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?

"On Basketball Courts"

In my recent searches of the Brooklyn Eagle at the new Brooklyn Newsstand site, I came across an interesting reference to my Mulcahy family.

 

"On Basketball Courts." Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 22 Jan 1912

The item, which ran in the "On Basketball Courts" section of the 22 Jan 1912 edition of the Eagle, is advertising for competitors to play against a basketball team called the Nevada Five. (I cannot for the life of me figure out why this team from Brooklyn was known as the "Nevada Five.") These ads were common at the time, though I've seen more of them in the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union than in the Eagle. The team's contact, Mike "Mulcay," is one of my Mulcahys, who lived at 85 Luquer Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I'm guessing that the number "(120)" refers to the weight of the players, as most other similar advertisements refer to teams as "95 pound" teams, or as teams with "135 pound players," etc.

This all leaves one big question: Who was "Mike Mulcay"? The Mulcahy family had two Michaels living at 85 Luquer St., a father and son, and I can't tell from this ad or the other ones I've seen whether these teams were more likely to feature adults, adolescents, or both. Michael Mulcahy, Sr. was approximately 49 in 1912; his son, Michael Jr., was 13 or so. 120 lbs seems somewhat low for a grown man, although I've never seen a picture of Michael Sr.; he could have had a very slight build. Current CDC data, though, says that a 13-year-old boy who weighs 120 lbs is close to the 90th or 95th percentile for weight, and I don't think the Mulcahys tend to run quite that comparatively large.

Michael Jr.'s WWI draft registration card, from 1919, gives his build as "medium."

I have one picture of Michael Jr. as an adult, at his brother Gerard's wedding in 1937. Michael is the man in the gray suit, sitting erect at the center of the table, left side, across from the groom. He is not such a large man as to give the impression that he would have been at the 95th percentile for weight as an adolescent, but none of the brothers at the table are so slight as to give the impression that their father was likely to have weighed only 120 lbs.

Wedding of Gerard Mulcahy and Ann Danaher. Michael Mulcahy at center, left.

As an alternative, it's possible that the Mike "Mulcay" referred to in the paper was not actually a player on the team, but a manager who might have been smaller than the players themselves, or a father who was the coach or contact for a team that included one of his older, larger sons as a player. (That a team of 15- or 18-year-old basketball players would use one of their parents as a contact seems so hopelessly, helicopterously, 21st century though, doesn't it?) Or, of course, I could have completely misinterpreted the number "120" in the ad, as I had no idea what it referred to before looking at other similar items, and the others were all much clearer when stating their weights. I cannot, unfortunately, find much if any information about early 20th century amateur basketball in Brooklyn to inform my interpretations.

Online Resource: the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1841-1955

In an incredible boon to New York City genealogists and historical researchers, the Brooklyn Public Library recently announced that it has digitized the entire run of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, from 1841-1955. The earlier years, 1841-1902, were digitized some years ago through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the later years have just now come online through a partnership with Newspapers.com. They are all available for free, at the new website, http://newsstand.bklynpubliclibrary.org/.

It's true that the entire run of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle has long been available online through the Fulton History website, but I think that the two sites serve complementary purposes. I think the quality of the images on the Brooklyn Newsstand site is better, meaning that search results are more likely to be accurate. However, the library site's "Advanced Search" option includes only the ability to add a date or date range, which is not exactly particularly advanced. If you can navigate Fulton History's search function, you'll find a lot more flexibility there. Nonetheless, I do think that the Brooklyn Newsstand search function represents an improvement over the search function at the old Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online site through the BPL, as my searches have turned up results from the early years that I was never able to find at the previous site. (Although the original eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org site is still up, it will be retired in May 2014.)

While Newspapers.com is a paid site, access to the Eagle is free if you access it through the BPL. There are a few functions that are only available if you register for an account with Newspapers.com, but that should be free, as well. You can read more about these features here. It looks like there's even an option to save the articles you find to Ancestry.com! (Newspapers.com is owned by Ancestry.com.) I don't have a current Ancestry subscription, so I haven't tried it out, but it seems like a helpful function.


The Brooklyn Newsstand's "About" promises to digitize other Brooklyn papers "in the near future," so there may be even more to come. (The lag between phase I and phase II of the Eagle digitization was quite long, so I'm not sure what sort of time scale is being referred to when they say "near future.")

