Family Photos in an Antique Shop

This past week I attended some training for work up in Syracuse, New York. On the way back a colleague and I stopped for a late lunch in Ithaca, NY; a town she really loved visiting before. I had been through it once or twice but never really spent much time there so I was open to wandering around a bit. 

We stopped into the DeWitt Mall which is an odd assortment of little shops in what appears to be a re-purposed parochial school. My colleague and I wandered independently for a bit. There was a little antique shop that had several shelves of items for sale out in the hallway between stores. As I passed the shelves I saw some little eyes peeping over the edge of a box. 

It was a portrait of a handsome woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Neu Wagner, as noted on the back of the photo. Many of the photos in the box appeared to be from the same family album but none of them were labeled well; not like this one at least. This had a brief genealogy on it. In a small neat print, much like my own, the label reads: 

 ELIZABETH NEU WAGNER 

(MOTHER of FREDERICK A. WAGNER)

(GREAT GRANDMOTHER OF 

BARBARA WAGNER WOODAMS) 

PROJECT! I had great fun this past year helping a patron at my part time job put a family heirloom back in the right hands. Why not see if I could get this photo to an appropriate family member. 

As soon as I got home last night I sat down and searched for those names on Ancestry.com. And in less than 10 minutes I had found an Ancestry member who had a robust tree naming all those individuals indicated on the photo with the proper connections between them. The tree had many photos including one of Frederick A. Wagner and Barbara Wagner-Woodams. But the tree did not have a photo of this woman, Elizabeth. Now it will because I contacted the Ancestry member who made that tree and in less than 20 minutes heard back from her. Elizabeth is her husband's 3x great grandmother.

A little poking around and I learned Elizabeth was born in Bavaria, Germany in 1832; no known date of death. She was married to Frederick Wagner. She arrived in the U.S. in about 1855-1860; so probably before she was married...maybe. She has at least 6 children with Frederick; some if not all were born in New Jersey.

It appears as though her great granddaughter Barbara was the last family member to own the photo, at least that is what I assume from the labeling. 

Barbara Ann Wagner-Woodams was born on January 15, 1929 to Alfred Walter Wagner and Barbara Althea Lounsberry in Bradley Beach, New Jersey according to her U.S. Social Security Applications & Claims indexed information on Ancestry.com. She married William John Woodams on January 12, 1951. She passed away on December 3, 2000. Her husband was from Ithaca, NY. William outlived his wife by 11 years. He died September 14, 2011 and I suspect he passed in Ithaca and that this antique shop purchased a family album in an estate sale or auction or something of that nature.

I am sure there are more Wagner Family photos in that antique shop but they were all mixed in together with thousands of other photos. Some were obviously taken from the same family album though; those could have been images from an album that also contained this woman's photo. Who knows. It would be quite a task to comb through them all. The descendant I tracked down lives in Oregon. I don't think he will be in Ithaca any time soon. Hmm. I wonder if any of the other family photos will make there way into the hands of the right family. Well, I know this one will.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Wagner.

An NPE in the Tree

It has been one long, crazy summer. Life has been filled with all sorts of adventure; so much so that I just have not had the time to write. My days have been filled with countless revisions of my tenure portfolio, massive amounts of travel packing and unpacking, 3 or 4 jobs (I can't keep track), and lots of genealogical digging.

Shortly after I returned home from my trip to my ancestral homeland in Newfoundland with Uncle Thomas in July, I was contacted through Ancestry.com by a man who stated he had a DNA match with me. Well, he actually has a match with a relative of mine for whom I manage their DNA test. Three or 4 emails into our exchange, (again, I can't keep track), I called him. It was obvious this man had done a lot of research before taking a DNA test and didn't quite understand the results he was seeing. 

It was not long into our conversation, maybe 3 or 4 minutes, I asked him, "Jack (I'll call him Jack), do you think you're adopted." To which he responded, "I didn't think so until this morning."

It was at that instant that I was fully invested. (By the way, he isn't adopted but...)

What Jack is experiencing is what many are referring to as an NPE; a Non-Paternity Experience. And I have seen it before with others I have worked with one-on-one doing genealogy research. His life is going along just fine, he takes a DNA test with no real serious expectations, just wants to see a pie chart of his ethnicity, further his research, and maybe meet a cousin or two (or 3 or 4 - hee hee), and BAM!  He discovers that the man he knows to be his father is not his biological parent. His mother is his biological mother; we found people who he matches on that side of his family tree. Sadly though, his mother has passed away and so he has no one in his own immediate family to ask about these results. 

This initialism, NPE, is a term not just used for people who discover their father is not their biological parent but for those who discover they are adoptees as well. It is also sometimes called a false paternal event or misattributed paternity. These are all terms I just don't like but I haven't come up with anything better yet. In any case, I read somewhere that in one specific yDNA study the rate of NPE was about 10%. In other words, 1 in every 10 men who contributed to that specific yDNA study experienced an NPE; 1 in 10. That's a lot. NPEs are not at all uncommon but each one is unique and each deserves sensitivity and intense research. 

