Mulvaney Family: A Summary

I realized not long ago that I might be facilitating certain cousin connections more so than others. I have a picture of the entire Mulcahy family at a wedding, and, when posting about it, I listed the names of all the Mulcahys and their spouses, including maiden names. No wonder so many of my Mulcahy cousins have found my blog by googling their grandparents' names! So here's a post on the Mulvaneys!

Julia (Toner) and Patrick Mulvaney married in 1893 and had 8 children. Raymond Mulvaney died as a toddler. William Mulvaney and Harold Mulvaney died, unmarried, as young men in the 1930s. James Mulvaney married Florence Goggin. Mae, or Mary R., Mulvaney married John Daniels. Grace Mulvaney married Stephen Kessell. Thomas Mulvaney married Elizabeth Gilies. And my great-grandmother, Veronica Mulvaney, married Joseph E. Mulcahy.

Julia Toner Mulvaney (polk dots) with her children James Mulvaney,
Mary R. (Mulvaney) Daniels, Veronica (Mulvaney) Mulcahy,
Tom Mulvaney, and Grace (Mulvaney) Kessell. 

Julia Toner Mulvaney with her children's spouses, Steve Kessell,
Florence (Goggin) Mulvaney, Elizabeth (Gilies) Mulvaney,
John Daniels, and Joseph Mulcahy.

Toner Family, 1875

When I was at the NYPL a few weeks ago, I found the 1875 NYS Census of the Toner family. 

This is important, because it's the first time that I've actually been certain I was seeing young Julia (my great-great-grandmother) as a member of her family. Though I've seen plenty of records connecting my Julia Toner to this Toner family, I had yet to find her listed as a member of this family on a census. Given that she's 8 years old here in 1875, I also find it likely that she is, in fact, the same person as the 2-year-old Judith listed on the 1870 census. The Toner family has a strange relationship with the names Judith and Julia, each of which often pops up where it isn't expected, and disappears from places where it should be. They are sometimes used interchangeably, and sometimes flat-out incorrectly. Here, the family is listed as
Thomas Loughlin, 34, caulker
Eliza Loughlin, 18

Richard Toner, 49, painter
Julia Toner, 46
Mary A. Toner,  21
Louisa Toner, 17
John Toner, 15
Julia Toner, 8

The apparent errors here are Julia Toner, 46, and John Toner, 15. The wife/mother of this family was Mary, not Julia - but I've ceased to be surprised when one of the Toners is incorrectly called Julia. Pretending to be named Julia must have been their favorite hobby - unless this name is a clue to something bigger that I'm just looking right past? The son who would have been 15 in 1875 - indeed, the only son who had survived to 1875 - was named William.

Elizabeth Toner married Thomas Loughlin in 1874. Both here and in 1892, the Loughlins are living with Elizabeth's parent(s). In 1875, they live with both Toners and all of Elizabeth's siblings; in 1892, the Loughlins and their children living with Elizabeth's mother, Mary Tonner.

The Toners have a reliable presence in census records as well as newspapers from 1860 to about 1875, and then everything goes wacky. I can't find anyone but the Loughlins in the 1880 census. In the 1892 NYS Census, the Loughlins are back, this time with Elizabeth's mother Mary Toner living with them - but no mention of any of her other children. I can find Mary Ann Toner married to Thomas Murphy and living with their children, but that's all. Richard is presumably dead. Julia is gone until 1900, and her soon-to-be-husband is single when he's enumerated with his relatives - they didn't marry until the next year. Louisa never again appears in census records that I've seen, but doesn't die until 1918, at which point her death certificate indicated that she had been living uninterrupted in New York City for her entire life. William doesn't appear to show up in 1880 or 1892, but was also apparently a life-long resident of NYC when he died in 1899. Where did they all go?

Mary Toner's Death Certificate - 26 Aug 1899

Mary Toner's death certificate! Woo hoo! . . . or maybe not. To be frank, while I'm inclined to believe that this is Mary Cullen Toner's death certificate, I'm not positive, and there are several pieces of information that make me wonder whether maybe Mary Cullen Toner had another relative, likely an inlaw, Mary Somethingelse Toner.

This Mary Toner died 26 Aug 1899, at 270 Van Brunt Street, which was where Mary Cullen Toner's daughter Julia lived with her husband Patrick Mulvaney and their children (3 or 4 at this point: James, Grace, and Mae, certainly, and Willie may have been born this month). In 1892, Mary Cullen Toner was living with her other daughter, Elizabeth Toner Loughlin, so it's reasonable to think that she spent time living with each of her daughters after her husband Richard died. The undertaker was "Mrs. T. Murphy," who is likely Mary Cullen Toner's other daughter, Mary Toner Murphy. This Mary Toner died of a cerebral hemorrhage and pulmonary edema.

Now here's where things get tricky. According to her death certificate, she was widowed, 63 years old, Irish-born, had been in the US 35 years, and was the daughter of parents named John and Mary. Mary Cullen Toner should be widowed and Irish-born. She should have been well older than 63, though it's difficult to say just how old. Her age was given as 40 in the 1860 census, 40 in the 1870 census, and 69 in the 1892 census. If any one of those is correct, 63 is far too young. The fact that her age was never given consistently, though, means this isn't really a strike against her. 35 years in the U.S. is clearly wrong for Mary Cullen Toner, although maybe by "only" 15 years or so. The Toners' oldest known child, Julia, was born in the US around 1851, so her mother couldn't possibly not have immigrated until 1864 - not to mention that Mary was enumerated on the 1860 census.

