Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I've been thinking about the rest of the Madigans lately. . .

Finding the rest of Matthew and Johanna Madigan's family in the 1892 NYS Census got me thinking about that part of the family. I've ignored them a little bit; maybe I'm guilty of stereotyping the "ugly stepmother." I'd never found Johanna Madigan in 1920, though I'd found her, with daughter Loretta, in 1900 and 1910. I assumed that that was because I'd looked and never found her. I don't think I had, because as soon as I typed her name in Ancestry.com's search engine tonight, she popped up, first name on the list, living with her younger brother Michael Roach.

She's 59 and widowed; he's 57 and appears to be married, though his wife isn't in the household. They live at 271 Sackett St. (This appears to be 8 or 9 blocks from where her step-daugher Mary Madigan Mulcahy was living with her family at 85 Luqueer St.) Michael is a watchman at a dock.

I'd found a couple earlier census that I thought might have been Johanna living with her parents' family, but never had any corroborating evidence. (Can you tell I'm watching Law & Order as I type?) With this evidence that her brother was named Michael, I'm more encouraged to think that it's actually her, and I'll post that soon.

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