Back to Jack. Since our initial contact we have communicated nearly every day. We've dug through records, translated foreign records, contacted lots of other people he matches, combed through family photos, talked about centimorgans, sketched out diagrams of potential connections, shot down a handful of theories, found biological connections to his mother, and have arrived at a short list of potential biological fathers. We don't have the answer yet, but we will. 

Jack has a tenacity that I respect and admire. It's not ferocious, it's a patient, respectful, relentlessness that is going to bring to light exactly where he comes from. Where for some people this might completely unhinge their entire sense of self, for Jack it doesn't seem that way. He seems confident, accepting, and again, completely respectful of the other lives this discovery might impact. For others though, these revelations often stir up family secrets that are scandalous and perhaps even dark and painful; like infidelity and rape. Painful discoveries occur so often because of these simple DNA test that there are actually support groups for people who experience these discoveries.

It's my hope that people would go into these DNA tests with their eyes wide open to the fact they may learn things they were not expecting and may not want to know. Jack wants the people who take these tests to participate in their DNA findings; provide information to the people you match to. "Don't just take the test and leave," he says. It's my prayer that everyone is like Jack and has the courage to approach their matches for insight; ask them all to share what they know! Do so with respect, sensitivity, and persistent patience. Those matches, those are your cousins; they are your family. So when someone comes to you in the midst of an NPE, remember, if they match you, you are their family. Be kind.

Yeah. It's been an incredibly wonderful, enlightening, long, crazy summer.

Cousins in Unlikely Places: Part 2

Uncle Thomas and I got to visit with the Pumpkin House host, Charlie, at his own newly acquired property just down the road; the property that once belonged to John Earle. 

I have to say, Charlie seemed just as excited as we were to have us this close to our Earle Family history. He was eager to take me on a walk down his beach, to marvel with me at the fact that this was probably the beach my great grandfather, Abe Earle, played on as a child.

The two small red structures near the center of the image are Charlie's stages. The white house on the left is his home on Farmers Arm Road, Durrell, Twillingate, Newfoundland

Charlie was also eager to show Uncle Thomas around his stage. A stage is a kind of shed along the water where fisherman would have unloaded and cleaned the fish they caught.

While Uncle Thomas and Charlie poked around the old structure, I stood outside on the beach chatting with Charlie's friend, Sylvain. Our conversation went a little like this.

"So do you live here year round?"
"No, I live in Montreal."
"Oh, that's where my mom's side is from. My father's side is from here in Twillingate but my mom's side has deep roots in Montreal."
"I have ancestors who were early settlers in Montreal. What's the family name?"
"It would have been Desjardins." 

And he froze. This very blank expression came across his face and he slowly said, "My mother's maiden name is Desjardins."

I stared at him what must have been a whole minute. "Get the fuck out. Are you kidding me?"

Shortly there after the four of us ventured into Charlie's actual house where Sylvain and I scrolled through our phones looking at our respective family trees. Sure enough he and I have my 9th great grandfather in common; Claude Jourdain Desjardins Charbonnier.

I don't know much about Claude except that he was born in France in in 1636 and 30 years later married Marguerite Lardon Cardillon in Montreal. Marguerite was a Filles du roi, one of the "King's Daughters." Not really royalty she had the support of the royalty. She was one of many women sent to the New French settlement between marry and help settle the area.

 I know that AND that I still have a cousins in Montreal.

Cousin Sylvain, me, and Cousin (by Association) Charlie
on Farmers Arm Road, Durrell, Twillingate, Newfoundland
June 21, 2018

Cousins in Unlikely Places: Part 1

This past June I traveled to Newfoundland with my Uncle Thomas. This was his first visit to our ancestral homeland; my second. I had been to the town of Twillingate once before in 2014 with Cousin Kelly and Cousin Peter. Twillingate is the town where my great grandfather, Abram Thomas Earle, was born in January 1891. This location was on Uncle Tom's bucket list and so when I was determining where I wanted to go for my birthday vacation this year and my usual travel companions were unable to accompany me, I invited Uncle Tom to go with me.

Uncle Thomas has a strong affinity for his grandfather, Abe. So much so that he named his boat "Twillingate" after his boatsman grandfather's birthplace.

In Newfoundland there are not many chain hotels in the small towns; not even in the small towns that are touristy. Most people stay in B & Bs. In advance of our travels, I used AirBnB to reserve places for my uncle and I. That's good because we could get multi-bedroom locations for nearly the same price as hotel rooms in which we would have to share a room. 