Tutorial: Searching Fulton History

One of the most significant online resources for research in New York State is the website FultonHistory.com. It has dozens of out-of-copyright NYS newspapers, all scanned, OCR-searchable, and available online for free. The site's owner, Thomas Tryniski, has undertaken this entire project by himself, and does not, as far as I'm aware, receive any monetary gain as a result - just the undying love and appreciation of every genealogist who's ever attempted to research in New York State.

(Don't be misled - although the site focuses on New York papers, just in doing test searches for this post, I came across results from newspapers in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Canada, and Mexico; it's worth at least a glance, no matter where your research is focused!)

My research wouldn't be the same without Fulton History, but I've heard over and over again - from cousins researching our joint lines as well as from fellow genealogists on list servs, in comment boxes, and elsewhere - that they don't utilize the site because they just can't figure it out, or they don't know how the search function works, or their searches return thousands of results and can't be narrowed down.

Now, any OCR (Optical Character Recognition) searchable database is at the mercy of the quality of the images, and my understanding is that what Fulton History has access to tends to be second- and third-generation library copies of the microfilmed newspapers, so the images - and, as a result, the search function - are not necessarily the highest quality. However, when you know what you're doing, searching Fulton History is actually quite easy, and it's 100% worth it to take the time to learn. It will absolutely revolutionize your research.

As a result, I've put together this tutorial, in hopes that it will convince some people to take another look at Fulton History. (And also so that I have something to link to, rather than typing out directions every time the subject comes up on the Brooklyn list!)

Step 1: The Goldfish
On the first screen, you'll meet the swimming goldfish, the first of several utterly unusual but charming elements of this site. Although the site's title is technically Old Fulton Post Cards, the vast majority of the content is newspapers, not postcards. Click "Enter" to get to the search page.

Step 2: The FAQ
I'm writing up my tutorial here, but I strongly suggest reading the FAQ. Once you've reached the search page, click on the "FAQ_HELP_INDEX" button at the top right. It's worth it to get an idea of the different search strategies that Tryniski built into the site, not all of which are ones I will cover here.

Step 3: The Index
For our searching purposes, it will be vital to know which of the newspapers on the site you're interested in searching. The index is not necessarily easy to find, but there is a link to it in the first lines of the FAQ, so it's good to visit while you're already in the FAQ thanks to Step 2.

It's also not particularly user-friendly, so I highly recommend downloading the Excel file to your computer, which is much easier to handle. There is a link to do so at the top right of the page:

Once you're looking at the Excel file, you can use CRTL+F (or COMMAND+F, if you're on a Mac) to search for the titles of newspapers you're interested in, as well as to find out what other papers exist for the areas you're researching. The index includes the county in which each paper was published, so searching for the county of interest is a good way to find out what newspapers might have been published nearby. If I search for "Kings" County (aka Brooklyn), I get a number of results that are actually for Kingston, so I'll search for Brooklyn instead - luckily, all of the references to Kings County are followed by "(Brooklyn)," although that's only the case for boroughs of NYC. I get the following results:

• Brooklyn NY Daily Eagle 1841-1955
• Brooklyn NY Daily Star 1898-1933
• Brooklyn NY Daily Union Argus 1877-1883
• Brooklyn NY Daily Union 1870-1887
• Brooklyn NY Standard Union 1888-1932
• Brooklyn NY Union 1883-1886
• Brooklyn NY Weekly People 1901-1973

You can compile a similar list for any county you're interested in. Be sure to note them exactly as they appear. If you happen to be interested in Brooklyn - or any other borough of NYC - it is also a good idea to look into some New York City (aka Manhattan) papers, too. Even in the pre-1898 days - the days before Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island joined New York City - I had Brooklyn families who showed up primarily in New York City papers, as well as Brooklyn families whose newsworthy stories appeared in both Brooklyn and Manhattan papers, oftentimes with different details in each. Get an idea of what newspapers you'll want to search. It won't be exhaustive, and there are search techniques for which you won't need to specify a title, but it's a good place to start.

Step 4: Search using Boolean techniques
The single most useful technique for mining Fulton History website is the Boolean search. Especially if you are looking for an individual with a common name, you need to be able to narrow down your search results so you don't end up with many thousands of results. There are several ways to do this. Regardless of which you plan to use, begin by selecting the "boolean" option from the drop-down menu on the search page.

