The Martins Gillan

When we were recently in Ireland, we visited with several of my Gillan cousins, who showed me the family's old homestead in Tawnykinaffe, Co. Mayo. They were kind enough to give me a copy of a photograph of my 3x great-grandfather Martin Gillan:

Martin Gillan and Martin Gillan, c. 1912
Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland

Standing next to Martin Gillan (seated) is his grandson, Martin Gillan, son of the elder Martin's son Michael. The younger Martin was born c. 1900, and the best estimate of the date of the picture is around 1912, based on the belief that he looks to be about 12 here. I'm told that the photo was taken at the studio of a professional photographer in Castlebar.

This makes two photographs I have of Martin Gillan, which is two more than I have of any of my other 3x great-grandparents. He lived nearly another 20 years after this picture was taken, and the other photo, which was sent to me by another Gillan cousin a couple of years ago, was clearly taken much closer to the end of his life.

As far as I'm aware, there are no extant photographs of Martin's wife Honor Grimes Gillan. I don't know exactly when she died, but she was alive when the 1911 Census was enumerated, so she lived well into the age of photography, and I continue to hold out hope that a picture of her will show up eventually.

Finding Louisa

My 2x great-grandmother, Julia Toner Mulvaney, had a sister named Louisa. Born around 1857, Louisa Toner seemed to disappear from the census records after 1875, and for the longest time, I couldn't find any evidence of her until her death in 1918.

In 1860, Louisa, 3, is enumerated with her family in South Brooklyn:

Toner family, 1860

In 1865, Louisa is 8 years old:

Toner family, 1865

In 1870, Louisa, 13, is at school:

In 1875, Louisa, 17, is living with her family, including her married sister Elizabeth and brother-in-law Thomas Loughlin:

Toner and Loughlin families, 1875

In 1880, I can't find any of the Toner family on the federal census, and in 1892, I can't find anyone but the Loughlins on the NYS census.

After that, the rest of the surviving Toner children - Julia, Elizabeth, and Mary Toner Murphy - show up in census records with their families. But not Louisa. I couldn't find a single record of her until she died in 1918. At some point, she married a man by the name of Deegan, according to both familial memory and her death certificate, but I have no idea what his first name was. Family lore says that he made buttons, but even with that information, city directories have proved no help. Despite the fact that Louisa's death certificate claims that she was a life-long resident of New York City, there was no evidence of her life between her teens and her 50s. For years, the preceding part of this post was all I knew about Louisa.

Louisa's death certificate lists her residence as 391 Baltic St. at her death in 1918, but I've had trouble finding the enumeration for this address in the 1915 NYS Census, even when I page through each sheet of AD 08 ED 02, which is where Steve Morse's AD/ED Finder tool suggests the building should be.

Louisa is buried in a grave with my 2x great-aunt, Auntie Mae; Mae's husband Uncle Johnny; and an infant named Charlotte Reade who seemed unconnected to the rest of the family. I ordered baby Charlotte's death certificate, though, and when it arrived recently, I realized I'd been mistaken. Not only is she not unconnected to the family, but might she be the only connection we have to Mr. Deegan's family?

Excerpt from the death certificate of Charlotte Reade, Brooklyn NY, 17 July 1918

Charlotte's parents' names are given as John Reade and Minerva Deegan. Her home address, of 391 Warren St., puts her living right around the corner from Louisa's home at 391 Baltic. I didn't know who Minerva Deegan was, but my first guess was that she might be a sister of our Mr. Deegan. The truth never even occurred to me.

I went searching for Minerva Deegan, hoping her unusual first name would be easier to find than a Louisa in a haystack, or a Mr. Deegan whose first name I didn't even know. If I could find a link to the Deegan family through her, it might lead me to Louisa eventually.

That's sort of what happened.

The first record I found was of a Minerva Deegan who was the daughter of "Niele" and Louisa Deegan, living at home with her parents and an Irish-born servant, Mary Doren.

Deegan Family, 1900

Why this record never showed up in all the years I spent searching for Louisa Deegan I may never know, but I'd certainly never seen it before.  Minerva was born in May 1882, and it gives us a name for Mr. Deegan - though that name would prove less useful than I might have hoped. That the Deegans employed a servant struck me as a little unusual, because I assumed that a "cloak cutter" - Niele's occupation - was a low-level garment industry job. Asking around revealed that it's actually a highly-skilled garment industry job and might well bring a good wage.

Minerva soon disappears from the Deegan family, and it's probably because she grew up and got married to John Reade. On top of that, "Niele" is not the name by which Mr. Deegan is enumerated through the next few decades. Nonetheless, these Deegans - who had proved so elusive for so long - suddenly started popping up like crocuses in springtime.

