FAN Club: Looking for Mary Ennis

The premise of the FAN Club method of research is a focus on the Friends, Associates, and Neighbors of your research subjects in order to trace your own ancestors and contextualize their lives.

In looking over some old posts recently, I found a reference to an excellent candidate for this type of search. In 2009, I had posted briefly about finding the death notice of a Mary Ennis, whose funeral left from the home of my 3x great-grandfather, Richard Toner. At the time, I was not keeping good records, so she had fallen off my radar in the interim. In fact, it took me quite some time to track down where I'd even found the newspaper notice in the first place. (I added a citation to the old post once I figured it out.)

Brooklyn Daily Eagle. "Died." 5 May 1866. via eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org

Mary Ennis's death notice was published on May 5, 1866, in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. She was born in Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland, like the Toners. She died on May 5, 1866. Beyond that, there was no biographical information - no age, no address, no place of residence, no relatives. This does not make her an easy person to track down, but she obviously had a connection to the Toner family, and I'd like to figure out what it is. Did it go any deeper than being from the same hometown? How do I find out?

To begin with, I'm using the technique outlined in this excellent tutorial and the Irish Family History Foundation website to draw up an index of all the Ennises in Maynooth prior to 1866. I've already determined that there were no marriages between Ennises and Toners, Ennis births to women with the maiden name Toner, or Toner births to women with the maiden name Ennis. 

Next, I would like to order Mary Ennis's death record. In 1866, it would have been a line in a ledger, not a certificate, and would have included only minimal information. However, I might be able to learn her age and where she was buried. The former could help narrow down the Mary Ennises I've identified in Maynooth, and the latter could lead to cemetery records or a tombstone that could further locate Mary Ennis's relationships.

I also looked into the Kings County Estate Files series on FamilySearch, and found that Mary Ennis does not appear.

I am hoping to find Mary Ennis in the 1865 NYS Census, as well, but since it is not yet indexed, I haven't had a chance to search for her yet. Additionally, while I could begin the search for her in the Toners' neighborhood, she could have actually lived anywhere in Brooklyn or Manhattan, or even further afield, and without the additional information possibly provided by the death record, it will be hard to know if I've found the right Mary Ennis.

Am I missing anything? Where else can I look to find out about Mary Ennis and her connection to the Toner family?

John Joseph O'Hara's WWI Service Record and a Plea for Help

Although WWI Navy records were supposed to have fared better than Army and Air Force records in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center, I still received no results when I requested a search for my great-grandfather John O'Hara, despite his Navy service. (This was probably due at least in part to the fact that I couldn't include his Social Security Number on the request, as I just can't find him in the SSDI, no matter how hard I search, and despite knowing when he died.)

For whatever reason, not being able to get records I thought would be available led me to research alternatives - which I had never done to try to find the Army records I knew probably weren't available for my other 3 great-grandfathers. I discovered that the NYS Archives holds state-level versions of military service records - and for the low, low, price of just $1!

I figured I could splurge enough to spend $4 and order the records for all four great-grandfathers at once, which I promptly did.

WWI Service of John J. O'Hara

WWI Military Service Record of John J. O'Hara, NYS Archives

According to this service record, John J. O'Hara enrolled at the Navy Recruiting Station on 4 June 1918.

WWI Draft Registration Card for John J. O'Hara, Ancestry.com

According to his draft registration card, obtained from Ancestry.com, he registered for the draft on 5 June 1918 at Local Board No. 45 at the YMCA at 55 Hanson Pl.

Something seems funny here. He registered for the draft the day after he enrolled in the Navy? My husband and I started coming up with theories:

"Maybe when he enrolled he was told he needed to be registered for the draft, so he went home and did that the next day?"

"Maybe he knew he was going to have to register for the draft, and wanted to sign up first to make sure he ended up in his preferred branch (the Navy)?"

However, the fact is that neither of us knows enough about military history or the rules and regulations of wartime conscription to know whether we were making any sense. (I first wrote this post using "enlisted" as a synonym for "enrolled," assuming they meant the same thing. Then I noticed that both were options on the service record, and "enlisted" was crossed out. If "enrolled" doesn't mean "enlisted," what does it mean?)