In my search on AirBnB, I came across a place called The Pumpkin House located on Farmers Arm Road in Twillingate. The funny thing is that according to the birth registration for Great Grandpa Abe, he was born on Farmers Arm; a section of the Durrell side of Twillingate.

Pumpkin House - image taken from AirBnB.com

So there we were in the bright and bonnie abodes of The Pumpkin House owned and operated by Nancy and her son Charlie. Turns out Charlie recently purchased a house of his own just a few doors down from Pumpkin House. On his deed it shows a survey conducted by Thomas Peyton who was once the local magistrate. Thomas Peyton was also the father of Edgar Peyton; the brother-in-law of my great grandfather and thus my uncle's great uncle. Family connections were happening. 

More stunning though was the fact that the property Charlie owns was once owned by John Earle. Yup an Earle! The deed, which can also be viewed in the Peyton Family Papers held in the Special Collection of Memorial University in St. John's Newfoundland, shows the property of both John and Thomas Earle side by side on Farmers Arm; now Farmers Arm Road. The deed indicates the land was once owned by the Late William Earle who, one would assume is the father of John & Thomas, the aforementioned land owners.

Land Survey conducted by Thomas Peyton of land once owned by William, Thomas, and John Earle of Farmers Arm, Durrell, Twillingate, Newfoundland in 1894.

I haven't pieced all the family connections together just yet but my gut tells me that my great grandfather was born on Charlie's land or that of Charlie's neighbor; Daphne Earle who now owns the land that belong to her grandfather-in-law, Thomas Earle. 

Oh but wait, it gets even better...

Tombstones in Templenoe, Ireland

Cousin Kelly is the most Irish of all my family members; well, at least amongst all the family AncestryDNA results I manage. She comes in at a whopping 75% Irish. So I was a little disappointed that she was not able to accompany Cousin Pete and I on our recent trip to Ireland. 

However, I researched her maternal line, as well as our shared line, as much as I could before making the trip. It wasn't really a research trip. Cousin Peter and I did not plan on spending hours in cemeteries or archives, we didn't contact any research facilities in advance of our travels, etc. We simply planned to drive through the areas we knew our Irish ancestors were from. If we saw a church or cemetery, maybe we'd poke around to see if there were any surnames we identify with among the stones. So I jotted down that Cousin Kelly's great-great grandfather was baptized in Templenoe; a town on the Ring of Kerry. 

The Ring of Kerry is a highly traveled route by tourists; which means there are an awful lot of tour buses along it. Driving in Ireland was very stressful for this American driver who has been back and forth across the U.S. several times. In Ireland, like the rest of the United Kingdom, drivers sit in the right front seat and they drive on the left side of the road. Every time I got in the car - I mean EVERY time without fail - I reached over my left shoulder to grab a seat belt that wasn't there. I just could not get used to being on the other side of the car and the other side of the road but I digress. 

While on the Ring of Kerry, we did note when we reached the town of Templenoe. In fact, as soon as we entered town I saw a sign pointing to the "Old Templenoe Cemetery." Cousin Peter and I figured, "ah, what the heck? Let's go look around."

It is a relatively small cemetery right on the water. Beautiful. With big old Celtic cross markers, all carved up with intricate Celtic knot patterns. Beautiful. And right smack dab in the middle there is a ruins of a church built around 1450 - you know, just like 40 years or so before Columbus reached the Western Hemisphere. 

Photo by John (Paul) Hallissey taken from https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2551046/templenoe-burial-ground-(old)

Cousin Peter and I got out and trampled about the cemetery, apologizing to the graves below. "Sorry. Pardone me. Excuse me. So sorry." Until we got all the way around and saw the gravesite of the Morley Family.

The Morley Family Plot

 Daniel Morley is Cousin Kelly's great-great grandfather. It seems to me as though the first burial in the plot was for Cousin Kelly's great-great grandmother; Abbey Meara-Morley who died in July 1885 at the age of 40. I suspect she dies in childbirth or shortly there after but have not been able to confirm that. I just see that she had a child the same year that she died. I also suspect that her maiden name was actually O'Meara and that she is the daughter of Timothy O'Meara and Julia Fogarty-O'Meara. I am still working on sorting out this family but it seems to me they want to be found.

You see, it never happens like this. I never by chance happen upon a cemetery and just wander up onto the right grave marker. I mean, more often then not I seek out a cemetery. I obtain all the possible information that I can in advance of my visit. I traipse up and down rows and rows of headstones to find no headstone at all. But here they are. And with a stone that reveals details I did not have before and a plot that groups together family members I would have otherwise have been unsure were connected.

I am convinced some ancestors just want to be found.

In the House Where He Lived

I have some patrons who bring me extremely interesting research. In my last post I wrote about Jack and his quest to find out more about the uncle he is named after who died in WWII. This past week Jack returned to my desk with an object he said I would not believe; and he was right.