Deegan Family, 1905

 In the 1905 NYS Census, the family consists of Louise and William Degan, and they're living in Manhattan, not Brooklyn. However, Mr. Deegan is still a cloak cutter, and all their other information matches, so I feel pretty confident that this is the correct couple.

Deegan Family, 1910

In the 1910 Federal Census, the household consists of William B. and Louise Degan and a boarder, Henry Wagner. They're still living in Manhattan, and William's job is given as a "Cutter" in the "Clothing" industry.

Deegan Family, 1915

In the 1915 NYS Census, William and Louise Deegan and a boarder (Harry Buston) are still living in Manhattan - this despite Louisa's home address being in Brooklyn when she died a mere 3 years later. William is a "Clothing cutter."

I have yet to find more information about Minerva Deegan Reade in the years between when she's enumerated with her parents in 1900 and when her daughter dies in 1918. Despite her unusual name, she isn't showing up easily for me this time around. Stay tuned for an update when, with any luck, I track down the rest of the Deegan and Reade families.

My Missing Mary

I am having the hardest time figuring out what's going on with my O'Hara family in the first decade of the 1900s, after they returned from a brief sojourn in their Irish homeland. The family consisted of parents John O'Hara and Mary E. King, and children John J., Eugene W., Patrick, Malinda, and Mary.

In 1900, they're enumerated in Brooklyn, at 253 Clinton Ave. (John, Mary E., John J., Eugene)
In 1901, their son Patrick was born, on 15 Dec., at Castle St., Castlebar Co. Mayo, Ireland.
On 1 May 1902, they arrived back in NYC.  (John, Mary, John, Eugene, Patrick)
On 6 April 1905, their daughter Malinda was born in Brooklyn and, 10 days later, baptized at St. Augustine's Catholic Church.
In June 1905, they were enumerated at 586 Baltic St. (John, Mary, John, Eugene, Pacey, Malina)
In April 1910, they were enumerated at 527 Baltic St. (John, Mary, John Jr., Eugene, Patrick, Melinda)
On 29 Oct 1910, Malinda died at home, at 527 Baltic St., age 5 1/2.
On 20 September 1911, their daughter Mary died at home, at 527 Baltic St., age 3.

Who?

Mary O'Hara existed according to both family lore and her death certificate. Both put her at 3 years of age at her death in 1911. And yet there's no evidence of her life. She's not a between-the-censuses baby. She was alive - she was about 2 - in 1910. But she's missing from the one census that should be a record of her. And although the O'Hara family lived in the same 2-block stretch of Baltic St. from 1905 through 1911, she was not baptized at St. Augustine's Church (116 6th Ave.), the nearby church where her sister had been baptized a few years earlier. I haven't been able to get a response from any of the other Catholic churches that I've contacted in the neighborhood. If they were switching churches, there must have been something going on, some story behind it. (I attend Mass at a few different local churches, depending on my schedule, but I can't imagine celebrating my family's important sacraments all over the place willy-nilly - not without a good reason.)

I have a baptismal certificate for Malinda, and death certificates for both girls. I've just requested a birth certificate for Malinda, and I've requested one for a Mary O'Hara. (There are a good half a dozen other Mary O'Haras born in Brooklyn between 1907 and 1909 who could be my missing Mary, and if this one's not right, I'll be requesting the rest of them next.)

There are lots of between-the-censuses babies in my family tree, and each of them has a sad story. But I can't get Mary out of my mind. Because she's not. Because she should be there, and she's missing. And it make me so curious - where is she? - at the same time that it makes me so sad. I hate that there's no record of this little girl except her death, especially when there definitely should be.

"He was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland"

Since I discovered a few weeks ago that the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union had been added to the Fulton History website, I've been working my way through searching for all of my Brooklyn families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hands down, the most crucial discovery I've made was in the 14 Jan 1914 obituary of my 2x great-grandfather, Hugh Quinn.

Brooklyn Daily Standard Union, 14 Jan 1914

The Quinn line has been the only line whose Irish origins I haven't been able to locate. A relative had found a birth record for a Hugh Quinn in Co. Antrim, but it set off all sorts of warning bells for me. The Co. Antrim Hugh Quinn is the only one of approximately the right age who shows up when you search Irish birth record indexes, and I've suspected that for that reason, an assumption was made that he was the only Hugh Quinn, and that he had to be our Hugh Quinn. But his parents' names didn't match those on my great-great-grandfather's death certificate, and a birthplace in Northern Ireland just didn't seem right. I couldn't put my finger on why, but it just didn't seem right.