Beyond that, the service record doesn't provide much information about John O'Hara's military career. It seems that he spent the entirety of it in the Naval Training Camp at Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx - at least, that's the only place that's mentioned. However, the dates of service and the number of days served don't match up exactly, so I can't help but wonder if something is missing or incorrect. Based on the 4 service records I received, only 1 of my 4 great-grandfathers (not this one) served overseas during WWI, though all served in the military.

Plea for Help
Needless to say, that this is an area in which I have very little knowledge is severely hampering my interpretation of this document. (I understand the Army service records I received for the other 3 great-grandfather better . . . or else so poorly that I don't know what I don't know!) I've run into this problem before, when I realized I didn't know how to interpret a Civil War Service Record well enough to figure out whether it belonged to my 3x great-grandfather. That question is still just as open as it was in 2009, because I still don't know how to interpret a Civil War Service Record, or where to find out how to interpret a Civil War Service Record.

So here's my plea for help: What resources are available to help me learn to interpret these and other military records? I can find the records, but I'm not doing anything more than accumulating papers if I can't understand them. Are there websites that focus on this type of thing, blogs run by experts in military history, books I should be reading, or a guy your cousin knows who's made interpreting service records his life's goal? Please tell me in the comments! (And if you're someone who knows about this stuff, an "explaining and interpreting military history" genealogy blog might really fill a niche!)

"was formerly worth considerable money"

When I was posting about Richard Toner's death, I went through all the information I had about his life, and when I put it all together, and it became clearer than ever that there's a piece missing from this puzzle.

I have US Census, NYS Census, and City Directory records for Richard Toner and his family from 1860 through 1880, as well as a handful of newspaper mentions of them, mostly about deaths in the family.

One of them includes the line Toner is an old resident of Red Hook Point, and was formerly worth considerable money, a line that alludes to, but doesn't actually tell, a story. As I pulled together the facts about Richard's life for a post about his death, I tried to find other evidence of that untold story, and came up more or less empty. 

Here's what I know about Richard Toner after he arrived in the U.S. circa 1850:

1850 - daughter Julia baptized

1852 - daughter Mary Ann baptized

1853 - son Samuel baptized

1860 - a laborer, value of personal estate: $50

1863 - a porter

1863 - a son, Richard Joseph, dies of diptheria

1864 - a laborer

1865 - a laborer, value of home $2,000 

1866 - a clerk

1866 - a son and daughter, James Thomas and Julia, die of cholera

1868 - a laborer

1869 - a clerk

1870 - a painter

1870 - a son, Samuel, dies "suffocated in a bin of bran" at the flour mill where he worked

1871 - a laborer

1872 - a painter

1873 - a painter

1874 - his mother, Judith, dies of "old age"

1875 - a painter, value of home $1,500 (his son-in-law is listed first, and is presumably the homeowner, if indeed either of them owns the home)

1876 - a painter

1877 - a painter

1877 - a painter, "was formerly worth considerable money"

1878 - a painter

1879 - a painter

1880 - a painter

11 May 1880 - dies of Hepatitis 

You can look at these and make a few educated guesses. Richard was more well off in 1865, when he owned (or at least lived in) a house worth $2,000 than he was in 1860, when his entire estate was worth $50. His fortunes apparently declined again by the time he moved in with his daughter and son-in-law and, a few years later, was acknowledged to have been "formerly worth considerable money." However - his occupations don't demonstrate any substantial change that would seems to indicate a change in fortunes. In fact, it's precisely at the time when he appears to have been the most financially well-off that his occupation changed frequently and he was rarely listed as anything more specific than a laborer. That's not the employment situation I'd expect from someone "worth considerable money." He seems to have become more established in profession (painting) precisely between the time of his greatest net worth and the time of his considerably lower fortunes. (Though I've looked, I have no indication as to whether he was an artistic painter or a house painter; in the lack of evidence, I tend to assume the latter. I can't help but think that there would be some evidence if the opposite were true.)

I've never been able to find a probate record for Richard Toner, though I'm going to give it another shot now that I've got an actual death date. (I'm also going to check the indexes under Fones and Foner, considering that that was the search method that led me to his death certificate.) I also haven't found a death notice or obituary for him published in any of the papers that the family regularly appeared in. (I wonder if Richard was the one who had published the death notices for his various children and his mother, and no one in the family took up the job after his death? His wife and son died almost 20 years later, and neither had an obituary published at that time, either.)