Jack brought in a deep shadowbox frame; about 18"x 18" and 4 inches deep. Contained in it was a round ornate circular silver frame. At the center of which was a 3 inch circular photo of a couple in their mid to late 50s, maybe very early 60s. Curved around the top of the photo it said 1878-1903; beneath it said 2 May. Around the couple's photo were 1 inch round photos of 5 younger people; presumably their children. This was a silver wedding anniversary frame; silver in color and material, as well as in the fact that it is a 25th anniversary commemorative frame.

Jack proceeded to tell me how this was in the home his parents bought in 1969 in Flushing, Queens, NY. Jack surprisingly knew the name of the previous homeowner. Do you know the name of the person who owned the house you grew up in? I sure as heck don't.

Even though their was no indication on the object as to who was in the photos, Jack believed it belonged to the former homeowner and wanted to get it back to the family. The former homeowner's name was George Washington Anger. I guess that is a pretty hard name to forget.

A search for George quickly resulted in finding his WWI draft registration card. The card confirmed that George lived in Flushing and it provided his date of birth which made subsequent searches much easier.

From there we back up through the U.S. Federal Census records, 1940 to 1930 to 1920 etc, to find George living with his parents at the address Jack had grown up at. Sure enough, George was 1 of 5 children of August and Caroline Anger.

1900 Census

Turning our interest to the parents, we found their marriage record in the New York, New York Marriage Index as, wouldn't you have it, 2 May 1878. This frame was theirs and those photos were these people we had seen in all these records.

Jack then asked if we could find any living family members. I always tell my patrons that it is easier to find the dead than it is to find the living. We took a shot though and searched the public family trees on Ancestry.com. We found someone who appeared to be the great-great grandson of August and Caroline. Using my personal Ancestry.com account I was able to email the tree owner through Ancestry. I could see this Ancestry user was an active researcher because he had had an account since 2012 and had last logged in 2 days before.

We simply sent a note saying I was a genealogy librarian working with a patron who had an object that might be of interest to him if he was indeed related to this couple.

Today Jack and I received a reply to that email saying that yes, those are his great-great grandparents and that he would be delighted to know what we have in store for him.

I know that it is Jack's wish to see this object back in the hands of a family member who will love and cherish it as much as he has all these years - these strangers whose house he once lived in.

Souls without Heirs

Direct ancestors get researched all the time. Their graves are often visited and well tended, but those who left no heir, and sometimes not even a single record (like children who died between the censuses), those souls call to me.

Like my Cousin Mary over at Heritage & Vino I too have a strong affinity for those family members who left no heirs. Cousin Mary recently wrote about the siblings, Rebecca & Jacob Raynor; neither married but both obviously left strong impressions on the nieces and nephews around them.

I have recently been struggling to obtain a birth record from the City of New York for my relative, John Fay, who died in WWII and left no heirs. Part of the struggle is that I am not his direct descendant. I just want to document his existence for my family. Don't get me started...

BUT I have recently had some brilliant success, though, helping a patron connect with people that I will call his cousins even though they aren't really. Let me explain.

My patron, who I will call Jack, came to see me in search of information about the uncle he was named after but never knew. Uncle Jack died in WWII and is buried oversees. This patron came with a photo in hand of his Uncle Jack besides a woman who we believe to be Uncle Jack's wife; her name was unknown.

After some poking around on Ancestry.com we found a record for Uncle Jack in the U.S. Headstone and Interment Records for U.S. Military Cemeteries on Foreign Soil, 1942 - 1949 dataset. Had we just looked at the indexed information and not opened the actual image file we would have never seen the note that in 1965 a woman in Missouri requested a photo of Uncle Jack's headstone in France.

We both suspected this woman, Helen, might be Uncle Jack's wife and so we set off on researching what became of her which lead us to a post on FindAGrave.com that included a photo of Helen. Although the FindAGrave photo showed a woman much older then the one in the photo with Uncle Jack, there was definitely a resemblance. I reached out to the FindAGrave contributor to see if perhaps he was related to the woman in the photo he posted.

In short time I received a response from the contributor. Unfortunately he was not related to Helen but he got the image from her online obituary which he sent to me. The obituary was a gem. It told of her life with great detail and mentioned that the last feat she wanted to accomplish before her passing was to write an autobiography. At the end of the obituary it listed all her children and their spouses by name and the cities they lived in when she passed in 2016.

I immediately went to Facebook and searched for her children who all had quite unusual names. I wrote to three people who I was 99% certain would be her kids but I still wasn't sure if Helen was Uncle Jack's wife. I told them that I was a NY genealogist working with a man who might have a connection to their mother. I asked if they had ever heard of her having a first husband who died in WWII. If so, I asked if I could get a copy of her autobiography. The next morning I received a response.

Yes, my mom Helen's first husband was [Jack], who died in WWII. ...As for the autobiography, it is 109 pages long and I only have my copy. Pages 19 through 24 are about [the Uncle Jack].

