The Martins of Manchester, NY

1904 map of Manchester, the fan shaped object is the railroad roundhouse

2015 map of Manchester, the roundhouse is still visible a red X marks the Martin lot

     I've spent this week tracing the lives of Anna O'Hora, the sister of my great-grandfather Edward O'Hora, and her husband Patrick Martin.  Anna's birth took place in Auburn, NY and her brother Edward's after the family had moved to the farm in Littleville, NY.  Anna, like all the O'Hora children except one, remained in the area marrying Patrick Martin, in 1880.  The census taken that year shows Anna and Patrick living in Farmington, the next town over, with Patrick engaged in farming. The New York census of 1892 shows the couple and their three children living about ten miles away in Phelps, NY with Patrick still farming.  The really interesting thing about this census is that right below the Martins is listed Andrew Fitzpatrick, laborer. There are in fact, quite a few laborers enumerated below Patrick and Anna, but I doubt they were all working for him.  The 1892 census makes it hard to tell if Andrew is living with the Martins or not, no house or family numbers were recorded in this census nor were relationships given, it was a pretty bare bones tally of New York residents.  Andrew Fitzpatrick is of interest because in 1898, Anna's sister Winifred married a man named Andrew Fitzpatrick who was born in Ontario, NY.  I always wondered how they met, perhaps this was the moment.   

     Various censuses show Patrick Martin following several different trades, from farmer he went to tinsmith in 1900 and finally to hotel keeper in 1915.  The census of 1910 simply says "own income" under occupation.  News articles were more informative.  For example, in 1897 a local paper tells us Patrick was granted a hotel license that year and another license in 1905 (and in the intervening years I assume).  An article from 1907 reads, "Ed Devitt, employed at the ice house, got into a drunken carousal at Patrick Martin's saloon at Manchester on Monday night."  Clearly, at some point Patrick applied for and was granted a liquor license.  An article published in 1893 also clears up the 1892 New York census that showed Patrick in Phelps, surrounded by laborers-- "Patrick Martin will sell at auction at his residence on the Sahler farm, 4 horses, 7 cows ..."  Patrick must have been renting the farm in Phelps from the Sahler's and all those laborers were likely employees of the Sahler family.  It's easy to imagine Anna's sister Winifred visiting her in Phelps and meeting the eligible Andrew Fitzpatrick.

     I next turned to Family Search's New York land records where I found Patrick purchasing property in Manchester village in 1893, right after the farm auction.  The description of the lot in the deed, bordering Lehigh Street, placed it near the Lehigh Valley Railroad yards.  Now I went to Ancestry and it's collection of New York land ownership maps.  There was only one "P. Martin" found, sure enough right next to the yards.  This had to be the spot!  But nothing is ever that easy right?  The map at the top of this page shows Patrick's lot near the roundhouse in the yards, right where I'd expected; so why does every relevant census say he lived on Main Street?  Lehigh Street was right off Main Street, but it wasn't Main Street.  I can't reconcile this discrepancy, try as I might.  There are no purchases of land on Main Street recorded for Patrick.  Since the property was on the corner maybe they just didn't bother to write in another street name?  But on every census?  The newer map shows that today the street is known as Merrick Circle.

     Anna O'Hora Martin died at their home in 1907 from a cerebral hemorrhage and Patrick passed in 1916.  He left his estate to his maiden daughter Mary Honora who soon sold the property.  Patrick's obituary gave more clues as to his business dealings:  

Geneva Daily Times Nov. 13, 1916
Patrick Martin, one of the best known residents of Manchester died at his home in the village Saturday.  Mr. Martin conducted a hotel in the village for several years and retired from business in 1908 when the "drys" carried the day.

     My conclusion from all this is that Patrick tired of farming and purchased the hotel property, financing it by auctioning his farm equipment and livestock.  He supplemented his income while starting the hotel by tinsmithing.   After a time he expanded the business adding a bar until 1908 when Manchester voted to become a dry town.  After that he continued the hotel.  Today a bar called O. Henry's stands on the lot Patrick and Anna owned.  County records online say it was constructed in 1900, seven years after the Martins purchased the property, but perhaps they simply enlarged the building that year, or the original was torn down and a new one built.  Or the transcriber made an error.  I'm still puzzled by the censuses that say the Martins lived on Main Street; I wonder if the dotted lines that lead straight from the middle of the Martin lot towards Main Street on the 1904 map indicate an access road to Main?  Perhaps it was considered an extension of Main Street in 1904?  This will need more work...