This obituary states that Hugh James Quinn "was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland," and that does make sense. His wife was from outside Castlebar. She maintained extremely close ties to her family, even after immigrating. Two of his daughters would go on to marry the sons of other Castlebar-area natives. It just makes more sense that Hugh, too, would be from County Mayo, and I admit I'm glad that I wasn't crazy for secretly suspecting that he might be, too.

I've started looking for Hugh Quinn in Co. Mayo, and so far, I can't find him. Castlebar is a major city, and I can't assume that he was actually born in Castlebar proper, as opposed to in one of the many small towns outside the city. Still, I have a substantially narrower geographic area to focus on now than I did before I checked the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union.

I'd searched the Brooklyn Daily Eagle extensively, but let this be a lesson to you: checking one newspaper is never enough!

Grandma Gatto's SS-5: Another piece of the puzzle

The family stories that my grandfather told always presented one view of his mother's immigration story. The paper trail says something a bit different. Hoping for a real answer, I ordered her Social Security Application.

My great-grandmother was Maria Stella D'Ingeo Gatto. Grandpa's version of the story says she was born in Italy, and after her mother died (in childbirth with her youngest sister), her father decided to move the family to America. On the way over, the immigration quota was fulfilled, and the ship was turned away. It went to Rio de Janiero, Brazil, and the family disembarked there. They stayed there for a number of years, during which time one of Maria's brothers was killed, run over by a wagon. They eventually continued their journey to America, and arrived in New York.

As I started researching this family line, though, I found documents that seemed to contradict this. The family's immigration papers showed them arriving in New York in 1917, which is prior to the imposition of the first European immigration quotas that I'm aware of, in 1924. They were also traveling directly from Italy - not from Brazil at all. Everyone in the family is listed as being Italian-born, though I can't for the life of me read the name of the town where they were born. (It should be Toritto. They're supposed to be from Toritto. But I don't think it says Toritto.)

Do you think this says Toritto?

And then I started finding American census records listing my great-grandmother and at least one of her sisters as having been born in Brazil.

1930 Census, giving South America as the birthplace for Maria D'Ingeo Gatto, as well as her parents

1940 Census giving Brazil as the birthplace for Maria D'Ingeo Gatto

1930 Census giving Brazil as the birthplace for Giovanna D'Ingeo DeGaetano, and Italy as the birthplace of her parents

Given their frequently misspelled Italian last names and their habit of taking on Americanized versions of their Italian birth names, these are the only census records I can find of the D'Ingeos as adults. Frustratingly, the 1940 Census for the Gatto family does not indicate who provided the information (this is omitted for all families on the page), so I don't know how reliable it is.

I ordered Grandma Gatto's (Maria D'Ingeo's) SS-5 a few months ago, in hopes of an answer to this question. Once more, the paper trail supports the born-in-Brazil hypothesis.

Maria D'Ingeo Gatto, SS-5

In this incompletely dated document (the last digit of the year is left off, leaving us to wonder "Nineteen fifty what?"), the information provided by my great-grandmother says that she was born on 27 September 1902 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sout Americia [sic]. She spells her maiden name and her mother's maiden name differently than I've ever seen them before, with D'Ingeo spelled as Di Gugeo and Page as Paich. (If it's true that her mother died when she was a young girl, of course, her mother's maiden name might have had little relevance in her life, and she may never have needed to know how to spell it "right.")

Evidence is mounting that my great-grandmother was born in Brazil, but I don't know the first thing about Brazilian geography, history, or research. I keep hoping for the Brazilian collections on FamilySearch to be indexed, but most aren't so far, and the "Brazilian Catholic Church Records" set requires you to know the parish or be sentenced to search through every Catholic baptism in the city - in Portugese. Looks like I need to do some serious learning.

Family History Tour: Park Slope

Over Memorial Day weekend, some friends and I had a picnic in Prospect Park to celebrate our many birthdays (several of which fall in the last week of May). Afterward, I dragged my husband (and he dragged the cooler) on a family history tour of the neighborhood. (That's what you get to do when it's (nearly) your birthday.)

I started out taking excited pictures of St. Saviour's School, where my grandfather, William James O'Hara, attended elementary school. Then I noticed the cornerstone, proclaiming that the building had been built in 1956, the year my 26-year grandfather was married.

We later ran into a gentleman who I think was the parish priest, when he mistook us for a couple searching for the baptism prep class. (Not quite yet, Father!) I asked about the original school, and he told me that a large house that had been used as the school had stood on the same spot where the current building now stands. I found a very brief history of the parish and school, complete with a sketch of what I might guess is the original school building, on the school website, suggesting that my grandfather would have attended grammar school in the old brick house known as "The Little Red Schoolhouse."