This was them. This was my patron's uncle's widow's family. That being said, obviously, there is no biological connection between my patron and these children of Helen; especially given the fact Helen's children are all adopted. But what makes family is not simply genetics.

Souls who leave no heirs does not mean they did not leave family, they most certainly did. They loved and influenced people around them and those energies emit long passed one's lifetime.

Dear Representative

Anyone who has been reading my recent posts knows that I am now on the path of learning all I can about my first cousin twice removed, John Michael Fay.

I recently acquired the marriage record for my great aunt, Anna Josephine Fay-McGarry which shows that John was her witness at her wedding.

On the marriage certificate recorded John's address as it was in 1943. That address confirmed for me another record which included his date of birth. John was born on 8 May 1919.

With the help of a contact at the NYC Municipal Archives I learned that the New York, New York, Birth Index, 1910-1965 is available on Ancestry.com. The NYC Municipal Archives, however does not have the birth certificates. They are held by the New York City Department of Health, Office of Vital Records. But get this...

I cannot have access to the record unless my name is on it as the child or the parent. 

Um, John was born in 1919. This birth record is nearly 99 years old and he has been dead for 73 years having died in WWII. Yet, I can't get his record?

I'm willing to pay the $15 fee. I'm even willing to go get the application request form notarized as New York City Department of Health requires but um, no. I was told that unfortunately I am not eligible to order that record.

Now I know I am not dealing with New York State but rather New York City. Just so you know, though, you can order a birth certificate from New York State "if [the birth certificate has been] on file for at least 75 years and the person whose name is on the birth certificate is known to be deceased." 

Again John's record has been on file for nearly 99 years and John has been dead for 73 years. His parents are long gone. John left no heirs. What could possibly be "wrong" with me having a copy of this record?

So, I wrote to my representative in Congress. 

I'm getting that damn record.

Is This Them in the 1920 Census?

When introducing newcomers to genealogical research I first stress the importance of family history interviewing. The first record type I direct them to, though, is the census.

Census taking is not unique to the United States by any means. If you are familiar with the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph were on the way to Nazareth to be counted in a census. A lot of countries have taken censuses for far longer that the United States.

The U.S. started creating census records in 1790 and we have taken it every ten years since; on the years ending in "0." The most recently released U.S. census is the 1940 census. These records are only released to the public when they are 72 years old. The aggregate data is released rather quickly. That is to say one can find out the statistics about the demographics of their towns, states, or the country as a whole not long after the census is complete but to look at the actual records you must wait 72 years.

That retention schedule, as it is called in archives land, is based on life expectancy. It is assumed that in 72 years most of the people recorded in that census will have passed away and if not they will certainly be living with different family groups. This schedule is set to protect individuals' identities and personal histories. That is not to say that I have not had many clients who can find themselves in the 1940 census; I have. Many people come to genealogy later in life. It is kind of exciting to see someone see themselves listed on a census.

It is however rare to find a family group that extend back through the censuses without some finagling of search terms. Sometimes you have to use variant spellings or remove the dates of birth from your search criteria. Something.

You should start looking for your relatives in the most recent census, the 1940, and move back one decade at a time to the 1930, then 1920, and so on. Keeping in mind that the 1890 census no longer exists as it was destroyed after the Commerce Department Building in Washington D.C. caught fire in January 1921 and that the 1850 census is the first to list every member of the household, there are really 9 censuses I'm always looking for. Census records before 1850 are there but not terribly easy to use.

That is my dream though; to find a family group evolve from 1940 to 1850 in each and every available census. In my experience that is a rarity. There is always at least 1 of those 9 censuses which proves to be challenging to find "the family" in. 

For example, I could not find my great grandparents in the 1930 for a really long time. That was because the penmanship of the original census taker made the name Earle look like Carle and so the indexer who ultimately put it online listed it as Carle. It took me years to find the record. It didn't happen  until I searched by a combination of the first names of the household member and left out the last name entirely.

But the dream, oh the dream, to collect them all brings great satisfaction when it happens. Today it happened for me, I think. 

I was looking more closely at census records for my great grandfather's sibling's family; Marion Fay-Leechin. Specifically I was looking for her eldest son, John Michael Fay. 

• 1940: I saw Marion listed as Mary in the 1940 census at age 42 married to Thomas Leechin with 5 children including her son John Fay, age 20.
• 1930: She is listed as Marion Lee, age 32, living with her mother Agnes Fay, 2 children and 2 boarders. One of those two children is John Fay, age 10.
• 1920: I couldn't find her, or her mother, or John in 1920. More to come on this below.
• 1910: Marion was listed as Mary, age 12, living with her parents, Michael and Agnes Fay, 4 siblings (including my great grandfather James Fay), and her mother's aunt.
• 1900: Marion is just 2 living with her parents and 5 siblings. One of her siblings does not survive to the 1920 census.
• 1880: Marion is not yet born and thus not recorded in the 1880 census. Her parents are not yet even married. Michael Fay is 26 years old, living with his widowed mother and several siblings in Manhattan. Her mother, then known as Agnes Joyce, is 15 living with her parents and siblings in Manhattan.
• 1870: I find Michael Fay again living with his parents.
• 1860: Again I see Michael Fay with his parents.
• 1850: Michael Fay was not born until 1851 but in 1850 his parents are living together in some sort of boarding house or with friends or family in Saugerties, NY.

