire winter to pore over my Garner notes and make a research plan for the Nantucket library.  I want it ready to go since my library time will be limited, (there is a beach after all).  I've already started digging in by constructing a timeline.  

     Thomas' son, Thomas Jr., my 4th g.g., was born at Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard in 1773.  Thomas Jr.'s daughter Clarissa was born at Hartland, Vermont in 1795, indicating the family left Tisbury at some point.  Probably around the time of Thomas Sr.'s death in the Revolutionary War in 1777.  By the early 1820's Clarissa and her parents were living in New York, in the Town of Locke, the eastern part of which, (the Garner's part), became the Town of Summerhill in April of 1831.  

     Looking through the trees on Ancestry was perplexing. They all have Clarissa married to Samuel Lamphier and maintain she gave birth to Spaulding Lamphier in 1802.  Only that's not possible.  Aside from the fact she was only seven or eight years of age in 1802, she was with her parents until at least 1820.  It's in the census!  I'm confounded how anyone can think an eight year old having a baby makes sense, never mind that Ancestry flashes a red warning if you  attempt to type something that ludicrous into your tree.  Clarissa did marry Samuel Lamphere, that much is correct, but not until about 1823, she could not have been his first wife nor Spaulding's mother.

     Another odd one was the death date of her stepson Spaulding and the circumstances surrounding it.  Every Ancestry tree had clearly copied the other one, for none of them had real sources and they all claimed he died in 1859.  "Believed by the family to have been taken by 'Indians' while on his way to vist a neighbor."  His corpse was never found.  In the year 1859!  I am quite certain there were no native uprisings taking place in New York State in 1859.  To be fair there was a reservation for the Cayuga Tribe about thirteen miles from Locke although they were pacified by then and caused no trouble; it's also true Spaulding appears to vanish about that time, three years after his wife Prudence Marble's death, which left him with seven children ranging in age from twenty to seven.  It appears Spaulding did not handle her death well, which eerily mirrors his half-brother Samuel Jr.'s, (who was Clarissa's son), decline after his wife's death.  Within three years Samuel was in the county poor house whose blunt description of him was, "this old man has lost his mind".

     See, this is how I get sidetracked.  I'm not even related to Spaulding since I do not credit the assertion that Clarissa Garner was his mother, but now I was curious what the deal was with him.  He wasn't in the 1860, 1865, or 1870 censuses and his children were scattered about the neighborhood.  He was gone alright, but I still wasn't buying the captured by Indians theory.  It seemed to me there was good reason no body surfaced, though that didn't stop someone from putting him on the Find A Grave site with a death year of 1859.

     As I continued examining Spaulding, I came to the 1875 New York State census and who should I see there... a resurrected Spaulding Lamphier!  Living in Locke with his widowed daughter Emily Whipple and her children. So how does the story of his abduction and murder still live on?  Granted it's a good tale, it made me take notice, but it's clearly untrue.  I posted a copy of the census to the Find A Grave page for Spaulding and the owner did change his death date so that's progress I guess. 

     The question remains, where was Spaulding all those years?  Gone west perhaps?  It was after all, the era of the Pike's Peak Goldrush.  The territories may have looked like the perfect opportunity to shed his responsibilites and make his fortune. The fact Spaulding can't be located in three censuses makes it seem he may not have wanted to be found.  In the end, he returned to Locke where his daughter Emily found a place for him in her home.  I don't know if the other children were as welcoming when their father reappeared, in fact one or two had died during his absence, though I can't locate any obituaries that may have shed some light on these questions.  But now I need to get back to someone I really am related to-- like Thomas Garner Sr., possible birthplace Nantucket.