St. Saviour's School, Park Slope, Brooklyn

 We also took pictures of the outside of the church, which is where my grandfather was baptized. I tried to get inside to take interior photos, but at 6:30 in the evening on Memorial Day, I wasn't surprised to find the doors locked. (I was surprised that the parish was actually expecting new parents to show up to baptism prep class at that hour on the holiday!)

The cornerstone, dated 1906, shows that unlike the school, the church building was actually standing during my grandfather's childhood.

I also took pictures of 505 6th Street, the building where my grandfather spent his childhood. It was owned by his grandparents, John and Mary (King) O'Hara, and his parents, John and Mary (Quinn) O'Hara were tenants in one of several apartments in the building.

Unfortunately, there was scaffolding on the building next to 505 6th., and so it was impossible to get a picture of the entire building. Instead, I took a photo (above) of the door and address, and a photo (below) of the upper part of the building.

My grandfather used to tell us that because they lived across the street from the hospital (New York Methodist Hospital), there were often cars on their street at a time when cars were not necessarily common on other streets in Brooklyn. He told stories of playing stickball in the street and asking hospital visitors to move their cars, because, "Hey Mister, you're parked on third base!" (In the stories, they always moved their cars. Whether this was because it was a simpler time, with easier parking, or because of rose-colored nostalgia glasses, I'm not sure.)

View of NY Methodist Hospital from outside 505th 6th Street.

My great-great-grandmother, my grandfather's "Nanny," or Mary Gillan Quinn, lived on the next block at 524 5th Street. (My great-grandparents lived with one set of in-laws upstairs and one set around the corner. Blessing or curse?) I took several photos of that building as well. Mary Gillan Quinn lived there in 1940, as well as in 1941, when she died. She lived with "Uncle Terry," her son Terrence Quinn.

I hadn't been to Park Slope since I was a very young child. Growing up, I heard lots of Pop's stories, and when I went back over the holiday weekend, I was able to situate those stories in space for the first time. As Ben dragged the cooler up and down the streets, I was reminded that Pop once told me that they don't call it Park Slope for nothing: when he was a boy, Grandma Molly used to do her shopping at the bottom of the hill. She'd bring a wagon, and the boys could ride in it as she pulled them down the hill to the store. Then she'd fill the wagon with groceries, and they would get to pull it back up the hill. (I'm not sure that Ben found that connection to my grandfather entirely comforting!)

1901 Irish Census - Gillen Family

A little before the holidays, I was contacted by a 2nd cousin twice removed on the Gillan side of the family. In composing my much-belated response to him, I realized that he had probably come across our ancestors on the 1911 Irish Census when he visited this blog, but that he hadn't found them on the 1901 Irish Census. For some reason, I never posted it, back when I was posting all of the other information about this family. 

It shows Martin Gillen, age 70 (born c. 1831), a farmer, with his wife Honor Gillen, age 60 (born c. 1841). Living in their house are their sons Michael Gillen, age 31 (born c. 1870) and his wife, daughter-in-law "Eliza," age 28 (born c. 1873), as well as their two grandchildren, Mary, age 3, and Martin, age 1. All of the adults speak both Irish and English, and all can read, but Honor cannot write.

The household appears on line 14 of Form B1. A glance upward tells me that I need to explore more of the census forms for Tawnykinaff, Co. Mayo, Ireland. There's another Gillen family, a couple Grimes families (Honor's maiden name was Grimes), a few O'Donnells (Martin had a daughter who married an O'Donnell, and her children Nora and Hugh lived with their aunt, Mary Gillen Quinn, in Brooklyn), and some Stauntons (Martin's obituary mentions a Mrs. T. Staunton, his niece).

According to this form, the Gillens had 2 "out-offices and farm steadings." Their house had walls of "stone, brick, or concrete;" a roof of "thatch, wood, or other perishable material;" "2, 3, or 4 rooms;" and 2 windows at the front.

According to the next form, Form B2 (which I'm having trouble downloading at the moment, or I'd include it), the Gillen's two out-buildings are a calf-house and a barn.

Rosa D'Ingeo's Immigration Records

For a long time, I'd had immigration records for all the D'Ingeos but one. Vincenzo's was easy to find and Domenico brought his all younger daughters over together, but Rosa's immigration record eluded me. A few weeks ago, I described the process of finding it using the always-helpful Steve Morse One-Step site.