Now, you have to format your search as a Boolean search. Most basically, this means that words like "and," "or," and "and not" function as operators, rather than search terms. The Boolean search function at Fulton History will search for the terns you enter exactly. Enter your terms; if there is more than one, connect them with one of the above operators. Most often, you'll be using "and," but "or" or "and not" are good to have in your arsenal for when your searches need to be a little more nuanced.

For example, you could search for any of the following terms:

• Michael Mulcahy [returns any page that has the phrase "Michael Mulcahy"]
• Michael AND Mulcahy [returns any page that has both the word "Michael" and the word "Mulcahy," even if they are nowhere near each other]
• Michael OR Mulcahy [returns any page that has either word, including all appearances of "Michael" anywhere in the database]
• Mulcahy AND NOT Michael [returns any page that has the word "Mulcahy" but not "Michael," which is useful if Michael Mulcahy is not your ancestor but a prominent individual who keeps popping up and clogging your results for your other Mulcahys]

Step 4a: Narrow your search
However, any of these could return many hundreds or thousands of results. It's necessary to be able to narrow your search by where your ancestor lived. One nice tip for doing this is using an ancestor's street address as one of your search terms. In the above case, this might mean searching for

Michael Mulcahy AND 85 Luqueer

However, frequently you don't know the ancestor's address, or want to cast a wide-enough net to catch articles that don't include the subject's address. The best way to narrow your search so that you're not finding every Michael Mulcahy in New York State (and beyond) is to search the specific newspapers relevant to the place where your ancestor lived. Return to the list you created in Step 3. In order to search a specific newspaper, you have to use the exact title of that paper as one of your search terms. (For now, do not include any years in the title.) For example, to search the Brooklyn Daily Star for Michael Mulcahy, you can use the string

Brooklyn NY Daily Star AND Michael Mulcahy

You can also narrow your search by time frame, though I've found that this really only works well when you are searching by newspaper title as well. Just add YEAR~~YEAR to the end of the newspaper title you are searching, indicating the beginning and ending years of your time frame. Since my Michael Mulcahy died in 1917, I might use 1917 through 1918 to check for an obituary and probate notice, using the following string

Brooklyn NY Daily Star 1917~~1918 AND Michael Mulcahy

Step 4b: Widen your search 
A search like that won't always be comprehensive enough to return all the articles about your ancestor, though. Sometimes it is necessary to both narrow and widen your search at the same time - essentially, to be very precise. Fulton History offers several ways to widen your search, including "Fuzzy search" and "Phonic search," but I won't cover these, as they're not among the functions I find most helpful. In my opinion, the most useful way to widen your search is to search for words within a certain distance of each other. There are lots of situations in which this is helpful. Some might include

• If your ancestor might be mentioned with or without a middle initial
• To find a death notice in the form of "LASTNAME - On [date], FIRSTNAME, [spouse] of . . ."
• To find relatives or associates mentioned in proximity to each other (e.g. as survivors in a death announcement, or guests at a wedding)

To search for terms found in proximity to each other, use the operator w/x, where x is the number of words within which you want to search. To find a Michael Mulcahy who may or may not be listed with a middle name or initial, use

Michael w/1 Mulcahy

You can combine this with the above strategy of search certain newspapers like so

Brooklyn NY Daily Star AND Michael w/1 Mulcahy

Michael's son Joseph was a police captain, who might alternately be mentioned as Capt. Mulcahy, Capt. Joseph Mulcahy, or Capt. Joseph E. Mulcahy. For a search that would find any of this references, use

Capt w/3 Mulcahy

As it happens, this returns over 100 results, for police and military captains throughout New York and North America. Again, here you have to combine the strategy of widening your search with that or narrowing your search, by choosing specific Brooklyn or New York City papers and searching each of them in turn.

Brooklyn NY Daily Eagle AND Capt w/3 Mulcahy
Brooklyn NY Daily Star AND Capt w/3 Mulcahy
Brooklyn NY Standard Union AND Capt w/3 Mulcahy
Brooklyn NY Weekly People AND Capt w/3 Mulcahy

It's up to you to decide how wide you want your parameters to be. If the name is not too common, I sometimes search to find terms within 10 or 20 words of each other, hopefully close enough to eliminate coincidental appearances in unrelated articles on the page while also being broad enough to capture appearances at the end of a wedding announcement or brief obituary. Quite frankly, I've seen enough death notices that read something along the lines of

JONES - At home, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, BOB, beloved husband of Mary. . .

to know that neither Mary w/3 Jones nor Bob w/3 Jones will pick up that item. If you're searching for common names, however, a search distance of 10 or 20 could return nearly infinite results.