The dream. The Fay Family in every census. OH. Except that 1920 census. Where is Marion Fay? 

Was she married? Is that why I can't find her? Does she have a different last name? 

But what about her son who had his mother's maiden name later in his life - John Fay, did he have a different name at birth? He would have been about 7 months old at the time the 1920 census was taken. 

Maybe Marion is listed as Mary again? Am I looking for Mary Fay? Mary something else? She would have been about 22 years old. 

Marion/Mary may have been living with her widowed mother, Agnes Fay, who would have been about 54 years-old. Would she have had a different name too?

So I did a search specifically in the 1920 census for a John Fay born in 1919. And I finally came across this:

Could this be them? Agnes Fay listed as Fay, Tillie , age 54, widow; Marion listed as F. Manny, daughter, age 22, single; and John Fay, son, age 7/12 meaning 7 months old. If so, does it seem to you that Agnes was the head of a Shelter for Mothers with Children?

Is this them?

Uncle Frank's First Family : Part 2

Back on January 2 I wrote a post about my Great Aunt Ann and her husband Frank. Ancestry.com had suggested some records for Uncle Frank that indicated that he had been married before Ann. It made me curious enough that I ordered Frank and Ann's marriage records from the New York City Municipal Archives right away. The record arrived yesterday.

The three pages of documentation include an Affidavit for License to Marry, a form filled out by hand; a Marriage License, which is typed but identical in content to the previous document; and a Marriage Certificate for Anna Josephine Fay and Francis Thomas McGarry from June 1943.

The details included were pretty much as I expected; their names as I knew them to be, their dates of birth, and everything about Anna - her address in Elmhurst, place of birth, parents' names. The details include about Frank were new to me but not surprising. He was in the army, born in Pennsylvania but there it was - confirmation of his parents names. They were indeed who I thought they were; Thomas Joseph McGarry and Mary Agnes Carroll. 

The documentation states that Frank was never married before but the confirmation of his parents names affirms that the marriage record for Francis McGarry to Ruth Gifford in Dunmore, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania from 1931 is indeed my great uncle Frank as I thought.

That means those young boys for whom I found death records for are also all Frank's sons; Donald McGarry (1933-1933), Francis McGarry (1935-1935), John McGarry (1937-1937), and Baby Boy McGarry (1939-1939). When next I am in PA I plan to visit their graves at Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Dunmore.

What happened to his marriage to Ruth? Did they divorce? Did he just take off? Did Ann know he was married before?

I don't have any documentation to answer those questions but I suspect the loss of all those children was too much of a strain on Frank and Ruth to sustain their marriage. I bet they did divorce. If I had to guess I am sure my Aunt Ann knew all about Frank's previous marriage and it's demise. She didn't share it with me though.

While looking at the actual marriage certificate for Frank and Ann, I see the names of their witnesses. The maid-of-honor was Gladys McGarry; Frank's sister who I have found plenty of records for. The best man was John Michael Fay. 

Who is John Michael Fay? 

Ann only has sisters. Two of which lived to adulthood. Her older sister Margaret died as a child. Her other two sisters, Viola and my grandmother Marilyn were younger than Ann. 

Who is John Michael Fay?

...The saga continues...

This Removed Business

A client recently asked me to explain what "removed" means when speaking about family relationships. The best explanation I ever received was to replace "removed" with "a generation away." 

I think the charts provided by AncestryDNA when you have a match with someone who also has a common ancestor listed in their tree are a great way to see this "removed" business at work.

If you look at your DNA matches and you see a little leaf it means you and that match have someone in common listed in your tree resulting in a "shared ancestor hint."

Here is an example of someone and I having my forth great grandparents in common; Leonard L. Losee and Lydia Ann Smith-Losee.

Moving down the tree:

• John M. Losee Sr. and Sarah Elizabeth Losee-Combs were siblings.
• John M. Losee Jr. and Stella Combs were first cousins.
• Ethel Mae Losee-Earle and the first male listed as Private on the right would have been second cousins.
• My Grandpa Earle (the first male listed as Private on the left) would have been third cousins with the male directly across from him on the right.
• My father and the male directly across from him would be 4th cousins.
• If there were anyone across from my that person would be my 5th cousin.

