My Oldestest Brick Wall Is Still Gathering Moss

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bishop McQuaid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Civil War draft notice

     

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

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

  

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

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

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

    

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

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

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

     

     

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

1850 census of Aurelius on Ancestry

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

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

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

     

There's Just Something About An Old Cemetery

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Quigley left in front of his store

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

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

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

Kilkea Castle

     

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