So instead I'm going to write about a connection I made on Ancestry that passed along family history that was not "passed down."
I have tried to do a bit of family history research for my brother-in-laws' families in case my young nieces every become interested in their paternal lines. I've also done some research on my step parents' families for the same reasons.
For a wide variety of reasons, death and estrangement among them, I didn't have much to work with on any of these families. When speaking with my brother-in-law's father, he was forthcoming but didn't really know much. I sensed he was estranged from his mother and siblings although he didn't come out and say that. In general, it sounded as though my brother-in-law was much closer to his maternal side of his family.
Prior to the birth of my first niece, though, I decided to build her a family tree. In fact, for her christening I made her a shadow box of a family tree for her.
You can see there is one line, on the far left, where I couldn't get further back than my brother-in-law's great grandparents. I stuck some satin flowers in there to maintain the illusion of fullness but I couldn't get further than James J. McMahon of Jersey City, New Jersey & his first wife Nora.
I was able to figure out that James had 2 wives; the first of which my brother-in-law is descended from. I am assuming the first wife died and James remarried to a woman named Delia. On his oldest daughter's Social Security Claim & Application info, she listed her mother as Nora Kane, not the woman named Delia who was living with her in the 1930 census.
From there I came across a potential marriage license for James and Nora. Once I received it from the New York City Clerk's Office, I began to poke around on Ancestry for other trees which may have possessed a hint or two. I contacted a woman whose tree had a Nora Keane married to a James McMahon. Kane? Keane?
She immediately wrote back to me a lengthy response, which is not typical on Ancestry. Generally people use Ancestry for a brief time and then abandon their accounts, likely due to the expense of an annual subscription. You write them but you may never hear back from them and if you do, they tend to have just copied their tree from some other Ancestry user. There is a lot of bad research out there.
In any case, this Ancestry user, who I will call Bonnie, wrote back and said that she had referenced my tree in her research and that if I was willing to share my personal email address, she would send me two files she had obtained from James McMahon's nephew. One of which was a family tree compiled by my brother-in-law's grandmother.
Whaaaat? A family tree written by my brother-in-law's grandmother? And he knew nothing about it?? How did Bonnie have this? Why didn't Margaret's son know any of this? My brother-in-law's grandma was into genealogy!
So it skipped a generation or two but here Bonnie was able to give my niece, now nieces, something back that I might have never been able to piece together on my own including family stories in their great grandmother's own words.
James Joseph McMahon was born on July 2, 1887 in Doonmore, Killard, County Clare, Ireland and died on August 6, 1960 in Jersey City, New Jersey. His first wife was Nora Keane, born March 17, 1897 in Derryard, Doonbeg, County Clare, Ireland, less than 2 miles from where James was born, died on February 16, 1927 in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The couple had more than just my brother-in-law's grandmother, Margaret, their oldest child. Margaret had a younger sister Alice Joan who lived to be 71. There were also 3 younger siblings who all dies as infants - James Andrew, Clare, and an unnamed infant.
Nora was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, New Jersey, along with her infant children.
I suppose that tree has really been "passed around" more so than it has been "passed down" but it is still good to have. Thanks, Bonnie.
No comments:
Post a Comment