Further, there's the matter of of the baptismal dates that were looked up for me. If you'll recall, someone looked up some names in the parish registers of St. Mary's Church in Maynooth, Co. Kildare for me, and gave me this information:

(Baptisms)
24 Sept 1818 Mary, (of) Patrick Cullen and Mary Carr godparents John Carney and Judith Scully.

3 Nov 1821 Richard (of) William Toner and Margareth Walsh godparents Charles Kearns and Mary Cushion.

(Marriage)
15 Jan 1850 Richard Toner to Mary Cullen witnesses Edward Hackett and Mary Boland

I was already skeptical because Richard's mother's name didn't match what I knew. Her name was either Judith or Julia, but it certainly wasn't Margareth. And now Mary's father's name doesn't match, either. Does that mean that the baptismal information refers to the wrong people, that the death certificate doesn't belong to Mary Cullen Toner, or that the information on the death certificate is wrong? If the baptismal information is correct, Mary Cullen Toner should have been way older than 63 in 1899; she would have been in her early 80s.

Which piece of conflicting information should I doubt? All of them, probably. Can they be reconciled? It's possible that, say, Richard's mother and Mary's father both died soon after their children were born, and their parents remarried. Might Judith have been the step-mother who raised Richard, and John been the step-father who raised Mary? I contacted the church in Maynooth to try to verify the information I was given and to see if there were records of such later marriages, but got no response.

Not sure what my next step is going to be.

James Mulvaney's Baptismal Certificate

A few months ago, my long-lost cousin Maureen sent me a number of scanned photographs and documents from her branch of the Mulvaney family. Her grandfather James Mulvaney was the brother of my great-grandmother Veronica Mulvaney Mulcahy Hopkins. I've posted some of the pictures in the past, but am just getting around to posting the documents she sent me. (Read: I'm too busy with school to do any research, and it embarrasses me to see my blog lagging. So I'm posting Maureen's stuff instead!) I'd glanced at these, but since they just seemed pretty consistent with what I already knew, I didn't examine them closely. (Although some of the documents that will be posted in the coming days have some really cool information.) (Now if she's had Nana's birth certificate . . . if she had any idea when Nana was born . . . a different story entirely.) But, you know. Visitation Church, James Mulvaney, parents Julia Toner and Patrick. No news. (No news is not good news in genealogy, but documentation is always good news.)

What particularly caught my attention when I looked at this were the godparents. Patrick Harrington and Catherine Higgins? Sound familiar? I still haven't scanned Patrick and Julia's wedding certificate, which Betty and John sent me a copy of right when I first began to get interested in genealogy, but the transcription is here. The witnesses at their wedding were also the godparents of their first-born! I wish I knew who these Patrick Harrington and Catherine Higgins were!

1905 NYS Census - Mulvaneys at 270 Van Brunt St.

Here I've found the 1905 NYS Census record of the Mulvaney family at 270 Van Brunt St. The family is listed as Patrick, 45; Julia, 37; James, 11; Grace, 9; Mary, 8; William, 5; Thomas, 3; Raymond, 1; and Harold, 6 months old. There are also 2 "boarders," who are their nephews, 17-year-old John Murphy and 11-year-old Thomas Murphy.

What's new here is Raymond. Betty and John had mentioned that they thought there might have been a brother named Raymond who died as a toddler. Never having seen any evidence thereof, I was skeptical. However, it appears that little Raymond did exist, and that he lived at least 15 months. (Harold is 6 months old. Do the math.) As per usual, Patrick is a Machinist and Julia does the housework. Nephew John, at 17, is an office boy, while Thomas, at 11, is in the 4th grade. Patrick and Julia's older children, too, were in school. James, also 11, was also in the 4th grade. They might have been best friends, classmates, or both! Though the number next to Grace looks like a 5, I assume it was just a sloppy 3, and that she was in the 3rd grade, where she should have been. Mary - Auntie Mae - is in first grade.

I was honestly not expecting a lot of new information from these census records. The Mulcahys were nice but not particularly important. The Mulvaneys, on the other hand, are chock full of new things and clarifications. Raymond existed. Good to know. The Murphy brothers lived with the Mulvaneys for at least 5 years. Their parents probably died between the 1900 Federal Census and the 1905 NYS Census. That's important information.

Pictures from the James Mulvaney Family

Maureen Mulvaney, a cousin of ours who I met via ancestry.com (gotta love the internet!) recently sent me a number of pictures and family documents from her branch of the Mulvaney family. (She's a grand-daughter of James, Nana's older brother.) We'll start with the identifiable pictures in this post, and then move on to our mystery pictures, hoping against hope that someone might have a clue as to who these people are.


This is a picture of Joan and Florence Mulvaney, the two daughters of James and Florence Mulvaney. Picture dated August, 1936. According to census records, Joan was born around 1927 and Florence around 1929, so they'd be approximately 9 and 7.

This is Donald, Joan, and Florence with their parents James and Florence. Also dated August, 1936. Donald was born around 1925, so he should be about 11.

This picture appears to have been taken on the same day as the first two of these pictures, but it ended up with their branch of the family, while the other two pictures of that day ended up with ours. Betty and John did the IDing, since Maureen and I weren't sure. I looked at it, and thought that the man on the far right looked like Papa, but dismissed the thought. Wrong side of the family. Except that this is a picture of Julia with her children-in-law, so it is, in fact, Papa. With Julia in the polka-dotted dress, the others are, from left to right, Steve Kessell (husband of Grace), Florence Mulvaney (wife of James), Elizabeth Mulvaney (wife of Thomas), and John Daniels (wife of Auntie Mae).

