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?