Next steps: Return to the Kings County Surrogates Court to look for probate records for Richard Toner, now that I have a death date to work with.

Head to the Brooklyn Public Library to read the Brooklyn Standard Union on microfilm, in hopes that there was a relevant story published there that didn't make it into the Brooklyn Daily Eagle or the New York Herald. 

A long-sought death date for Richard Toner

It took me what seemed like forever to find a death date for my 3x great-grandfather, Richard Toner. After immigrating to Brooklyn circa 1850, he shows up there on censuses with his family, and in city directories on a regular basis. The family never moved outside of Red Hook, Brooklyn, and really lived in only a handful of addresses around 1 or 2 blocks on Van Brunt Street, by Tremont (now Visitation) and Verona Streets.

And then they just disappear. My last sighting of Richard was an 1880 Brooklyn City Directory, but I couldn't find him in the 1880 census, even though I had his address. I couldn't find anyone in the family in the 1880 census. In 1892, one of their daughters shows up, married and living with her husband and children, but Richard, his wife Mary, and the rest of their children are nowhere to be found. I was able to find deaths for both Mary and their son William in 1899, and (some of) their married daughters show up in the 1900 Census, but family is almost entirely absent from any records I've encountered between 1880 and 1900 - and Richard never shows up again after 1880. I figured he died in there somewhere, but 2 decades is a long time, and I couldn't find him in the NYC death index at the Italian Genealogical Group's site. 

Luckily, I had some time ago met a cousin through Ancestry whose tree showed her as being descended from Richard's daughter - Elizabeth Jones Loughlin Renehan. I knew well that Elizabeth's name wasn't Jones, but rather Toner, but without having seen it thus misinterpreted, I might not ever have spent as long trying to think of what letters look like the letters in the name Toner. Jones was my first guess, since I knew that at least one person had misinterpreted a written Toner as Jones, and I did order the death certificate for one Richard Jones who had died in 1886, but he wasn't my guy. After thinking a little harder, I realized that Fones or Foner would look even more like Toner, and I found one likely entry in the death index - a [horribly mistranscribed] Ricehhrd J. Foner. When the certificate arrived, I knew without a doubt that I'd found my guy. 

The certificate very clearly doesn't say Ricehhrd Foner, but Richard Joseph Toner. He died on 11 May 1880, so it would make sense that he wasn't on the 1880 Census, which was enumerated on 1 June 1880 - although that doesn't explain where the rest of the family was. His place of death was 91 Tremont St., which is not an address I'd seen the family at before, but it's certainly within that same radius of a block or so in which the family lived for years. His occupation and birthplace are right - he's an Irish-born painter - and his age is more or less as would be expected. He died after suffering from hepatitis for 10 days. 

Richard was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn on 13 May 1880. I called the cemetery once to see if they could give me a burial location or a death date, but although they were able to tell me that a Richard Toner was the owner of a plot where several of his relatives were buried, they couldn't verify whether he himself was in that same plot. 

Next step: Now that I have a death date, I need to call back and find out what other information Holy Cross might be able to give me. 

The other Richard Toner; or, At least MY ancestors didn't bite off rats' heads

Online newspaper searches taught me that not only was my great-great-great-grandfather not the only Richard Toner in late 19th century NYC, he was also not the most interesting Richard Toner in NYC.* Although g-g-g-grandpa lived a memorable life (high- and low-lights include immigrating to America with his bride, and trying to kill himself after a fight with his teenaged son), he was not nearly as newsworthy as the young man who shared his name, the Richard Toner who was known as Dick the Rat.

My ancestor Richard Toner almost certainly knew of the existence of the younger, and seemingly rougher and scarier Richard Toner across the river in Manhattan; Dick the Rat was written up in NY and Brooklyn papers for any number of things, and even appears to have been the subject of an early silent film short by Edison's studios, Rat Killing (1894) (now lost).

