Found Another Phil

     I’ve been fooling around with the IFHF site to see if there was anything I might have missed there, OK actually I was bored and couldn’t think of anything else to do at the moment.  Howbeit, it was a good thing that I did.  I’ve been trying to find the parents of Edmond Power, my third great grandfather.  Edmond’s wife Honora Crotty came to America, as did all their known children, but Edmond doesn’t appear to have made the trip.  It’s possible he came and died between census years so I missed him, but I’ve found nothing to indicate he was ever here. 
 
     Except… there is an 1870 census entry that keeps niggling at me, Edward Powers, born in Ireland, age 42, working and living at a hotel in Palmyra, New York as a currier.  Could this be him?  Edmond would have been 61 not 42; we all know censuses get ages wrong all the time, but that seems like a very big leap. Two of the Power children, Ellen and Mary are living within just a few miles of Palmyra in 1870, Mary with her husband Thomas Ryan and Ellen is in service with a farm couple.  It’s feasible that Edmond and the two oldest children came over to raise passage money for Honora and their young son Philip.  So I’ve been researching Edmond, and have now found his baptism.

     The Power family lived in Cullen Castle, Waterford, in the Catholic Parish of Tramore.  A large chunk of the Catholic baptismal records are missing for Tramore, 1831-1856 to be precise.  This is the exact period the older Power children would have been born so only Philip’s baptism has been found, considerately born in 1857.  Philip is not that common a name in Ireland, though Lord knows you can’t toss a rock in Waterford without hitting a Power, so I knew I’d have to be careful looking for Edmond’s parents.  Given the location, the year and the parents, I think I’ve found him.  Ed’s oldest daughter is named Mary; his only son that I know of is named Philip, baptized in Tramore Parish.  The same parish his wife Honora Crotty was baptized in.

Ed's parents Phil Power & Mary Kervan

     
     That makes three known Philips in this family as young Philip married in New York and had a Philip of his own. Of course this doesn't get me any closer to finding Edmond's death date, or whether he came to the US, but it satisfies my curiosity about his parentage.

Wordless Wednesday/Kevin Barry of Rathvilly, County Carlow

Women praying for Kevin Barry before his execution

     Kevin Barry was a 19 year old medical student who joined the Army of the Irish Republic during the Irish War of Independence, (1919-1921).  He spent part of his life in Rathvilly Parish, home of my O'Hora ancestors.  He was captured by the British and executed in 1920.

What Became Of Great, Great Grandma Warner

     My great, great Grandfather Joseph Warner died in 1911 at the age of 55 in what could only be termed a freak accident.  He somehow stuck himself with a pin, got blood poisoning and died!  From a pin prick...he actually died!  I've looked at three different obituaries and none give any further details.  I'd really like to know what kind of a pin this could have been?

 Yet again the paper got it wrong, he'd been in the US since 1870, over 40 years

     At any rate, the poor man died, leaving Mary a widow, and for quite awhile I had no idea when she had passed away; all I was sure of was that after 1920, she disappeared from the census records.  Then one day while going through the local newspaper on microfilm I stopped dead in my tracks, there she was:
  Shortsville Enterprise, March 21, 1929
     The death of Mrs. Mary Warner Lockwood, a well known resident of Manchester, occurred at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Alvin LaRue, in Palmyra, last Thursday p.m., after a long illness.  Mrs. Lockwood was born in Manchester on September 2, 1856, a daughter of the late Paul and Louisa Wheat Worden.  She had spent her entire life in Manchester, with the exception of two years passed in Chicago.  She was married to Joseph Warner in 1878, his death occurring in April, 1911.  In 1922 she married Barton Lockwood.
     Beside her husband, she is survived by 5 children, Carlton Warner and Mrs. Clara Robinson of Manchester, Raymond Warner and Mrs. Flora LaRue of Palmyra and Edward Warner of Auburn; two sisters, Mrs. Flora Post of Manchester and Mrs. Ethel McClouth of Clifton Springs, and two brothers, Arthur Worden of Manchester and Loren Worden of Canandaigua.

     I knew it was her, her parents and survivors in the obituary confirmed it.  Never once had it occurred to me that  great, great grandma might have remarried, much less at the age of 66.  I then tried to find any trace of Barton Lockwood in census records, or any other record for that matter, but he eluded me. Those two years in Chicago had me puzzled too, I figured it must have been before her first marriage to Joseph.  I figured wrong.  Unable to find Mary in census records, I decided to try and locate a marriage announcement and found this:
Nov 2, 1922

     Announcement is made of the marriage of Mrs. Mary Warner, of Manchester town, and Samuel Lockwood of Chicago, the ceremony having taken place at the Baptist parsonage in Manchester last week Wednesday evening... Mr. and Mrs. Lockwood have since departed for their future home in Chicago. They carry with them the best of wishes for their future happiness.

     No wonder she wasn't in the 1925 New York census, she wasn't in New York.  She moved back at some point, her obit notes she was a resident of Manchester.  I get the feeling Samuel may very well have remained in Chicago, Mary's grave does not bear the name Lockwood.  She is buried next to Joseph Warner and they share a headstone. Grandma and Grandpa are together again for eternity.