Copied Content!

     

     This morning I sat down at my desk with a cup of coffee, ready to do a little genealogy.  I haven't looked for my entrepreneurial ancestor Milo Galloway in a long time, so decided to do an internet search to see if anything new about him had been added.  A few hits down in the results, an unfamiliar website came up and upon opening it my jaw dropped.  There on a "day trading" site I found my blog about Milo titled "Of Land Deals and Canals"!  The entire blog, word for word including the image.  I was aghast to say the least, nowhere on that page was there any credit for my work.  Copying an entire blog is bad enough, but to not even acknowledge the author is even more disturbing.

     I read through the site's policies, and found this:

     The entire contents of the Site are protected by international copyright and trademark laws. The owner of the copyrights and trademarks are ******** its affiliates or other third party licensors. YOU MAY NOT MODIFY, COPY, REPRODUCE, REPUBLISH, UPLOAD, POST, TRANSMIT, OR DISTRIBUTE, IN ANY MANNER, THE MATERIAL ON THE SITE, INCLUDING TEXT...

     Strong words from a company which sees fit to themselves copy, reproduce, republish and post the work of others.  And they are the owners of the copyright to my blog?????  Really??? And all this time I thought the copyright on my blog content belonged to me.  

     I sent the offending company a polite email asking them to remove my work from their site; what happens next remains to be seen.  Looking further at the site I noticed near the top, the word "From" followed by, in small pale blue letters, the words Of Land Deals and Canals -- not my name, not the name of my site.  The link does take one to my blog page, but is that enough?  How many people will even click on it?  Especially since it just reiterates the title. I didn't even notice it at first and I was looking! 

     I did another Google search, this time using the search terms "copied my blog" and lots of sites full of advice came up.  The US government says that to copy my entire blog, my permission is required. Even if I were given credit on the offender's site, that alone is not sufficient.  Other sites note that this sort of thievery can affect search engine rankings and cause Google to mistake your blog content as the duplicate.  I'm not sure yet how far I want to take this, hopefully the filched content will just be removed.

   
     

Tuesday's Tip/Naming Patterns Revisited

     

     I'm sure all of us are familiar with the traditional Irish naming pattern and how it can be useful in connecting families. Several weeks ago I came across a short article about a reason why the pattern wasn't always followed; being that babies born or baptized on a saint's feast day sometimes were given the name of that saint.  Especially if the saint in question was popular in the family's locality.  That was a possibility I'd never considered before.  I've also heard over the years that an illegitimate or sickly baby might not have been given the name the pattern would dictate.

     Another possible reason, terrible to contemplate, is the loss of a child.  I couldn't figure out why my great-great-grandmother Anna Ryan White hadn't named a child after her father until her eleventh and last born son.  There were no long spaces between her children where another might have been born, they came like clockwork every two years, it made no sense.  The answer lay in baptism records-- twins!  Only one thrived, Anna had indeed named one of the twins Cornelius for her father, but he did not survive long and appears in no census records.  If I hadn't looked at that baptism register I wouldn't have know that he ever existed.

     These possibilities, (and I'm sure there are others), are useful to keep in mind when attempting to determine if a particular family is really part of the line I'm looking for.  In the future I won't be so quick to discount a possible relationship based on children's names.

Dan McGarr's Farm

    

                                                    The farm-- Courtesy of Dara at Black Raven Genealogy

     Like many of you I've been enjoying Ancestry's week of free Irish records.  I've found several useful things in the databases, and today I've finally figured out the owners, down through the years, of my Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Daniel McGarr's farm in Ballyraggan County Kildare.  Quite awhile ago I sent to the Valuation Office in Ireland and received a package of copies of the cancelled or revised books begun in the late 1840's by Mr. Griffith's and his valuers.  It contained a list of the various occupiers and owners of Daniel's property.

     Daniel of course is the occupant from the 1850's until his death in 1875.  After that the occupier was Thomas Hughes, Daniel's son in law by virtue of his marriage to Daniel's daughter Sarah McGarr.  Sarah and Thomas had one child, a daughter named Mary in 1873.  Sarah died between that time and 1902 when Thomas married a much younger Margaret Brien with whom he had another daughter in 1903 baptized Mary Margaret.  Thomas himself passed away in 1909.  The next name to appear in the book is that of Margaret Butler followed by a Mrs. Miley in about 1942.  But who was Margaret Butler?  I'm sure Mrs. Miley is the daughter Thomas and Margaret had together in 1903 who married James Miley.  Did she come back and purchase her birthplace?  Could it be that Margaret Butler was the former Mrs. Hughes?  As I mentioned, Margaret was younger that Thomas Hughes, she could well have remarried.