Dick the Rat made the newspapers for such diverse accomplishments as:

(1) Taking over his father-in-law's business

The New York Times, 2 Jan 1871

(2) Explaining his trade to the New York Times

The New York Times, 30 Jan 1876

(Read the rest of the article here.)

(3) Being arrested on suspicion of shooting John Casey in the thigh

The New York Times, 17 Feb 1876

(4) Handling a dog who could kill 7 rats a minute

The New York Times, 18 Feb 1878

(5) Shooting himself in a drunken stupor

The New York Times, 3 July 1880

(6) Being inappropriately intimate with a married woman

The Sun, 4 Dec 1887

Wikipedia reports that he was also known to regularly bite the heads off of rats, but I haven't come across that tidbit in any of the contemporary sources that I currently have access to.


*My ancestor Richard Toner died before consolidation in 1898, so he wasn't ever really a Richard Toner in NYC. He was a Richard Toner in Brooklyn, and Dick the Rat was a Richard Toner in Manhattan. But even before Brooklyn became a part of New York City, the two cities were geographically and culturally close, a connection that increased dramatically with the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883.

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.

Help Understanding Civil War Service Records

Our Richard Toner was born c. 1820 in Ireland. Immigrated to NY c. 1850, and, as far as I know, never left Brooklyn. He was a painter by occupation.

I found, on the NYS Archives Civil War soldier databases, records of a Richard Toner in the 5 NY H. Artillery. (There's also on that site the record of a Richard Toner in the 148 NY Infantry, but he doesn't show up anywhere else - not in NARA's indexes or the NPS Soldiers and Sailors System. I haven't ordered that record yet.) At NARA, I looked up the CMSR (Compiled Military Service Record) of the Richard Toner in the 5 NY H. Artillery, where what I found pretty much matched the minimal information I'd gotten when I ordered the record from the NYS Archives, plus some.

A regimental history I found told me that this regiment was recruited throughout NYS, including large parts of it in NYC. However, Richard Toner was mustered in in Utica. Would he have been mustered in in the place he lived, or in some other place? (Utica is pretty far from South Brooklyn). There's also a section on the enlistment papers that says he was "credited to" a given congressional district; I can't remember the number right now, but I looked it up immediately after seeing the record, and it was an upstate district by Utica, not near Brooklyn. Does that field ("credited to") relate to the district he lived in? Could that be different from the district he was recruited for? (There is paper work saying that a certain man was due $10 for having recruited Richard Toner.)

My Richard Toner should have been in his early 40s. His age is given as 24. But - his occupation is correct, that of a painter. I'm clueless as to whether this is him. Could the digits have gotten switched when recording his age? That's not anything anyone could answer for me, but I'm basically wondering whether there's a possibility that someone who mustered in upstate and was credited to an upstate district could have lived in Brooklyn? If so, I think there's a chance it's him, wrong age notwithstanding. If this Richard Toner must have lived in upstate NY, then I'm sure it's not him.

Where can I find out more about how to read Civil War enlistment records?

We interrupt this broadcast. . .

I've been concentrating on the O'Haras for a few days, because I have lots of records stored up that I haven't ever uploaded. However, I noticed today that the 1865 New York State Census was up on FamilySearch's Pilot Site. I've been traveling and moving and unpacking all day, but I've tried to page through (since the records are unindexed) in every free moment. Finally, at 9 at night, success! I've found the Toners! They're on the right-hand page of that image, the only family listed on the top part.

A few interesting things, bulleted because I'm short on time this evening:

• They live in a brick house worth $2,000. (If I knew more general history of the time, I'd perhaps be able to shed some light on what that said about their general material well-being.)
• Both Julia and Mary Ann, at ages 15 and 13, are employed, "sewing."
• Mary has given birth to 8 children. Only 7 are listed, and James Thomas is one of them. That means someone else died young, someone we haven't yet discovered.
  
• James Thomas is listed as James T., which I assume means he was actually called James Thomas. That's kind of cute.
  
• James Thomas was 1 and a half years old when the census was taken, which means he was about 2 1/2 when he died in August of 1866.
  