Who Were These Lady Quilters?

    I've started on a new tangent very interesting project.  About 15 years ago I bought an antique quilt at an auction near Utica, NY.  I was drawn to this particular quilt because it's a signature quilt, the ladies who collaborated on this quilt each signed a block.  Signature quilts were often made by church groups for a minister, for fundraisers or when a family was leaving the area as a memento.  This quilt has no inscription of dedication or any other evidence of what it's purpose was, and no indication of where or when it was made. The thing is humongous and has a square cutaway on each side for where the foot posts would have gone. This morning I thought, wouldn't it be fun to try and trace some of these women and perhaps discover where my quilt was made and what year?
     
     When I first acquired the quilt I made a halfhearted attempt to find the quilters.  I went through some microfilmed censuses at the local library but found no clues as to their identities.  Now however, we have indexed census records, so this should be a snap I thought.  The first step would be deciphering the names, the second, trying to assign an approximate date to the quilt.

"Mifs" M. Leighton's Signature

     The names were fairly easy to read, but not very informative--  "Mrs. J. Brown", try a census search on that name, there are thousands!  And is J her initial or her husband's? The single ladies at least gave their own initials which was slightly more helpful.  They also prefaced their names with, "Mifs", the old style of writing the title "Miss", except for one progressive woman, "Miss S. J. Ricker", who signed in the more modern way.  This was helpful with dating the quilt, as was the pink on pink fabric.  I decided to start my search with the 1900 census.

     I quickly discovered the magnitude of this task.  With surnames like Cook, Campbell and Wilson, and only a first initial in most cases I came to the conclusion this would take months to figure out unless I ran out of patience first.  Then I came to Mrs. T. McGouldrick.  The 1900 census shows 96 persons with that surname, 72 of them in Pennsylvania, including several with the forename Thomas.  1910 still finds the family concentrated in PA.  There is a Mrs. Myra Allen, another name on one of the blocks, living in Pittsburgh at the same time as a Thomas McGouldrick lived there.  Quite a few of the other surnames also show up in Pittsburgh, and add in the 1910, and still more are there.

     I'm not ready to say the quilt was absolutely made in Pittsburgh, but the chances are good which goes to show, sometimes that one clue can make all the difference, as in the instance of Mrs. T. McGouldrick.

This Drives Me Straight Up A Wall!

     Every couple of weeks I check out the new offerings on Ebay.  Believe it or not I've found some pretty cool things there, like a post card written by my great, great Aunt Flora Worden Post, a photo of my Worden cousins from the turn of the century and my latest, a photo of George Worden and his wife Eva which caused me to research him in depth and resulted in the Native American furor of a few weeks ago, (still working on that one).

     Yesterday I found this:

     
     This is the first time I've found a photograph taken in Shortsville, NY!  This Lovell Studio would have been the closest one to my  O'Hora relatives who put down roots in a tiny hamlet called Littleville just outside Shortsville after leaving the Auburn area.  So, is it one of them?  I don't know, even worse I never will.  There is no writing of any sort to indicate who this person might be.

     The photo is what's called a cabinet card which was most popular around the 1880's, the right time period my ancestors may have had their picture taken.  I've been unable to find much about photographer M. S. Lovell, or when he operated in Shortsville.  A Goggle and Ebay search revealed a photographer named M. S. Lovell in Oswego, NY, not Shortsville.  Shortsville was a pretty small place though, maybe he moved on to greener pastures and that's why I've never seen another photo taken in Shortsville.  And in the end I guess it really doesn't matter.

     There are so many of these nameless images out there.  I always feel sad seeing them online or mouldering away in some dusty antique shop.  They were once living, breathing, loved human beings, now they are reduced to nameless faces peering back at us across the centuries.  It reminds me to write those names on my pictures, and label them online as the case now may be.  Hopefully some future genealogist will appreciate the effort.

What I Learned Writing About John's Daughters

St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Auburn, NY

     Committing the stories of the O'Hora sisters to paper was very helpful in pointing out to me where gaps in my research exist, and what I need to concentrate on finding next.  For one thing, after sitting down and putting it all together I now realize I need to review the records of St. Mary's Church since that is the parish the family belonged to.

     It also points up the immense value of obituaries as a source of family information, take for example the obituary of Elizabeth O'Hora Ferris:
      The death of Elizabeth, wife of William Ferris, occurred at the family home, No. 34 Fitch Avenue, Sunday morning, after an illness of several weeks' duration. Mrs. Ferris was an estimable woman, a devoted wife and loving mother. She is survived by her husband, William Ferris, and eight children, Edward, John, Frank, Elizabeth, Teresa, Etta May and Gertrude of this city, and Cecelia Ferris of Rochester, also two brothers, Daniel and John O'Hora, and one sister, Mrs. Katherine Willis. The funeral will be held tomorrow morning from the family home with services at St Mary's church at 9:30, the burial will be in the family plot in St. Joseph's Cemetery.