Irish Names: Julia

So it's not strictly an Irish name. But Julia has been the most genealogically relevant name in my Irish family history search, and the stories about it run through the ages.

I could have asked anyone what Nana's mother's name was and gotten an answer, but I was at the very beginning of genealogy - before I'd even begun asking questions - when I came across a copy of Nana's death certificate, which listed her parents as Julia Toner and Patrick Mulvaney, both born in New York.

"Oh, cool," I thought.

I had an easy time finding Julia and Patrick on Ancestry.com in 1900, and 1910, and Julia and kids in 1920 and 1930, after Patrick had died. My searches yielded an 1880 result for a Julia Toner, of the proper age, in Manhattan, parents John and Mary.

"That's probably her," I thought.

Some time later, I ordered Julia's death certificate, which told me that her parents' names were Richard Toner and Mary Cullen, and so I started a new search, and quickly found the Toners in 1860 - Richard, Mary, Julia (9), Mary Ann (8), Samuel (6), Elizabeth (5), Louisa (3), William (9 m), and another Julia (63).

"Awww. . . Julia was named after her paternal grandmother!" I thought.

"But. . . this Julia is a full 19 years older than our Julia."

Now, occasionally a woman in Julia's family would lie about her age. This I know well. But 19 years. . . 19 years is a lot! She would have had to be bearing children well into her 60s. There were no fertility treatments in 1910, after all.

And then in the 1870 census, both of these Julias had disappeared. The Julia who had been 9 was gone entirely, and the Julia who had been 63 appeared to have been replaced by an 85-year-old named Judith. There was a new toddler, also named Judith, two years old.

Where was Julia? Had she grown up, married, and moved out by 19? Had she died?

And what of the elder Julia? Was she the same person as this even-older Judith?

And if so, does that mean Julias and Judiths are interchangeable or easily confused in the Toner family?

Could Judith the toddler be Julia my great-great-grandmother?

Death records proved that Richard's mother was Judith Toner. I have no idea whether the older Julia was the same person as Judith, mis-recorded, or whether Julia was someone else entirely.

I searched the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online for "Julia + Toner," hoping to find evidence of my great-great-grandmother doing anything. Being born, getting married, attending a picnic. I was dying to know whether she was the same Julia who had been 9 in 1860, but shouldn't even have been born until 1870. These searches led me to the Julia who had been 9 in 1860, and who certainly was not my great-great-grandmother. She had died at age 16, in a cholera epidemic, along with her younger brother James Thomas, who had lived and died between census years.

My great-great-grandmother Julia Toner was certainly born. Her 9 kids didn't arrive out of thin air. I've seen her marriage certificate. She was real. Further research shows she almost certainly belonged to this Toner family. Her son was living with Elizabeth's family in 1910. She signed Louisa's death certificate in 1925, releasing the body to the undertaker. I've still never found census or birth records that show her definitively being recorded as part of this family, though she clearly lived her life amongst her sisters, especially. There remains the possibility that the Judith who was 2 in 1870 was really Julia.

Though the practice of naming children after their deceased siblings is unsettling to modern sensibilities, I think I like it. I went into this genealogy thing looking for my ancestors. Their siblings were footnotes, at best. I only discovered the story of big sister Julia's life because she had the same name as little sister Julia my great-great-grandmother. Little sister Julia's life would have been remembered; at least her DNA lives on in my family members and I. Big sister Julia's life and memory would have died with her. By proxy, I found James Thomas, whose life would have gone not only unremembered but also virtually unrecorded, as he missed the census years.

When Richard and Mary decided to name their youngest (to my knowledge) after their eldest (to my knowledge), they ensured that her name would live on in infamy.

And infamy it would be.

In the 1960s, my grandparents, pregnant with one of my aunts, put names in a hat, and had my dad pick one out. Julia - my grandmother's grandmother's name - was one of the choices. (My dad picked Gail.)

Fast forward 30-odd years. We're in Eileen's kitchen, at a family party of some sort, and the above story, - the picking names out of a hat story - is told. My mother proceeds to mightily offend Gail by exclaiming, upon hearing the choices that had gone into the hat, "You couldn't have at least picked Julia?!"

(And here's where we pray my parents continue their practice of ignoring the fact that I have a blog. Don't want to give them heart attacks, after all. . .)

Fast forward to the present day. I begin doing genealogy, and am one day talking about the relatives I've discovered. My boyfriend - whose taste in names and mine don't necessarily agree - hears me mention my great-great-grandmother Julia and remarks that he likes that name. Hmm. . . I like it, too. Might Julia be a name that continues to live on in the family?

Fast forward to the future. . . ?

Julia Toner Mulvaney's Obituary

Not that we're missing information about Julia's death, but I came across this NYTimes obituary for her, published October 11, 1938. I'd found it searching the NYTimes archive the other day, and put buying it (for $3.95!) on my list of things to do, but then I realized I could search for it on Ancestry.com (since I already pay for Ancestry!)

She's listed as the widow of the late Patrick, and the mother of Mrs. Stephen Kessell (that's Aunt Grace), Mrs. John Daniels (that's Auntie Mae), Mrs. Joseph Mulcahy (that's Nana), NYFD Battalion Chief James Mulvaney, and NYFD Lieutenant Thomas Mulvaney.

Her funeral was at St. Anselm, and she was buried at Holy Cross.