Rosa D'Ingeo is found on line 13 of these pages. She's listed as Rosa D'Inseo, 16. She's listed as a domestic, although it appears to have been written in after the fact by someone with different handwriting than the person recording the other information. Her nearest relative "in country whence alien came" was her father, Domenico from Toritto, and she's going to New York. She had a ticket to her final destination, said she paid for her own passage, and it looks like she had $28 with her. She was being met by her brother Vincenzo, and there's an address given for him, but it's difficult to read. She was 4'8" tall and was born in Toritto, Italy.

Rosa also shows up at the back of the passenger manifest on the Record of Detained Aliens. She is, again, listed as Rosa D'Inseo. She was detained awaiting her brother, Vincenzo, whose address is here given more clearly as 221 W. 19th St.

Looking just a little harder to find Rosa D'Ingeo

I have long had the immigration records of my great-grandmother, Maria D'Ingeo Gatto and a portion of her family; she immigrated in 1917 with her father, Domenico, her sisters Angelica and Giovanna, and an unrecognized woman, Maria Lupo. The family said that they were being met by her sister Rosa; I know that she also had a brother, Vicenzo "James" D'Ingeo. I had never been able to find arrival records for Rosa or Vicenzo on Ancestry, but some time ago I searched a little harder and came up with Vicenzo's arrival records on the Ellis Island website. But I never had any luck at all finding Rosa.

Then, last week, Ben bought the Who Do You Think You Are book by Megan Smolenyak, and I read it. In it, she mentions the Steve Morse One-Step webpages. Now, of course I knew about the One-Step site. Of course I had visited the One-Step site. But it occurred to me that I had never really used the One-Step tool to systematically search for and find something that was eluding me.

I didn't even go into it looking for something I couldn't find; I went into it looking for something I knew was there. My Ancestry.com subscription has lapsed, and we're letting it stay that way for a little while longer, and then maybe discussing if it might be more worthwhile to direct our limited genealogical funds towards a different database for a time. So when I needed information about Maria and her father Domenico from their passenger manifest (and this week I'm on a computer that includes neither my saved documents nor my genealogy software), I used Steve Morse's Ellis Island Gold Form to find the passenger manifest I'd already seen, by filling in information I already knew it contained. And I realized that this long-ignored tool might be able to do what it was intended to do and help me find something I had never been able to find. So I tried a little harder, and in 15 minutes or less, I had Rosa's arrival records, dated 6 Dec 1911, where she was recorded as Rosa D'Inseo. She stated that she was meeting her brother Vicenzo and that her closest relative in Italy was her father Domenico, in Toritto. It was really her! I think I'd begun to suspect that she had married before immigrating, and I'd never find her arrival records without knowing her married name. But it turns out that I just wasn't looking hard enough!

Later this week I'll share Rosa's elusive arrival records with you!

(The above post includes Amazon.com affiliate links.)

Timing is Everything

This actually just happened. If you look closely at the above screenshot, you'll see that I opened the Brooklyn Historical Society's Photo of the Week e-mail this morning, to find a picture of one of the dry docks of Todd Shipyard in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Now look even closer, at the other tabs that were open when I got that e-mail. One of them was a brief history of Todd Shipyards. Another was a search I'd done for "todd" in Emma, the BHS "Archives, Manuscripts, & Special Collections" catalog.

Here's a screen shot for another window I had open at the time:

I'd been about to compose a request to the Brooklyn Historical Society to ask whether they had any collections pertaining to the Todd Shipyards facilities in Brooklyn.

I spent yesterday at the Library of Congress reading Every Kind of Ship Work: A History of Todd Shipyards Corporation. I spent last night searching WordCat for copies of the Todd Shipyards mid-century in-house newsletter, The Keel.

And then today, with no effort at all on my part, up pops Todd Shipyards in my inbox! I think I may have to rephrase my question about whether BHS has any collections relating to Todd Shipyards.

I've been researching Todd Shipyards because my great-grandmother's brother, Harold Mulvaney, was killed while he was working there in August, 1933. He drowned in the East River. The death certificate judges his death an accident, though rumors have trickled down through the years that his family wasn't so sure about that. But the Mulvaneys didn't like to talk about things, and so I don't have much information. Ever since I learned, yesterday afternoon, about the existence of The Keel, I've been hoping that I could find a copy of the issues for 1933, and maybe find some mention of the incident or memorial to Harold after his death. (None of the institutions listed in WorldCat as holding copies has issues for 1933.) Harold was killed on Pier 5 in 1933, when, according to his death certificate, he accidentally fell overboard. The picture I received this morning was taken at Pier 1 in 1928. I have no idea whether Harold had been working at Todd Shipyards 5 years prior to his death, but it's entirely possible that he's actually in the crowd of men pictured surrounding the dock, above.