     I did a search at Ancestry and found a possible marriage in the Civil Registration index between Margaret Brien and Martin Butler in 1912 but it was pretty bare bones.  I then tried the Civil Registration at Irish Genealogy.ie and found the 1912 marriage of Martin Butler and Margaret Hughes.  I'm betting the records have both of Margaret's surnames listed, and each site chose to use a different one.  This is real proof I have the right marriage.

     I also found in the revision book, stamped in purple ink next to Margaret Butler's name, the letters LAP and the name of the "lessor" had been crossed out and "in fee" written in.  This meant Mrs. Butler was no longer leasing the property, but had purchased it by means of Land Act Purchase assistance.  The Land Commission, created in 1881, had begun this program to help occupiers buy the land they had heretofore leased.  It's my understanding the revised books have been scanned and are ready to go online, I'm not sure what the hold up is but we were promised these a very long time ago; Northern Ireland's are already up and running at the PRONI site.

     Another annoying matter still remains however, and that is my complete inability to find any reference to the death of Sarah McGarr Hughes.  Or her and Thomas' daughter Mary born in 1873.  I think Mary may have died before 1903 when Thomas and his new wife Margaret Brien became the parents of Mary Margaret Hughes.  Surely Thomas wouldn't have named his second daughter Mary if the first was still living...would he?  This Civil Registration is the closest I've ever found for the first Mary:

Name     Mary Hughes
Event Type     Death
Event Date     Jan - Mar 1946
Event Place     Baltinglass, Ireland
Birth year       (estimated) 1872
Age       74
Registration Quarter and Year  Jan - Mar 1946

     The birth year is right, she was born in April so wouldn't have turned 75 yet, but I have no way of knowing if it's truly her. It's possible she married before the second Mary was born and her death is under her husband's name. I would be a little sad if the record does refer to the first Mary--with no husband and the farm her grandfather Daniel worked going to Thomas' second daughter who wasn't even a McGarr.  I'd love to know what did become of the first Mary Hughes, daughter of Sarah McGarr, not to mention Sarah's two brothers Richard and John.  There are still McGarr mysteries to be solved...

Wednesday's Website

     

      This Wednesdays' website is The Clare County Library site.  I don't even have ancestors in Clare, the closest I come are the Bushnell family of Palmyra, NY-- Clare natives whose eldest son Patrick married my 3rd great-aunt Alice White in 1885-- but this impressive site makes me wish that I did.  

     From the homepage click on "Genealogy & Family History".  This brings up  a lengthy list of databases containing school records starting in 1814, lists of victims of eviction, tenant lists and deaths among many other subjects.  When you exhaust that page, click on "History", for links to more useful databases.

     Not to be missed are the Maps, Placenames, and "Foto" pages.  I only wish my counties of interest had such comprehensive websites.

More Brick Wall Busting Going On Here

     
     Several weeks ago I wrote a blog about my recent attempts to find the birthplace of my 2nd great-grandfather James White who immigrated to the Palmyra, NY area shortly after the famine.  Today I stumbled upon some new information while running a few Google searches.  What might appear to the casual observer as aimless procrastination, when I ought to be doing something like cleaning my refrigerator, has in fact produced results fairly often if I stick to it long enough...and boy can I stick to it.

     Today I typed  these four words --Laois "James White"  Margaret-- into a Google search, in that order, the name Margaret being that of Grandpa James' mother.  Of the first five results, three were my own posts, but the sixth was the jackpot.  Look at the red underlined sentence in the description below, James White!!  Palmyra!!

     After clicking on the link, I discovered a list of Treacy/Tracey family members coming through Ellis Island.  Palmyra was the address to which Michael Tracey of Rathdowney Parish was traveling in 1914, to the home of his Uncle James White!!  Reading further I found that two of his siblings had already come over and like Michael, both had headed to Palmyra, NY; James in 1906 to his aunt, Mrs. Mary White, and his sister Margaret in 1909 to her Aunt Mary White.  Palmyra is a small town, there was only one couple named James and Mary White living there in that time period, namely Mary Ford and her husband James White Jr., the son of my 2nd great-grandfather.