• Infuriatingly, this census lists an older woman, named Julia Toner, age listed as 60 (um, she was 63 five years ago!), who is listed as the mother of the head of household. I THOUGHT RICHARD'S MOTHER WAS JUDITH! Why, when Richard died, was she listed in her death notice as the mother of Richard Toner? I am increasingly convinced that, for some reason, the Toners used the names Judith and Julia interchangeably. Argh argh argh argh argh. Who was Richard's mother?
• Anyway, this Julia, supposedly Richard's mother, is listed as widowed, the mother of 4 children. So it seems possible that Richard had 3 siblings.
  
• Richard has been naturalized. Early naturalization records rarely had much information (later ones can be treasure troves), but there's another record I'd like to see one day.
  

That's what I've got. I'm excited, but quite frustrated by this constant Judith-Julia conflation.

Dick, the Rat

I'm relatively confident that this Richard Toner, aka Dick the Rat, was not related to our Toners. He seems to be from Manhattan, not Brooklyn. (I'm just guessing, since his location isn't specified. Does the NY Times always default to Manhattan?) He's also described as "a slim, clean-shaven young man with sharp black eyes and a ruddy complexion." The article is from January 30, 1876, at which point our Richard would have been in his 50s, and unlikely to have been called a "young man." Since Richard, to our knowledge, had no sons or other younger relatives named after him, look at this as a curiosity, and an introduction to the fine art of rat-catching: Dick, the Rat.

Richard Toner Civil War Records?

I got home late last night and, after heading upstairs to go to bed, realized I hadn't seen my Civil War records. They weren't on my desk, where my parents usually put my mail when I'm at school. I went downstairs and checked the kitchen counter. Nope, not there. Sometimes mail goes on the dining room table. Not there either. By the door? Still no.

I finally found it in a pile of envelopes on a bench in the dining room.

I ran upstairs, pulled out my records, and here's the information they contained:

Toner, Richard

Enlisted
Age: 24 yrs
When: 13 April 1864
Where: Utica, NY
Period: 3 yrs

Mustered In
When: 13 April 1864
Grade: Priv.
Comp'y: [Unassigned]
Red't: 5th Hy Arty

Left the Organization
How: Deserted
When: 16 April '64
Grade: Priv.
Explanation: at Auburn Rendezvous

Remarks
[blank]

Born: Ireland
Age: 24
Occupation: Painter
Eyes: Grey
Hair: dark
Complexion: fair
5 ft. 7 in. high
21st Corig Out [OR] 21st Cons Int. [or something like that]

In addition, "DM+DR" is written 3 times in the left margin, opposite his name, his enlistment information, and his personally identifiable information. I have no idea what it means.

Now, the most important question here is is this our Richard Toner?

Points against our Richard:
-he enlisted in Utica, of all places
- he's pert near 20 years too young to be our Richard (This is based not only on date of birth/baptism, but also on the age he reported on every record or news item we've ever come across. He was not in the habit of misrepresenting his age by more than a couple years. He was sometimes 50 when he maybe should have been 57, but never 50 when he should have been 75.)

Points in favor of our Richard:
-correct name
-born in Ireland
-he's a painter
-large parts of this Regiment were recruited in Brooklyn and NYC (posting will be light during the rest of Holy Week, but check back Monday for a Regimental History of the 5th Heavy Artillery)

Now, there was not only one Richard Toner in Brooklyn. (The other one appears not to be relevant to us, but I'll try to post the link to the article about "Dick the Rat.") I'm sure that means that there were more Richard Toners in New York State. This could be one of the others. (To our knowledge, Richard had no sons or known other relatives who shared his name.) But really, how many of them could have been painters? Okay, potentially more than one. Would it have been likely?

Richard should have been in his 40s in 1864, and something my mom pointed out is that the age "24" could be a reversal of the age "42." I wonder, though, if that might be more of a 20th century, computer keyboard kind of mistake. Would it be as plausible to transpose two digits in a number when writing by hand? It certainly seems possible.

Another factor to consider is that this Richard Toner deserted after just 3 days. While it's entirely plausible, especially in the 19th century, that someone would lie about his age to be able to join the military (and the upper limit for service was age 45), it seems that this Richard did not want to be in the army. I have to assume he didn't lie about his age so he could enlist just to desert after less than a week.

So. . .jury's still out. Got any input?