I can't help but think that this serendipity is a good omen for this line of inquiry.

(The above post includes Amazon.com affiliate links.)

WWI "Emergency" Officers, Camp Gordon, GA

Every so often, I Google the names of ancestors in hopes of finding anything that might be out there. It's not usually a successful endeavor. Last week, though, I googled my great-grandfather's full name - "Joseph Eugene Mulcahy" - and got a hit! (and it wasn't even from my blog!)

I had long known that Papa had been promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in the Army on 1 June 1918, since my cousin John had sent me a copy of that promotion, which I posted here, very shortly after I began this blog - but that was all I knew. Someone - who goes by "MaryCarol" - posted a list of all of the 1,744 men promoted to 2nd Lieutenant at that time on a Rootsweb Freepage.

The list of names comes from the personal paper of her grandfather, Captain Flag Allen Drewry, but there's no source given on the background information. It states that enlisted men were given 3 months' officer training before being promoted as "emergency" officers to replace those who had been killed overseas. What a pall under which to receive a promotion! Information on Camp Gordon, in Atlanta, where Papa was stationed, says that it was the largest temporary training camp in the South, consisting of 2,400 acres, 1,635 buildings, and could house 46,612 men.

Assuming the information is accurate, there are some fascinating nuggets that provide insight into my great-grandfather's military service.

(MaryCarol. "WWI 1918 Camp Gordon GA 1700 Promotions to 2nd Lieutenant." http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kinfolke/WWI_1918_Camp_Gordon_1700_Promoted_2nd_Lieutenant.html) 

Vincenzo Cianciotta, Caduto in Guerra

Wednesday morning, I went to my grandmother's house, and she shared with me some information about her side of the family. She mentioned that her mother's older brother, Vincenzo Cianciotta, had died "in the war." (The generation made me assume WWI; I was right.) She also mentioned that the town had named a street after him. I'd jotted down all the names she gave me (I hadn't previously known the names of any of my great-grandmother's siblings), and when I got home, I googled the one who had apparently had a street named after him.

The town of Bitetto, Bari, in Puglia, Italy, lists on their website all of the streets in town that they named after fallen soldiers in any war, listed alphabetically. You can find a brief biography of Vincenzo Cianciotta - in Italian - at the bottom of the page for Cianciotta. 

Roughly translated, it says:

Born at Bitetto, 16 January 1884, ID number 11587, deceased 8 October 1916 at Vizintini, dying at 11 am at 32 years of age. Son of Saverio and of Arcangela Scigliuto, married to Antonia Occhiogrosso and father of one daughter, residing at via Barberio 19. Died following a bullet wound to the head. Buried at Vizintini. Soldier of the 9th Infantry Regiment. 

(I hope that's more or less accurate. My Italian was once fairly good, but I haven't used it in 2-3 years now. I should probably brush up if I'm going to start looking more closely at my Italian ancestors.)

From what I can figure out, Vizintini (or Visintini) is a hamlet in the town of Doberdo del Lago in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, which was involved in the Battles of the Isonzo. Vincenzo's date of death falls a couple of days before the Eighth Battle of the Isonzo (10-12 October 1916), so it seems that he was either injured during the Seventh Battle of the Isonzo (14-17 September 1916) and did not die for nearly a month, or he was injured and killed between battles. 

I'm going to see what I can learn about requesting Italian military records.

Does that say what I think it says?!

There was a while when I was searching for the passenger manifest showing my great-grandfather, John O'Hara, returning to the US as a child after his family had spent a few years in Ireland. There were a couple of possible John O'Haras in the right time period, but I wasn't ever sure just which one was him. The most likely one showed up on the passenger manifest all by his lonesome, 4 years old, without any parents or younger brothers listed nearby, though it was noted that he was "going with father + mother." I thought I'd looked through all the pages of that manifest to find his father (and the rest of his family?) but either I meant to but didn't, or I missed them when I did. When it finally occurred to me that I should be searching on his brother Eugene's name instead, I got a hit, for Eugene, on the same ship, which sailed in 1902. The family of 5 is listed on 3 different pages.

Eugene and Patrick are on the first page of the manifest, almost obscured by damage:

As I said, Grandpa JJ is all on his own page:

And their parents, John and Mary, are on yet another page:

Now, it was months ago that I found these records, but it wasn't until last night - I wanted to look at their "place of last residence" to see if I could find them in the 1901 Irish Census - that I looked particularly closely at just what this manifest said. Next to John Sr.'s name, it says in big letters that he's a US Citizen. Written directly underneath that, though (and I mean underneath it, like the handwriting overlaps, not underneath it like on the next line), it says when he became a citizen!