Things I learned: Aunt Grace's husband's first name; James's and Tom's NYFD ranks in 1938; where Julia's funeral was.

Louise Toner Deegan, June 22, 1918

State of New York
Department of Health of the City of New York
Bureau of Records
Standard Certificate of Death
Register No. 13791

1. Place of Death
Borough of Brooklyn
Name of Institution: St. Mary’s Hospital

2. Full Name: Louise Deegan
3. Sex: Female
4. Color or Race: White
5. [Marital Condition]: Married
6. Date of Birth [blank]
7. Age: 51 yrs 1 mos
8. Occupation
a) Trade, profession, or particular kind of work: Housewife
b) General nature of industry…: [blank]
9. Birthplace: US
a) How long in US: Life
b) How long resident in City of New York: Life

10. Name of Father: Richard Toner
11. Birthplace of Father: Ireland
12. Maiden Name of Mother: Mary Cullen
13. Birthplace of Mother: Ireland

14. Special Information
Former or usual residence: 391 Baltic St.
Where was disease contracted, if not at place of death: 391 Baltic St.

15. Date of Death: June 22, 1918
16. I hereby certify that the foregoing particulars (Nos. 1 to 15 inclusive) are correct as near as the same can be ascertained, and I further certify that deceased was admitted to this institution on June 15, 1918, that I last saw her alive on the 22 day of June 1918, about 11:45 o’clock AM, and that I am unable to state definitely the cause of death; the diagnosis during her last illness was Chronic Endocarditis (aortic regurgitation) secondary anemia. Duration: [blank]
Contributory: carcinoma of the uterus. Duration [blank]
Witness my hand this 22 day of June, 1918

Signature: John Loughlin, MD
House Physician

17. [Autopsy – blank]

18. Place of Burial
Holy Cross Cemetery
Date of Burial
June 24, 1918

19. Undertaker
Henry J. Flood
Address
297 Van Brunt Street

To Undertakers

1. No burial permit can be obtained without a proper certificate
2. Certificates must be written throughout in black ink.
3. No certificate will be accepted which is mutilate, illegible, inaccurate, or any portion of which has been erased, interlined, corrected, or altered, as all such changes impair its value as a public record.

I hereby certify that I have been employed as undertaker by Julia Mullvaney [sic], the sister of deceased. This statement is made to obtain a permit for the burial or cremation of the remains of deceased Louise Deegan.

Signature Henry J. Flood

The above is my transcription of the death certificate of Louise Toner Deegan, Julia Toner Mulvaney's older sister, which arrived today. (So did that of Elizabeth Toner Loughlin Renehan, but as Julia figures more prominently here, I took the time to transcribe this one first.) Interestingly, though Louise should be about 10 years older than Julia, the age given here is closer to Julia's own age. It's off by just about exactly 10 years from the age attributed to the Louisa Toner who was a child in 1860 and a young teenager in 1870.

I'd been hoping to find out Louise's husband's name - I shouldn't be referring to my great-great-great-uncle as Mr. Deegan, now should I? - but it seems that, though Mr. Deegan was still alive (Louise is listed as "married"), it was Louise's younger sister, our Julia Toner Mulvaney, who "employed as undertaker" Henry Flood. (I know I've come across the name Henry Flood before, but it looks like the Mulvaneys always used the Redmond Brothers as their undertaker, so I'm not at all sure why I know this name.) You have to wonder why it was little sister Julia - who, after all, was busy raising quite a few kids, one with disabilities, while, as far as I know, Louise and Mr. Deegan had none. She was not yet widowed - Patrick would live for just more than a year from this date - but since diabetes is not generally a rapid onset type of death, I'd imagine she had numerous kids, 1 disabled, was potentially still raising her sister Mrs. Murphy's kids (I'd guess that sister was Mary, though there's also this Judith we know little about in the Toner family, but we have no way of knowing yet), and had a sick husband. And had just lost her big sister. Julia doesn't quite seem the ideal person to have been put in a position of responsibility here - but somebody's gotta do it.

I do wonder where Mr. Deegan was. Could "married" have been a mistake; maybe she was widowed? Could he, too, have been sick, injured, or disabled? Were they estranged? Or was he so distraught over the loss of his wife that he needed someone else to take care of the arrangements? (I wish I knew this guy's name before I began speculating on his psychological condition.)

Louise died of Chronic Endocarditis, an inflammation of the heart. She also had uterine cancer.

Elizabeth Toner Loughlin Renehan's DC is up next, but it might not be until after Easter, as I'm heading home after work tomorrow.

Brooklyn Churches! Excitement!

Some time ago, I posted about having come across baptismal records of the three eldest Toner children, Julia, Mary Ann, and Samuel, at St. Paul's Church in Brooklyn. I didn't know why only those three were baptized there, but it appears I've just figured it out!

Combining this Brooklyn Catholic blog I just found, which gives locations and founding dates for churches in Brooklyn with my knowledge of the addresses the Toners lived at and the very cool "My Maps" feature at Google Maps, I've created this map that shows family addresses in blue (will give addresses, family, and time period if you click) and church locations in green (will give parish name, address, and founding date if you click), I've realized that the Toners, it would seem, attended St. Paul's, and baptized their first three children there, until two much closer churches - St. Mary Star of the Sea in 1853 and Visitation in 1854 (1853 is the date given for Samuel's baptism, the latest Toner baptism at St. Paul's). I'll have to look a little closer to double check whether there are any other Catholic churches in or near Red Hook, but for now it looks like my first order of business is contact St. Mary's and Visitation and finding out how far back their parish records go (please let them go all the way back to 1853/4!), and either request a search or make a plan to go do some research myself (that part might not happen until this summer, of course). Finding baptismal records for the middle Toner kids there, and then, especially, for the younger Julia, our Julia, would be crucial. It's torturous to know that the family I've traced back the farthest is the one that hasn't quite necessarily 100% been linked to us, although I'm 98% sure.