     Checking the Ellis Island site to ensure the transcriptions were correct I also discovered that two of the Treacy's gave their father's name as William, and address as Errill.  I then moved over to church records at the NLI website to seek the baptisms of the Tracy children.  I struck out there, the records end a few years prior to their births, so my next stop was the National Archives site and the 1901 census of Ireland. There I did a search for William Tracey in Rathdowney Parish and he came right up, how did that happen?  The whole family was there, father William, mother Margaret, the future immigrants James, Michael and Margaret, a younger sister Katie and a mother-in-law too.

     Now that I had William's wife's name I checked the marriage records back at the NLI site, which naturally ended right about the time I figured the marriage would have occurred.  But I gave it a shot anyway, starting with the latest date.  Right at the top of the first page I looked at, February 1880, I found William Treacy marrying Margaret Ford, witnesses were Michael Keyes and Mary Keogh, address?  Errill.  Grandpa James' mother was a Keyes! Margaret Keyes! I'm getting warmer.

     I now knew the Treacys were related to the Fords, not the Whites exactly, (on the other hand, who knows what William's mother's surname might have been?), but it was still an exciting discovery, they did tend to stick together in the new country after all.  James White Jr. and Mary Ford's marriage record dated 1887 at St. Anne's in Palmyra gives her parent's names as Bernard Ford and Margaret Keogh, it seems reasonable to suppose Mary and Margaret Ford were sisters since Margaret's children called Mary their aunt, and that the Mary Keogh who witnessed Margaret's marriage in Rathdowney Parish was probably a cousin.  County Laois keeps turning up in my White/Keyes research, it can't all be a coincidence.

Happy Anniversary To Me & Thanks To You

    

      Looking through my blog, I discovered five years have slipped by since that first post back in December of 2010.  Things started slowly, but around 2012 I finally found my voice.  It's been an incredible five years, I've found genealogy friends and made the acquaintance of dozens of cousins from far flung places; among them California, Washington State, New Jersey and Nevada. Cousin John, from Nevada, was born in New York and we met in person last summer while he visited family here, and along with his sweet wife we toured all our Ryan hot-spots together--cemeteries, homesteads, churches.  Then there is the most far flung of all, the amazing Dara of Black Raven Genealogy, who lives in Ireland.  We're not related, but this kind, generous woman actually took the time to drive to my ancestor's home site in Ireland and snap photos for me!

     I've received other marvelous gifts too. One person sent me a digital copy of the fabric diary compiled by my cousin Inez Worden, filled with swatches of fabric she used over the years along with her handwritten notations of what she had made with each one and for whom. Another sent the memorial card of my cousin Sister Cecilia Vincent, a Catholic nun.  New found cousin Ken sent me copies of all the late 19th century photos of my Ryan family in his mother's possession.  Cousin Tom, a book dealer, regularly sends me packages filled with books, actual books!  When my Nevada cousin visited, he presented me with a lovely, large, suitable for framing, copy of the Ryan family reunion circa 1920 with every single person identified.  I can't think of any negatives in this whole experience.  Except maybe those cases of writer's block.

     This past year has been filled with...well, life.  Illnesses, births, work--the sort of things that can get in the way of the concentration needed to put out a reasonable blog and so the number of posts has declined a bit. I've noticed that several blogs I follow have stopped posting entirely for much the same reasons and I can sympathize with the writers. When I started this, my goal was to write useful articles, find some new cousins, and chart my progress on each family line.  Writing down what you already know is a wonderful way to see where you need to direct your attention next and pull together all the scraps of data that have been accumulating.  After a few years it became more challenging to find topics and I finally figured out why-- the easy stuff has all been done.  What's mostly left now is the brick walls and the gathering of information on ancestor localities and extended family and neighbors; in short alot of reading. The genealogical facts are more hard won these days and only come after hours of research and it's not easy to blog while you're researching.  After you've found new information, yes, but while doing the actual work, it's difficult.

     In closing, thank you, thank you, thank you for reading my blog.  Just for fun I went back and found the five most popular ones over the years which I now share in ascending order--

How I Found The Missing McGarrs of Ballyraggan 
Funeral Card Friday/ US Sailor John Francis Hudson
Another Unfortunate Train Death
Missing McGarrs Located
And lastly, the most widely read blog of all, 
Hey Santa

  They aren't necessarily my favorites, but the reading public has spoken.  Once again, Thank you.