I can't necessarily read the whole thing, but it says something like "Cit. paper of #29 something something Kings Co., NY, Oct 14/98."

Wait, for real? All this time, the exact date of John O'Hara's naturalization had been sitting right there in my files and I hadn't noticed it? I'd been looking at naturalization indexes this week, and, as per usual, the number of John O'Haras who had naturalized in NYC between the late 1880s and 1900 was staggering. (I can't even imagine how people research Smiths, when I have so much trouble with O'Haras!) There was one that seemed particularly likely, but I couldn't be sure and didn't know if I wanted to take the chance on ordering it. This morning, I searched on Ancestry for John O'Hara naturalized in 1898, and lo and behold, that John O'Hara that I'd been tempted by? That John O'Hara was naturalized 14 October 1898!

I think it's safe to say that I'll hesitate no longer!

1905 NYS Census - Loughlin/Renehan

This is the 1905 NYS Census of the Loughlin-Renehan family. Julia Mulvaney's sister Elizabeth Toner Loughlin Renehan lived at 213 Conover St., with her (second) husband, Thomas Renehand and several of her children (from her first marriage), Thomas, John E., William, and Kate Loughlin. Thomas is 52, Elizabeth is 48, Thomas Loughlin is 23, John is 21, William is 19, and Kate is 11. Thomas Renehan is a day laborer, Elizabeth does housework, Thomas and John E. Loughlin are "Machinist Help," and Kate is "at school." I wonder whether Thomas and John E. are "help" for their uncle, Julia's husband Patrick, who was a machinist. (It appears that there were several machinists on their block as well; it wasn't necessarily Patrick they were working with.) There's a 9 in parentheses next to "at school" by Kate's name. When I saw numbers in parentheses on the census return for the Mulvaneys, I assumed they referred to the grade the child was in; the numbers over there matched up to what grades the kids would have been in. There, the 11-year-olds (James and his cousin Thomas) have the number 4 in parentheses. Eleven-year-olds in 4th grade is appropriate, but 11-year-old Kate certainly wasn't in the 9th grade. What do you think these numbers mean?

1905 NYS Census - O'Hara Family

This is the 1905 New York State Census record of the O'Hara family. They're living at 586 Baltic St., only about a block and a half from where they lived at 527 Baltic St. in 1910. In the interim, however, they probably lived somewhere else entirely, as the church they attended in that neighborhood, St. Augustine's in Park Slope, has the 1905 record of their daughter Malinda's baptism, but not what should have been the c. 1908 record of their daughter Mary's baptism. Neither girl lived long enough to celebrate any of the other sacraments.

In 1905, the family is listed as John, 30; Mary, 29; John, 8; Eugene, 6; Pacey, 3; and Malina, 2 mos. Malina should be Malinda, and Pacey should be Patrick, although for all I know he may have been called Pacey. Both parents were born in Ireland, while all the kids are listed as American-born, though Patrick was actually born in Ireland in 1902. The family had moved back to Ireland and lived there between 1900 and 1902. In the column "number of years in the United States," John has answered 17 and Mary 16. I wonder if that's given as "number of years since immigration," or if it's been adjusted for the ~2 years they had spent in Ireland since they immigrated. If the former, they immigrated in 1888 and 1889, respectively. If the latter, it may have been more like 1890 and 1891. All are citizens. (I've yet to attempt to wade through the astronomical numbers of John O'Haras in Brooklyn at the turn of the century to find John O'Hara's naturalization papers.)

John is a stableman, and Mary does house work. John Jr. (my great-grandfather, AKA Grandpa JJ) and Eugene are "at school," but neither "Pacey," nor Malinda is.

1905 NYS Census - Quinn Family

This not-very-clear image is the 1905 NYS Census that records the Quinn family living at 1371 Atlantic Ave. I could have sworn that I already knew the Quinns lived on Atlantic Ave at some point, but maybe I only knew they lived in the neighborhood from when they lived nearby on Fulton Street, as there are no Atlantic Ave. addresses in my list of family homes. The family is recorded as the Quinnes: Hugh J., 38; Mary, 38; Agnes, 10; Mary, 8; Hellen, 5; Martin, 3; the last name begins with a T and is illegible but clearly too short to say "Terrence." It may say "Terry." Uncle Terry is 1. Hugh and Mary were born in Ireland, and all their children were American-born. The column for number of years in the US appears to say "W" for both of them; I can't figure out what number is intended. Maybe "20"? I think they're all listed as Citizens, but that column is pretty difficult to make out, too. Hugh is an engineer, Mary does house work, and Agnes and Molly are "at school." Neither Helen nor the boys are in school yet.