My assumption will be that the Toner's attended Visitation (we know the Mulvaneys did), but since we know that the Madigans attended St. Mary's, both are worth the effort.

Anyway, check out the map, as I'll be updating it soon with additional churches and addresses. For my own reference, it will include the O'Haras and Quinns as well as the Mulcahys, Mulvaneys, Madigans, and Toners. I've just recently e-mailed St. Augustine's near Baltic St. to see if they can find any of the sacramental records of the O'Hara family, but if they're not there, I'll have to map and check all of the other local churches.

Richard Toner and Mary Cullen Toner Baptisms?

A few weeks I joined a group called Irish Relatives on the Groupbox.com website. It's a group where people help you find information on your ancestors in Ireland, based on information they have as well as by doing voluntary research in person that you can't get to from your respective continent. I posted that I was looking for the Richard Toner and his mother Judith in Maynooth, County Kildare, based on the information I'd gotten out of Judith's obituary in the Brooklyn Eagle.

This is the branch of the family that I've been able to trace back the farthest. However - and this is a big however - it's also the branch that appears to break around 1880. In other words, we're pretty sure that this Richard Toner is our Julia's father and Judith her grandmother, but we're not positive, because we haven't been able to find any evidence of the family in the later 1870s and 1880s - in other words, no proof that our Julia was ever actually born. Everything else just fits so well, though, so I'm going to keep going, and if it turns out it's not our Toner family, well, I'd hope to be able to find the actual descendants of this Toner family and let them know all this information about their ancestors. For the moment, though, I'm reasonably sure that our Julia would have been born to this family in the 1870s.

Anyway, I got a response back from a man who does research at the National Library in Ireland. He had looked up the parish registers for St. Mary's Catholic Church in Maynooth, and found these, and translated them from the Latin:

(Baptisms)
24 Sept 1818 Mary, (of) Patrick Cullen and Mary Carr godparents John Carney and Judith Scully.

3 Nov 1821 Richard (of) William Toner and Margareth Walsh godparents Charles Kearns and Mary Cushion.

(Marriage)
15 Jan 1850 Richard Toner to Mary Cullen witnesses Edward Hackett and Mary Boland

Those are pretty damn exciting! My only two little problems: 1) I'm a records kind of gal - comes with the work at the Archives, I'd imagine - so I tend not to trust anything unless I'm seeing it with my own eyes and filing copies with my own collection of family records. But this is good to go on until I can get myself to Dublin ;-) and 2) Richard's mother's name was supposed to be Judith, not Margareth. It was Judith Toner who brought us back to Maynooth, so why isn't Judith Toner in Maynooth? I looked around, and there's no connection, etymological or otherwise, between the names Judith and Margaret(h). It's not like one was Latin for the other (like Jacobus and James) or that one was a nickname for the other (like Peggy and Margaret). The very helpful gentleman who found these records for me said he would double check the records the next time he was at the Library to make sure he hadn't transposed the names Judith Scully (Mary Cullen Toner's godmother) and Margareth Walsh (Richard Toner's supposed mother).

Either way, it's definitely some exciting information giving us some new things to look at!

Patrick and Julia's Marriage Certificate

Certificate of Marriage
Visitation B.V.M Church
Verona and Richards Streets
Brooklyn, N.Y.

This is to Certify

That Patrick J. Mulvaney
and Julia Toner
were lawfully MARRIED
on the 9 day of April 1893

According to the Rite of the Roman Catholic Church

and in conformity with the laws of the State of New York,
Rev. John J. Loughnan officiating, in the presence of Patrick Harrington and Catherine Higgins, Witnesses, as appears from the Marriage Register of this Church.

Dated Oct. 13-1942
Wm. Galloway ast. Pastor

This is a transcription record of the marriage of Julia Toner and Patrick Mulvaney, April 9, 1893, at the Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Julia would have been about 21, I believe (though of course, we’ve found no evidence whatsoever of her actual birth, since her parents’ family disappears off the map in the early 1870s), and Patrick, if memory serves, about 31. This certificate itself was created in the 1940s, and I wonder why, as both Julia and Patrick were deceased at this point. I suppose one of their children needed it for something, but I can’t imagine what would require the marriage certificate of your parents. I have no idea who Patrick Harrington and Catherine Higgins were, but I’d sure like to know. We know, from this and from Auntie Mae’s baptismal certificate, that the Mulvaneys attended Visitation Church at Richards and Verona, and John Griffin has told me that the Mulcahys attended St. Mary Star of the Sea. Those are the first places I want to look when I get some more free time in the tri-state area.

1930 Census - Mulvaneys at 270 Van Brunt St.

So I went looking, and after some searching, I finally found the Mulvaneys at 270 Van Brunt St., and I was slightly surprised by the results, given what I thought I knew. Julia (age 57), Willie (age 28), and Harold (age 24) are living together at 270 Van Brunt. She's widowed, they're single, none has gone to school in the past year. No surprises there. However, Willie is now listed as being able to read and write - AND, he apparently holds down a job, as a Bookkeeper for an insurance agency! That's not exactly what I expected to find, given that last we checked, the 20-year old Willie was illiterate, he didn't speak until he was 10 years or older, and when he died just 3 years and 10 days later, he was listed as having no job. (I believe you were supposed to list "usual occupation," even if the individual was not working when he died - however, we do know that Julia just listed "Retired" for Patrick, so she may not have been in the practice of filling out death certificates to include former occupations.)