This chart indicates my relationship to each person presented. See that (1x removed). That man is my father's 4th cousin; he is my 4th cousin once removed because I am one generation away from him. The man who was my grandfather's third cousin would be my third cousin too just twice removed or the two generations i am distant from him; my father being one generation away, my grandpa two generations away. 

So NO my father's cousin is not my second cousin. My father's first cousin is my first cousin...once removed.

My father's first cousins' children are my second cousins. Their kids are my second cousins once removed.

Got it?

You Are Not Them

How many jackasses do you know? 

No, I am serious. 

I encounter nearly and endless stream of them on my way to work every day. Jackasses who cut me off on the highway; unfriendly baristas who serve me up cups of annoyance; rude, inconsiderate, just generally nasty, disgruntled human beings who I could just do without. 

I can also rattle off at least half a dozen people who hate my stinkin' guts for whatever ill-conceived notion they have of me.

And thus I am always stunned by people who have this sort of admiration for they ancestors who they known nothing about except perhaps dates of birth and death. They ought to do some math. 

You have 2 parents, right? 

Four grandparents...
Eight great grandparents...
Sixteen great-greats, and so on. 

By the time you get up to your 10th great grandparents there are 4,096 of them. Add all those generations up and by your 10th great grandparents there are 8,190 people directly responsible for your existence. 

Ya think one of them might have done something awful?

Recently I had a client who I lead back to a rather famous 10th great grandparent. While reading though that individual's biography the client exclaimed, "Ugh, we were involved in wars with the natives?! Ugh. I don't like that."

I quickly stated that NO, you weren't fighting native peoples, this guy was. Some of your ancestors were not good people because, well, they were people. They made bad decisions some of which hurt others. They did this because they were, um, human.

I believe it is very important for people to learn their history for this very reason. You are not them but yet, you kind of need to own their history to some degree; in the sense that you should learn from their errors.

I'll tell you, nothing was so disturbing to me as discovering slave owners in my own direct ancestry. At 16 I saw a will of my 7th great grandfather which contained the names of two people in there among the linens and furniture. I was deeply upset and disgusted really. No one really thinks of slavery here on Long Island certainly not in the household of a prominent religious figure of the time. There was something very humbling and almost humiliating about the experience. 

But ya know what? 
I don't own slaves but I do own that history. I make it my business to treat people of all races with respect and I do all I can to make others aware of the history of their ancestors and community. 

So for those of you who can trace their ancestry back 300 or 400 years or more and enjoy boasting about your forefather (and mothers), you might want to take a breath and examine those ancestors lives. Ask yourself why you are so eager to own those individuals who chartered their way to this continent but not the bank robbers, bigamists, and generally bad people you might find...because guess what, you aren't any of them. And yet, you are all of them. The sins of the father are not the sins of the son. Those sins are the lessons you get to learn without any of the guilt and none of the glory.

Substitute Soldier

When the U.S. Civil War began in April of 1861 able bodied men came out in droves to volunteer for both the Union and Confederate forces. By late 1862 though the patriotic fervor which fueled the volunteerism began to grind to a halt as the battles began to claim more and more lives and the end seemed nowhere in sight. 

Drafts were instituted by both the North and South. Shortly there after the hiring of substitutes to serve in one's stead became a common and acceptable practice; first in the South and then in the North. 

The Enrollment Act, which you can read all about on Wikipedia and through their referenced resources, was enacted on March 3, 1863 and it allowed for 2 methods of avoiding service once drafted; commutation or substitution. 

Commutation was a $300 fee a draftee could pay to the government to get out of service for that draft. Those fees helped to fund the war effort but it didn't raise troops. However, if another draft was run that man could be called up again despite payment of the fee in the first round draft. Hiring a substitute to go in your place could was not necessarily cheaper than paying the commutation but by finding a substitute one was exempted from service throughout the duration of the war. Hiring a substitute gave the government a soldier and the soldier a cash incentive. Basically, men chosen for service via the draft lotteries could pay their way out of serving. If you had money you could get out of duty. That reality lead to the Civil War being called a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. 

Don't kid yourself into believing that your Civil War soldier was strictly out there sacrificing himself for cause. Often there was the incentive of money to serve. 

 Why do I know about this aspect of the war? Well this history lesson was sponsored in part by E.D. Childs of Catskill, New York who paid my 3rd great-grandfather, Lawrence Fay of Saugerties, New York to serve in his place. 

This here is a snippet taken from the New York, Town Clerks' Registers of Men Who Served in the Civil War, 1861-1865 for the County of Greene, New York.

I know this is my Lawrence Fay not only because of his hometown of Saugerties and place of birth as Ireland but also because of his occupation as a blacksmith. You can see under his name the name E. D. Childs Catskills. That would be the man for whom Lawrence served as a substitute.

Uncle Frank's First Family???