AARGH

That's a technical, genealogical term. It's what you say when your mother comes down to visit you in Washington, and tells you that you got something from the NYS Archives, but that she didn't bring it with her.

So, the Civil War service records of a Richard Toner (our Richard Toner?) have arrived, I just won't know what's in them until Wednesday evening. Stay tuned!

I don't know what information these records contain, so I'm not even sure that we'll be able to figure out whether it's our Richard or not. We'll see. I get home Wednesday night.

More death certificates

The other day, I sent away for death certificates for an Elizabeth L Renehan and a Louise Degan. Both are within the approximate age ranges of Julia Toner Mulvaney's sisters Elizabeth Toner Loughlin Renehan and Louise Toner Deegan. I'm not sure what this will tell us, if anything, but every so often I get that uncontrollable urge for more records! Records, records, records! The more, the merrier. And there they were, indexed online, only an online order form and a credit card away from my living room, so I ordered them. I don't know Louise Toner Deegan's husband's name, so I'm hoping to learn that from here, plus other assorted information. Really, though, I'm sure those are not the most important certificates I could have ordered.

I hesitate to order earlier ones, because they have less information, but they also concern the people I want to know more. We already have sketches of the lives of Elizabeth and Louise; I want a death certificate for Richard, to finally put an end to the question of when he died. (Problem: DCs are harder to find and more expensive when you don't know the date of death.) I want a death certificate for the elder Julia and her brother, especially to learn his age and his actual first name. John? James? Joseph? (Problem: DCs are harder to find when you don't actually know the person's name.) I want death certificates for the O'Hara side, for Grandpa JJ's parents, to learn their parents' first names. (Problem: DCs are really hard to find when you don't know the date of death and there are 382 men named John O'Hara in Brooklyn.)

So for now, I'm working with what I can get, just for the sheer joy of having the records, even if they add little to the actual corpus of knowledge.

I also recently ordered a military service record for a Richard Toner who served for NY in the Civil War. I have no idea at all whether this was our Richard, or what information would be contained therein even if it was, but for now I'm jsut excitedly awaiting that record in the mail, fingers crossed.

Maynooth Records

Remember when we found what we think are records of the baptisms of William Toner and Mary Cullen? I went looking for some more records from Maynooth, and here are some of the potentially interesting things I found, at the very helpful Fáilte Romhat, a personal family history site that includes lots of records scanned and/or transcribed:

http://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths/kildare/laraghbryan.htm
In this Index of Griffith's Valuation, I found these Toner records of interest:

Toner      William     Kellystown                   Laraghbryan   Kildare
Tonor      Samuel      Tw. Maynooth, Nunnery Lane   Laraghbryan   Kildare
Tonor      William     Tw. Maynooth, Main Street    Laraghbryan   Kildare

Laraghbryan was the civil parish that Maynooth was a part of. We've heard that Richard's father was named William, though here we're not sure whether he was the Toner or Tonor here. Note too, that the other Tonor listed was Samuel; Julia's brothers were William and Samuel. Do you think that means anything?

There are also these records, that I'm interested in based on the other names - both maiden names of women and witnesses - at the weddings and baptisms from the Maynooth sacramental records.

Boland     Patrick     Tw. Maynooth, Back Lane        Laraghbryan   Kildare
Cullen     Michael     Greenfield                     Laraghbryan   Kildare
Cullen     Michael     Moneycooley                    Laraghbryan   Kildare
Hackett    Anne        Tw. Maynooth, Pound Street     Laraghbryan   Kildare
Hackett    John        Tw. Maynooth, Nunnery Lane     Laraghbryan   Kildare
Hackett    Mary        Town of Maynooth               Laraghbryan   Kildare
Walsh      Ellen       Tw. Maynooth, Dublin Road      Laraghbryan   Kildare
Walsh      Joseph      Tw. Maynooth, Leinster St.     Laraghbryan   Kildare
Walsh      Thomas      Blakestown                     Laraghbryan   Kildare

From there, I went here, where you can search and view the actual records of Griffith's Valuation.