Perhaps I've been overestimating the severity of Willie's condition? This is entirely possible, as I know next to nothing about Willie's condition. Another unlikely possibility is that whoever answered the door - Julia, Harold, or Willie himself - could have lied to the census taker, to make him seem like a more productive member of society. In further speculation, it's possible he was some kind of savant, having limited communication but amazing math skills.

In other words, I'm now writing fiction, which is not the stated purpose of this blog.

Other interesting pieces of information we pick up from this census are that Julia's rent was $18 a month (what happened to rents like that?!), that neither of the boys had been in the military, and that Harold was a "Checker" in the "freight" industry - that seems relatively consistent with a job on the docks, I think, though I don't know what a "checker" is, unless it's exactly what it sounds like, and he checked things for a living.

Information Overload

I'm absurdly busy, have 3 pages of a paper on the Korea Gallery at the Museum of Natural History to write tonight, a twenty-minute presentation to prepare for Wednesday (which I can't start until I'm done with the paper, work, and class tomorrow). Do you ever wonder if our ancestors were this busy?

However, I am very excited to take a break to report that when I got home from my Thanksgiving break, I found 3 death certificates waiting for me in the mail. They belonged to Mary Madigan Mulcahy who died April 11, 1927, William Mulvaney, who died April 13, 1933, and Harold Mulvaney, who died August 26, 1933.

I'm having a little bit of trouble deciphering the handwriting on Mary Ann's and William's (Harold's is typed). I suppose I'm not overly interested in how Mary Ann died, though I'd like to know and will try to figure out what it says. Willie's and Harold's being the more mysterious deaths, of young men, I'm much more interested to know the circumstances thereof. It seems that Willie died of Encephalitis Lethargica, though my first reading of the word doesn't bring quite that. (It looks more like "encefihalitis" to me, but as far as I can tell, that is not something that exists.) According to his death certificate, its duration was "life." I did some cursory googling, and have yet to find anything that clearly states the symptoms of Encephalitis Lethargica and how it would affect young children, but it was not something you were born with, so I doubt it truly lasted for his entire life, though its onset may have been when he was quite young. It also doesn't seem to have affected intellect, but mostly behavior and muscle control, so I'd venture a guess that Willie's inability to speak at age 10, and inability to read and write at 20 were not the marks of a mental deficiency but of a physical or behavioral one that may have, among other things, prevented his attending school.

Harold died at Pier 5, Robbins Drydock, in the East River. He was 28 and had been a Machinist (like his father before him, we know). His cause of death drowning due to an accidental fall overboard. I've heard that there were suspicious circumstances surrounding Harold's death, and what might reinforce that here is that his death was recorded to have occurred at 12:30 AM. That would have been just after midnight. I can't imagine upfront circumstances that would have him at work on the pier in the middle of the night, but I also can't tell from the death certificate whether he died immediately or was possibly pulled from the water only to die some hours later, in which case he could have fallen overboard at 2 in the afternoon and died some 10 hours later at 12:30 AM. It is, I'd say, almost equally likely that, like so many, the good doctor who filled out the death certificate was confused about how AM and PM apply to the times around noon and midnight.

I'll try to transcribe the actual certificates when I get around to it, as well as dialogue about the effects the deaths and illnesses may have had on their (our) families and and try to decipher all of the remaining handwriting (I'm thinking Mary Ann's cause of death may read "pyelonephrosis" which is apparently "an obsolete term for any disease of the pelvis of the kidney"). First, though I've got papers to write! Wish me luck!

Julia Toner death notice

In further searching the NY Newspaper Death Notices, I came across one from 1866 that reads:

Aug 19 John Thomas Toner and his sister Julia on 20th children of Richard of So Bklyn

Then I went to the Brooklyn Eagle itself, and searched through the paper for that date, and found this:

It reads: Toner - On the 19th of August, of cholera, James Thomas Toner, and his sister Julia, on the 20th inst. The funeral will take place from the residence of their father, Richard Toner, corner of Van Brunt and Tremont streets, South Brooklyn, this afternoon at 4 o'clock.

It appears there was a transcription error in the one I first posted, and that Julia's brother was named James, not John.

So it seems that - again, assuming that this Richard Toner family we've been tracking lately is the Richard Toner family of our Julia Toner - that the Julia in that family who was 20 years too old to be our Julia was not, actually, our Julia. It was not too uncommon to name a child after an older sibling who had died, and we can only assume that our Julia, born several years after her oldest sister died, was named after the earlier Julia. This James Thomas Toner, though, wasn't on the 1860 census. If he died in 1866, and hadn't yet been born in 1860, he had to have been 6 or younger. Julia was 9 in 1860, and so she would have died at about age 15. Imagine losing two of your children - the oldest and the youngest, it seems, a 15 year old girl and a 5 year old boy - within a day of each other.

If I could only find the Toners on the 1880 census, we could possibly confirm some of these assumptions. If the Toner family - clearly the same Toner family - were to show up on in 1880 with a daughter Julia, 8-12 years old, we'd know for sure that our Julia was named after her older sister.