My mother's side of the family is not very close knit. I think that is due in part to the fact that my grandmother passed away very young. I have observed that it is typically the mother that holds extended family relationships together. I did, however, know my grandmother's sister, Ann.

When I was in my teens I would spend my summers in Florida; one month with my with my father's sister's family and one month with my maternal grandfather. Grandpa always made sure that I got to spend a day with his sister-in-law, my Aunt Ann.

I didn't get the sense that Grandpa and Ann were close. They simply lived near each other in Florida. He never stayed for the visits I had with Aunt Ann. He would just drop me off there at her condo for the day.

This was in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Thus it was after Ann's husband, Frank had passed away. I do however, vaguely remember my great uncle, Francis Thomas McGarry. My spotty memory clearly recalls his spotty memory. Uncle Frank suffered from Alzheimer's disease at the end of his life. I recall Ann and Frank coming for a visit to NY and stopping by our house with my great grandmother in tow. I was little. It was around the time of my parents' divorce; maybe 1982 or so. I recall Frank as tall and lanky and that Aunt Ann repeatedly told him that they were at Carol's house.

My mother, the aforementioned Carol, repeatedly told me that she loved her Uncle Frank dearly. Ann and Frank were childless and doted on their nieces and nephews as far as I could tell. I knew from my mother's stories that Frank was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and was significantly older than Ann; 15 years older. Apparently Ann's parents were not happy about the age difference. However, Frank was warm, loving, and very generous so ultimately I suppose they accepted him. So when a hint popped up for Uncle Frank on my Ancestry tree today I explored it.

If this hint is correct Uncle Frank may have been married before. And if that is the case, he and his first wife appear to have had several children all of whom died very young; all boys Donald age 4 months died in 1933, Francis age 1 day died in 1935, John age 3 days died in 1937, and Baby Boy McGarry was just a few hours old when he died in 1939.

Is this my Uncle Frank's first family? If I had any relationship with my mother I would ask her if she knew if Frank was married before Aunt Ann. Would my mother even know? Did Ann know? I can't figure out what happened to the first wife, if this indeed is a first wife.

I see a Frank McGarry and wife Ruth in the Scranton City Directory for 1937 living at 407 Madison Avenue in Scranton. And then I see Ruth in the Scranton City Directory for 1940 living at 641 Madison Avenue, no mention of Frank. Hmm...

Then I came across the marriage license number for Ann and Frank in Manhattan in 1943. Today I am going to order that document from the New York City Municipal Archives to see if there is any indication as to Frank being married once before. To some extent it is cheaper to go into the Archives to get the record but its 11 degrees out this morning and the cost of the train ticket...eh, I'll just order it.

Stay tuned...

Because That Is What We Do

I was recently ask how far can I trace my family tree back. The answer is to the birth of my 13th great grandfather Robert Reynere in about 1525 in Wickham Market, England.

What does that really me to me?

Well, it says I descend from some white people who lit out from their homeland for a new start in a new world because of religious persecution; because they believed in something else. It means that my 10th great grandfather, Edward Raynor, obtained some notoriety on this continent such that someone thought it important to write down the name of his great grandfather. Really, it's interesting but what does it mean to me?

Shrug.

Edward Raynor was orphaned when he was about 8 years old. His parents Samuel and Mary died in about 1632. His paternal uncle, Thurston Raynor, brought Edward with him to the New World when he migrated across the ocean with his own family in 1634.

Edward was an orphan. His paternal uncle took him in. For a long time it was assumed by later generations of historians that Thurston was Edward's father until some wills were uncovered.

His uncle took him in.

Now that has meaning to me there. That act of caring for family members is something I see as a common thread through my family history.

My parents divorced when I was about 10. My mother's niece ran away from home in her late teens. When she came to New York, my father, her former uncle by marriage, took her in. He was under no obligation to do this but this is what we do. Her uncle took her in.

I have heard stories about when my father was younger how his parents took in cousins for short, and sometimes long, stints of time while they could get on their feet.

In fact, after my parents divorced, my father went back home to his parents' house because...he could. That is what they do. You can just come home.

I struggled to find my Earle great grandparents in the 1930 census. In correctly transcribed as Carle, I eventually found them and when I did, great grandpa had his brother-in-law living with them because, well, again, that is what we do. Whether it's your brother or her brother or a niece of nephew of some ilk, you take them in.

When great grandpa Earle left New Foundland after the death of his mother, he and his older sister went to Boston. It took me a long time to find them then but when I found his eldest sister Susan I was not surprised to see she was living with her maternal aunt because... that is what we do. Her uncle (by marriage) took her in.

I have at least a dozen more example but when asked what it means to me to be able to trace my family history back to a birth in 1525 it means I can point to nearly 400 years of real family. Real family being relatives, sometimes distant, who take in those struggling members of the gene pool to give them support to get up on their own two feet. They do this not because they have to but simply because that is what we do.