     From this obituary we learn Elizabeth's place of death and the family address, which can be very important in the event there are several families of the same name you are trying to differentiate between.  We see that Elizabeth died of natural causes and learn her husband's first name and that he outlived her. We find the names of her surviving children and see that only two of her four brothers survived her; it also confirms her sister Catherine's married name and tells us her daughter Cecilia left Auburn and lived in Rochester.  If we didn't already know it, this obituary also tells us that since her funeral was at St. Mary's, she was a Catholic, along with her place of burial.  That's alot of information from one article.

     Often in obituaries you can find daughter's married names and where they lived. Using lists of survivors, it's possible to determine approximate death dates for other family members.  That is--the person in question died after this person's obituary was written but before this other person's.  This is assuming the newspaper got it right, they don't always.  My 3rd great Uncle Philip Power was accidentally omitted from his mother's list of survivors even though he was very much alive.

     A wonderful source of death information is Find A Grave.  Searching old newspapers can be tedious, and even if the newspaper is online and searchable you can still come up with many, many hits; too many to read through in some cases.  If you can find the deceased in the Find A Grave database, you'll not only have the death date in most cases, you then have a year to focus on if you're using microfilm or a year to add to your newspaper search terms.  Keep in mind though, sometimes even tombstones have incorrect dates.

    Before I researched the O'Hora sisters, I had no idea that the Elizabeth Ferris who was attacked by William Travers was his own aunt, or that the young men arrested at Catherine McGarr O'Hora's home at that chicken dinner so long ago were in fact her grandsons.  I can surmise how disturbing it must have been to Maria and Bridget McGarr, who also lived in Auburn, to see their older sister Catherine slide into poverty and alcohol abuse. It became evident that the children of the daughters who died young were troubled individuals, while Elizabeth's children seemed to steer clear of trouble for the most part.  And no, this doesn't add much to my family tree, but I don't do straight genealogy, I do family history.  I want to know the details of their everyday lives.

     Finally, writing about the family of John O'Hora helped me see more clearly how this family related to each other, and what their lives were like, and a rowdy bunch they seemed to be. Nonetheless, they are my rowdy bunch of Irishmen and women and I love 'em all.

     

John O'Hora and His Daughters Part 4--Catherine and Anne

     

by aarongilson

     The next daughter was Catherine, born in 1857 in Aurelius.  She is the daughter I know the least about. In 1894 she lived with her mother on Seneca Street in Auburn where the two were arrested  for keeping a, "disorderly house", along with disorderly behavior. In 1897, "Kate", can be found in the Auburn City Directory, living with her mother and brothers at 23 Division Street, employed as the proverbial Irish washerwoman.  

     She married at a much later age than her two older sisters, in the 1897 directory, she was 40 years old and still living with her family.  Catherine married a man with the surname Willis and that is all I know about the marriage.  Catherine died in 1927, this is her obituary:
    Auburn Citizen Thursday Aug 25 1927
     The death of Mrs. Katherine Willis occurred yesterday afternoon shortly after 2 o'clock. While she had been complaining slightly for some time past of a weakened heart, no alarm was felt until she contracted a severe cold which proved fatal yesterday. She had been a resident of this city nearly all of her life and was well known and liked by those who knew her. She is survived by the following nieces and nephews, Mrs. William Belliner of Cayuga, Mrs. C. O. Troy of Rochester. Mrs. H. C. Marsh of Auburn. Mrs. Francis McKern of Pittsburgh. Mrs. C. O. Redman of Binghamton, Frank, Edward and John Ferris of this city.

     Catherine died childless, and so her line comes to an end.  The nieces and nephews listed are all the children of Elizabeth O'Hora Ferris, Catherine's youngest sister.  It's interesting to note that none of the Shea children are mentioned or William Travers though they were also nieces and nephews.

     The last born of John's daughters was Elizabeth, also known as Eliza. She entered the world in 1858 in Aurelius.  Elizabeth married William Ferris around 1878 when she was 20 years old.  She and William had a family of ten children, eight of whom survived her.  She passed away in August of 1911 at the young age of 47, her obituary is full of genealogical information:
     The death of Elizabeth, wife of William Ferris, occurred at the family home, No. 34 Fitch Avenue, Sunday morning, after an illness of several weeks' duration. Mrs. Ferris was an estimable woman, a devoted wife and loving mother. She is survived by her husband, William Ferris, and eight children, Edward, John, Frank, Elizabeth, Teresa, Etta May and Gertrude of this city, and Cecelia Ferris of Rochester, also two brothers, Daniel and John O'Hora, and one sister, Mrs. Katherine Willis. The funeral will be held tomorrow morning from the family home with services at St Mary's church at 9:30, the burial will be in the family plot in St. Joseph's Cemetery.

     With that many children, there are bound to be descendants of Elizabeth's still around, all I have to do is track them down.  I hope you enjoyed this mini-series, tomorrow I want to review how writing it helped me sort things out.