1900 Census - Mulvaneys at 270 Van Brunt St.

This census shows Julia and Patrick Mulvaney and their family living at 270 Van Brunt St. in 1900. Patrick says he was born in April of 1863, and is 36; Julia says she was born in May 1869 and is 31 (note that this is in keeping with the age she generally states throughout her life, but not with the age she would be if she were the Julia Toner from the 1860 census we've looked at). This time, they appear to have been married to each other for the same number of years, which is 7, giving them an approximate marriage date of around 1893. Julia has given birth to 4 children, all still living at this point. Both were born in New York, and all of their parents were from Ireland. Their home is rented, not owned, and both can read, write, and speak English. Patrick's occupation is "Machinist." Their four children are John, 6 (b. 01/1894), Grace, 4 (b. 08/1896), James, 3 (b. 08/1897), and William, 1 (b. 08/1899). John shows up on the census only this once; he presumably died young, before the 1910 census, in which he would have been 16. He has been attending school for 10 months, the only one of his siblings to do so so far. Grace's birthdate here is fairly consistent with what is later recorded. Interestingly, though, she continues to be listed as the second oldest on later censuses. Most ages that we see given for James make him 2-4 years older than he is said to be here, giving him a birthdate closer to John's and making him appear to be Grace's older brother, not her younger brother. Willie's birthdate is later listed as being as late as 1902, making him a solid 3 years younger than he should be here.

They have two boarders, who are not the nephews living with them in 1910. These, apparently two brothers, are James and John McGuirre (McGuine?), ages 34 and 31. Both are American-born, and James, too, is listed as a machinist. One wonders if he met Patrick at work, and was offered a place to live, or perhaps was an unemployed boarder for whom Patrick found a job? John is a chair-maker.

UPDATE: While my wonderings above about the McGuirre brothers still apply, they may have been something more than just boarders. I came home this weekend for my mom's birthday, and was looking through the family papers I have at home. Betty and John had sent me photocopies of Julia and Patrick's marriage certificate (9 April 1893 at the Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary) and of the certification of Auntie Mae's baptism, also at Visitation Church. Auntie Mae, it says, was born 18 January 1897, and baptized 4 February 1897. (Why she doesn't show up on this census is a mystery, but the birthdate matches what it would be if her reported age in 1910 was accurate.) Her sponsors (godparents) are listed as John V. (or D.?) Murphy and Rose McGuirre (McGuine? - different person, different handwriting, and still I can't tell whether that's a rr or an n). I'm wondering just who these godparents may be - possibly John Murphy is Julia's brother-in-law, father of the Murphy nephews who would later (1910) live with them? Or not. Murphy is an extremely common name, after all. And Rose McGuirre makes me wonder whether the McGuirre men listed as boarded in 1900 were really just boarders. Could they have been relatives or friends who ended up boarding with the family? Did the Mulvaneys just become close enough with the families of their boarders to ask one to be godmother to Auntie Mae? Does anyone know who John Murphy and Rose McGuirre were?

Answering some questions, and raising some more

Given that William Mulvaney is missing from the 1910 census at Van Brunt St., I went looking for him. I found a William Mulvaney, about our William's age, living with Thomas Renehan, his wife Elizabeth, and his step-children (Elizabeth's children?) John and Catherine Loughlin. This William Mulvaney is 10 years old, he was born in NY, and so were his parents, his language is listed as "none," his job as "none," he cannot read or write, has not attended school within the last year, and in the last column, "whether deaf or dumb" there's something written - I think it says "dumb," but I'm not sure. There's no proof that this is our William Mulvaney, but I went to maps.google.com and discovered that William is living with the Renehan family just around the corner, on Conover St., from the Mulvaneys at 270 Van Brunt St. Given that William's inability to read and write at 18 in the 1920 census indicates that something isn't quite right, you have to ask - how many (mentally or physically) disabled William Mulvaneys could possibly live in a given 4 block area?

I asked Betty and John about the possibility, and they said "No one ever spoke about William, or Willie, as they called him, so he may very well have been 'slow.'" Further, it seems that the Loughlin family may have been Julia's sister's family.


Apparently Julia had at least two sisters, and possibly more:

• Louise Toner Deegan, whose husband made buttons and who had no living children
• Another sister who possibly married a Loughlin (According to this census, if we're talking about the same family, her name was Elizabeth.)
• Another sister, who married a man named Murphy. They had 4 children:

1. John Murphy
2. Thomas Murphy
3. Annie Murphy Dowd, who was married to Jack Dowd, a NYPD detective chief
4. Another sister, who married a man named Keene and had a daughter Margaret who became an Urusline nun.

If this is accurate information, it seems to back up the idea that the family of Richard Toner, who we found in Brooklyn on the 1960 and 1970 censuses was, in fact, the family of our Julia Toner Mulvaney. Their daughters were Julia, Mary A., Elizabeth, Louisa, and Judith. Those, it would seem, were our Julia Toner Mulvaney, Elizabeth Toner Loughlin Renehan, and Louise Toner Deegan. Does anyone know what happened to Mary or Judith? The family also had two boys, Samuel and William. Elizabeth Loughlin Renehan was 55 in 1910, meaning she was born in 1855 - her age matches exactly with that of the Elizabeth Toner on the 1860 and 1870 censuses.
What then, of Julia? If she is the same Julia Toner listed in 1860, she was a full 19 years older than the ages she fairly consistently gave on later censuses, and that Thomas Mulvaney had recorded on her death certificate. She would have been in her late 50s when Nana was born, and in her 80s in the pictures posted below. And while it's possible for women to give birth late in life, the thought that a woman who didn't start having kids until she was over 40 could give birth to at least 9 kids (John, James, Auntie Mae, Grace, Thomas, Willie, Harold, Raymond, Nana) in about 15 years stretches the imagination. There were no fertility drugs at the turn of the century! Also unlikely, though, are most of the machinations that could explain how that Toner family ended up with a second daughter named Julia, 20 years younger than the first.
In other words, right now I'm hoping Julia's mother kept a detailed diary throughout her entire life, and that someone stumbles upon it in an attic, and soon!
However, we do see that by 1910, Julia appears to have sent one of her kids to live with one of her sisters, while having two of her other sister's kids living with her. I think it's important to do genealogy horizontally as well as vertically. While it'll be amazing to someday know Julia Mulvaney's great-great-grandmother's name, imagine the significance of her sisters - and brothers, of course, but I don't know anything about brothers - to her daily life, as they lived around the corner from each other, helped raise each others children, went to church together, sent their kids to school together, probably did their shopping and chores and had dinners together.