By combining the strategies described above, I have found Fulton History to be an extraordinary resource. Although it might sound complicated, the searching will begin to seem more and more intuitive as you use it more often - and with the wealth of information offered by the newspapers at Fulton History, you can't afford not to use it often!

Please, let me know if in the comments if you have any questions, or if you can add any techniques to help other researchers delve into the Fulton History databases!


If you appreciate what Fulton History provides, please consider making a donation to support the site. 

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

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

Brooklyn Daily Standard Union, 14 Jan 1914

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

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

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

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

Newspaper Research: 249 Clermont Avenue

Over the summer, I ordered my great-grandparents' 1923 marriage license, and saw that my great-grandfather, John O'Hara gave his address as 249 Clermont Avenue, an address I was theretofore unfamiliar with.

1923, O'Hara-Quinn marriage license

Brooklyn Daily Standard Union, 15 Sept. 1924

This week I was searching the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union on Fulton History, and found an ad from the next year, offering a furnished apartment to let at 249 Clermont Ave. This was not something I had ever thought of using newspaper research for, but I realized that it gives a wonderful picture of what the building would have been like at the approximate time that John O'Hara was living there. (One thing that's not entirely clear to me at the moment is whether the entire family was living there, or whether 27-year-old John had moved out and was living on his own. For context: In 1920, 23-year-old John was living with his parents at 303 Vanderbilt Ave; in 1925, his 26-year-old brother Eugene W. O'Hara was living with their parents at 509 6th St. The pattern does seem to be living at home as a young adult, up until marriage, but I can't be sure that it holds universally.)

The 15 September 1924 ad reads "249 CLERMONT AVE., near DeKalb: large, small rooms, kitchenette; phone; electric."

Since not every building in the city would have had electricity, much less phones, in the early 1920s, this is very enlightening! I suspect that the building was in a nice area and had better amenities than some. Now I'm hoping that the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union contain similar references to other apartment buildings that my family lived in, which would be a great resource for establishing some information about the lifestyle and socioeconomic status of various families.

NYC Hurricane History: The Long Island Express

When I read Aaron Naparstek's article The Big One, I learned, for the first time, about some of the major hurricanes that had hit NYC in previous years. I decided on two storms that I wanted to look at in more depth, since they would have impacted my Brooklyn and NYC ancestors - the 1893 hurricane, and the 1938 "Long Island Express." After finishing up Monday's post on the "Ruinous Gale" of 1893, I started to look into the 1938 storm, and was startled to see it referred to as both the Long Island Express and the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. The Long Island Express was that hurricane? I've heard of that hurricane!

Most people with even a passing interest in the history of New England have heard of the 1938 hurricane that decimated the coast and killed hundreds, but it had never even occurred to me to wonder what effect it had had on New York. Hurricanes do not usually manage to hit New England without impacting NYC and Long Island, of course, but I never made the connection, not even when I spent two days thinking about New York being hit by a hurricane in 1938.

New York papers from the day after the Long Island Express hit were substantially more alarming than from the day after the 1893 storm. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle headline proclaimed "19 Die, 39 Missing in L.I. Hurricane."

22 September 1938

The Eagle devoted at least 5 pages primarily to the effects of the storm. Technology had advanced considerably since the hurricane that had hit 45 years earlier, and so you don't have to rely on my meager writing skills to give you an idea of what it was like. Instead, we have these remarkable videos to show us. (h/t to Bowery Boogie)





These focus mostly on New England, but give you a good idea of what the storm held for New York, particularly for the eastern end of Long Island, where it's power was most devastatingly felt.

Perhaps the most haunting part of the Eagle's coverage is the list of the dead, the missing, and the injured. Even a brief reading of the articles, though, shows that the list, and the count, far understate the actual damage. For example, left off the list are the 25 children who were attending a party at the home of Mrs. Norvin Greene in Westhampton Beach, none of whom had been seen since the storm. (The Greenes and their guests were later discovered to have survived.) (Murray, Around Westhampton.) 