The William Tone(o)r's here are one in Kellystown who holds his house, offices, and land directly from the Duke of Leinster as his landlord, and one in Maynooth who holds his lands directly from the Duke, and rents land out, in turn, to John Connor and James Quin(n). Might they be the same William Tonor/Toner? Or do we think there were two families with slightly different names?

If this link works, you'll be able to see a contemporary map of Maynooth, though I'm having trouble figuring out the lot locations and who lived/owned/rented where. I do note that there is a Cushion's Street in Maynooth; I wonder if this is any relation to the Mary Cushion who was Richard's godmother?

I'll see about looking up the rest some time when it's not 1:30 in the morning.

Toners, 1880 Census

Well, folks, looks like we're out of luck on finding the Toners on the 1880 census. In 1870, according to the Brooklyn Eagle blurb about Richard's attempted suicide, they're living at 91 Verona St. The 1879-1880 Brooklyn City Directory lists the Toners at 267 Van Brunt St. The 1881 Brooklyn City Directory lists them at 84 Tremont St. It appears they were moving a lot at the time. Remember, Richard had formerly been worth a lot of money. (Related? Who knows.)

They don't show up in the name index search for the 1880 Census, and in looking at the addresses in question, they're not listed at either 267 Van Brunt St. or at 84 Tremont St. My conclusion is that they were moving right around census time, so the census missed them - they enumerated Tremont St. before the Toners had arrived there, but Van Brunt St. after they left. Of course, it's possible that they were missed for some other reason, or that they were living at yet a third address between 1880 and 1881, and for some reason (name spelled wrong?) aren't showing up in searches of the index. Beginning in 1882, Richard Toner no longer shows up in the Brooklyn City Directories I've seen. I'm thinking that that is potentially around when he died, but I can't know for sure.

Our next recourse are the NYS census records - state censuses (as opposed to federal censuses) were taken in 1875 and 1892 (relevant to this search) as well as in 1855, 1865, 1905, 1915, and 1925. I'd like to see them all, but especially the 1875 and 1892. They're not online, but are available on microfilm at the NYC Municipal Archives, as well as, potentially, on microfilm at Family History Centers across the country. If the latter, I've been meaning to try to get to one of those near DC. If only the former, I'll try to get to it this summer, or the next time I'm in NY and have some time to kill on a weekday.

(Also, the Toners seem to stop showing up in the Brooklyn Eagle around the end of the 1870s, which makes me think that it was one individual - probably Richard - who submitted their news items, and when that person died, so did the Brooklyn Eagle submissions. Again, just a theory.)

Mary Ennis?

This Mary Ennis, from Maynooth, County Kildare, died May 5, 1866. The funeral was held at Richard Toner's house at Van Brunt and Tremont. Who is Mary Ennis? I'm imagining. . . a sister of Richard's? A cousin? There's no mention of a husband or late husband, though, so was she not married? Was it only because they were from the same town - presumably then friends - that she was waked at the Toners' house? Has anyone heard of the name Ennis?


Brooklyn NY Daily Eagle. "Died." May 5, 1866. via eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.com. 

267 Van Brunt St.

I was just searching the Brooklyn Genealogy pages, and came across this listing for Richard Toner, painter, in the Lain's City Directory for 1879/1880. This is less informative, in terms of details, than the news item about Richard's suicide attempt, but it does include a much more recent home address - 267 Van Brunt St., just across the street, probably, from where Julia and Patrick Mulvaney lived in 1900. This, I think, will be the street address I look for when I go paging through 1880 census records, not 91 Verona St.

TONER Richard  painter h 267 Van Brunt

(http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Directory/1879/t.html)

Breaking News!

In breaking news from 140 years ago, this article appeared on September 6, 1877, and it looks like our Richard Toner, Julia's father, who's listed in the 1870 census as a painter. It appears that he had been having some trouble with his son - should be William, Julia's brother, if he was 17 in 1877 - who was refusing to go to school, and after yelling at him, Richard went upstairs and tried to kill himself. Is your kid playing hooky really a good reason to kill yourself? It also says, though, that Richard was "formerly worth considerable money," so potentially, financial ruin was more a motivation than fighting with a teenager. We do now know, though, the latest address we've come across for the family, which will help when I eventually have to resort to paging through 1880 census records to find out whether Julia was ever actually born to this family.

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!

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.