1910 Census - Mulvaneys at 270 Van Brunt St.

This is the 1910 census, showing the Mulvaneys living at 270 Van Brunt St. Julia and Patrick give their ages as 48 and 40, which means they have approximate birthdates of 1862 and 1870. Interestingly, in the column "number of years in present marriage" they give two different answers. How could Patrick have been married to Julia for 17 years, if Julia's only been married to Patrick for 16? That's one of my favorite things I've come across in my genealogical searching, because it seems to defy explanation. Whether they married 16 or 17 years before the 1910 census, though, it gives an approximate wedding date of 1893-4. Their kids are listed as James, Grace, Mary, Thos., Harold, and Vera. (Vera is presumably Veronica, don't you think?) William is, for some reason, not on this census, though he should be about 8 or 10 years old in 1910. Patrick's occupation is "Foreman" for a "machinist." James is a "clerk" in a "Railroad Office."

John Murphy, 21, and Thos. Murphy, 16, are listed as nephews. John Griffin told me that they were Julia's sister's sons who moved in with the Mulvaneys when their parents died. "There were also two older Murphy sisters. Annie married Jack Dowd, who was a NYC Policemen - we think he was possibly Chief of Detectives; they never had children. Annie's other sister was married to a man named KEENE, and they had a daughter, Margaret Keene, who moved in with Annie & her husband, when her parent's died while she was a young girl. Later she became an Ursuline Nun, teaching for years at Marymount. Later she was moved up to the Bronx. She died after 1990 from cancer and was in a convent in the Bronx." John Murphy is listed as a machinist at a "dry dock" or "day dock"? I'm having trouble reading the field. His brother Thomas is an office boy at a "[unintelligible] office."

Julia has given birth to 8 children, of whom 7 are still living. The 1900 census (soon to be posted) shows a boy named John, b. 1894. (However, that census also lists James as having been b. 1897, whereas later ages given put him closer to an 1894 birthdate.) John appears to have been a son who died young; he lived to at least 6, but appears not to have made it to 16. Betty and John also told me, though, of a son named Raymond who died as a toddler, but I have no information on him. One of those must be the 8th child who was born but no longer living in 1910.

Mulvaney family pictures

My mom sent me these, which I believe were scanned by either Joseph or John Griffin a few years ago. The one above has Julia in the middle, in a polka-dot dress, surrounded by her grandkids. Nan is the littlest one in front, with the doll, with her cousin Florence to her left. The other girl is Joan, and behind Joan is her brother Donald. The boy with glasses is George Kessell. In the back row on Julia's left is Grace Mulvaney Jones, and in front of Grace is Steve Kessell. On the far right, with the tie, is Tom Mulvaney.
This is Julia Mulvaney, again in the polka-dot dress, surrounded by her kids. I can identify Nana in the back row, and James is the man in the front row, which means I'd assume that Thomas is standing next Nana in the back. Auntie Mae is second from the left, to the right of Julia, and Grace is on the far right. As far as dates go for these pictures, and I assume they were taken the same day, I'm going to guess somewhere in the area of 1935 or just before? Can anyone tell for sure how old Nan is in the first one? I can't think of any other way to date them. Also, does anyone recognize the house in the background? Where were they?

This is Patrick Mulvaney. He looks like a young man, so the best I can say is late 1800s, early 1900s.

(In the top two pictures, Florence, Joan, Donald, and their father James were identified by Donald's daughter Maureen, whom I stumbled upon on ancestry.com when I noticed that her family tree had our (shared) Julia Toner Mulvaney on it! The wonders of technology and genealogy! Betty and John helped with everyone else.)

1920 Census - Mulvaneys at 270 Van Brunt St.

This is the 1920 census, showing the Mulvaney family at 270 Van Brunt St. Julia gives her age as 50 (yielding an approximate birth year of 1870), and says she's widowed. Only Veronica and Harold have attended school in the past year. James is a fireman for the city, Grace a salesgirl at a stationery store, Mary (this is Auntie Mae, right?) does clerical work at a drug store, William has no job, and Thomas is a helper at a shipyard. (This is interesting to me because Betty and John have said that Harold died because he was hit in the head on the pier while working at Todd Shipyards - it seems he eventually followed his older brother into a shipyard job.) Another thing I noticed is that William, at 18, has "no" listed for both whether able to read and whether able to write. Why would that be? Nana has no answer listed for either, but at 10, perhaps her reading and writing abilities were not quite so fluent as to warrant a "yes," but not quite so bad as to warrant a "no"? If you scroll through the page, most of the people who have no response in the reading and writing columns are school-aged children.