Surprisingly, Agnes is listed as Agnes, the earliest example of her use of the name that I've come across. Besides this, she's Nora until the 1920 Census.

John J. O'Hara Death Certificate - 3 Dec 1946

This is the death certificate of my great-great-grandfather, John J. O'Hara. His son, John, who provided the information, was my grandfather's father, aka "Grandpa JJ." John Sr. died 3 December, 1946, at the age of 68 years; his birthdate is given as 1 January 1878. His wife was Mary E. King, and his job was as a realtor. In the 1930 census, Grandpa Molly and Grandpa JJ are seen living in the same apartment building as JJ's parents. But they, like most of the people in the building, rented. John Sr. owned. It's my understanding that he owned the entire building and the rest of the residents were his tenants.

He was born in Ireland, but was a US citizen. His parents names are given as Patrick O'Hara and Bridget Kearney. I would swear to you that I had once seen a document among my grandfather's papers giving John's parents names as Patrick O'Hara and Catherine Walsh, but that was before I got really interested in genealogy, and whatever document that was has been misplaced, and no one I ask has any memory of it ever existing.

John died in Kings County Hospital, where he'd spent all of October and November. The causes of death listed are "Carcinoma of sigmoid" (Colon Cancer) and "Bilateral Pubic Cold Abscesses" (I don't want to know). A contributing cause was the incision and draining of the abscesses, so it seems he may have taken a turn for the worse after they treated him, although the certificate says that the operation was on October 18, and he didn't die until a month and a half later.

United Fruit Company/Chiquita: Lack of access to institutional records

My great-great-grandfather, Michael Mulcahy, owned bars in Brooklyn at the turn of the century. When he died in 1917, though, his death certificate listed his occupation as watchman for the United Fruit Co. The United Fruit Company, after a century and several mergers, eventually became Chiquita Brands. So I e-mailed Chiquita to see if they maintained institutional archives for their constituent companies, whether those archives would contain information about individual employees, and if so, how to access those records.

Something about the response I got seemed a little . . . off.

As a company with a history than spans more than 100 years, we receive numerous requests for the use of past materials, including photography, film and written documents. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to employ a librarian or archivist on staff for these purposes. As a result, I regret to inform you that we do not make our archives to available to the general public.

Chiquita Brands is, for lack of a better word, ginormous, with an estimated 10,000 employees. They "lack the resources" to hire one measly archivist? You and I both know archivists aren't exactly raking in the big bucks. So they "do not make [their] archives to [sic] available to the general public"? Which means, yes they do have archives. And if they have archives, they likely maintain their archives, which means they probably have an archivist. It's just not his job to deal with the public. Maybe it's my cynical nature, or my penchant for conspiracy theories, but something about that seems suspicious, given the history of United Fruit Co. and Chiquita Brands. Both were accused of such things as payments to paramilitary groups, human rights violations, bribery, massacres, and coups. It seems possible that the archives are closed less because of resources than because of concern about what might be contained in the records.

Do I come across as a paranoid conspiracy theorist?

James Mulvaney's Death Certificate, 24 December 1972

Having covered many of the milestones of James Mulvaney's life in the past few weeks, from his birth to his marriage, to his military service to his heroics as a fireman, I'm now sharing his death certificate, also sent by his granddaughter Maureen.

James Mulvaney Death Certificate 1972; Queens, NY

James Mulvaney (aka James Joseph Mulvaney), died on Christmas Eve of 1972. His age is given as 78, and he was less than a month shy of 79. His wife Florence Goggin had predeceased him. His birthday is accurately given as 15 January 1894, which matches the date given on his baptismal certificate. His parents are Patrick Mulvaney and Julia Toner Mulvaney. James was Deputy Chief for the NYFD. The informant was his daughter Joan, with whom he shared an address: 66-11 Booth St., Rego Park, NY.

Death of John J Dowd, 26 July 1946

From the Brooklyn Eagle, via Fulton History:

John J. Dowd was the husband of Anne Murphy Dowd, and thus the son-in-law of Mary Ann Toner Murphy. His brothers-in-law, John and Thomas Murphy, had lived for a time with their aunt and my great-great-grandmother, Julia Mulvaney. He died on Friday 26 July 1946 - either "at his residence" or at "Madison Park Hospital"; the two news items, from the same page of the same day's paper, disagree on that point.

He was survived by his widow, Anne Murphy Dowd, and I have yet to discover evidence of her death.