Below is the list of dead and missing:

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 22 September 1938

NYC Hurricane History: A Ruinous Gale

In the wave of Hurricane Sandy madness that's spreading through New York City as well as through my Facebook newsfeed, my cousin posted a link to an article, The Big One by Aaron Naparstek, which is about how NYC is due for a major hurricane, and the conditions that make it particularly susceptible to serious damage, should one occur. What I found most interesting (besides the parts that made me think "Uh oh! Am I about to witness the end of New York as we know it?") were the references to previous severe storms that had hit the area, particularly the 1821 storm that saw sea levels rise 13 feet in an hour, the "Long Island Express" of 1938, and the 1893 hurricane that flooded parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

My ancestors were living in the greater New York area* during the latter two storms, and, as the wind howled outside my windows, I couldn't stop myself from doing a little research into history's hurricanes. I'll focus on the 1893 storm in this post, and try to write about the 1938 storm if our power holds out.

"A Ruinous Gale"

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 24 August 1893

In the afternoon of 24 August 1893, the day after Long Island was hit by a major storm, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle devoted 5 columns to the storm on the front page, and continued the article with 2 more columns on page 8. The article begins by calling Brooklyn "remarkably lucky" and describing the damage as consisting "mainly in the disfiguration of the fine streets of the town by the destruction of shade trees." It then goes on to devote 7 entire columns to describing damage rather more extensive than the loss of shade trees!

It was clear that New York took a rather different approach to storms then than it does now. When the rain began at 8:00 pm, "wise persons who had read the latest weather forecasts were prepared for the trouble."Still, despite the advance warning, a "giant maple fell on the line of the Fifth avenue elevated road as a train passed." It seems that shutting down public transportation the day before the storm is not a century-old practice!

Trees fell pretty extensively, and the Eagle reported the next morning that 360 were down. It also reported their locations, and being cooped up in my apartment with nowhere to go, I took the opportunity to map them using Google maps. Every blue marker on this map is a tree that fell in "down town" Brooklyn, as reported to the Eagle by the superintendent of streets.


View Trees Felled in the "Ruinous Gale" of 23 August 1893 in a larger map

(No downed trees are represented in South Brooklyn, where much of my family lived. Either it was not considered "down town," and so downed trees there weren't included, or it didn't have the quantity of trees that other neighborhoods in the city did, and so there were none to fall.)

Beyond the trees being uprooted, roofs were ripped off of houses throughout the city. The family of Mr. Henry Brandt at the corner of York and Gold streets were asleep in their beds when the roof was lifted off of their house and then dropped back on it, throwing debris into their home and trapping them on the second floor. They had to escape through a ladder out the back window. Five houses on Ryerson St. (numbers 121, 123, 125, 127, and 129) lost their tin roofs to the storm.

Flooding was extensive, too:

• Around the corner of Ashford and Fulton streets "the thoroughfares were flooded for two blocks around . . . The water was easily four feet deep at that point . . . the rare picture in a city thoroughfare, was that of a small boy in bathing trunks swimming from curb to curb just at the Ashford and Fulton street crossing. The boy may not have been swimming, but he was truly enough in bathing costume and he simulated natatorial progression. A crowd watched him and cheered him in his efforts."
• "Water poured in torrents along Atlantic avenue and Fulton street, flooding basements and cellars and in some instances flooding stores and dwellings as far as the first story."
• "In the block of houses on Rockaway avenue, between Marion and McDougall streets, six basements were flooded and in one house the small furniture in the front room was floating."

The article further described extensive damage along the beaches near Coney Island, saying that "the storm at Coney Island was the most violent ever experienced since the island became a summer resort." The Eagle relates the harrowing stories of people working in "bathing houses, photograph galleries, beer saloons, etc." on the beach, who lost everything or risked their lives trying to save what they could. Perhaps most disturbing is what happened to the "Bolivian Indian Village" "exhibit":

The Bolivian Indian Village, at the end of Tilyou's walk, was swept completely out of existence. All the Indians were asleep in the native huts in which they live. They were awakened by the water dashing over them and panic stricken with fright, howled dismally. One big wave came in and knocked the whole foundation out from under the place and the roof fell in. The falling timbers struck a big heavy pole which had been used by one of the natives named Samson in exhibiting feats of strength. The pole fell over on one of the frail huts in which three indians were sleeping, injuring them quite badly and pinning them down under the debris. Their cries attracted the attention of W.H. Yost, J.C. Donnelly and T.J. Ornsbee, who were assisting the work of rescue and the three alleged aborigines were hauled from under the wreck of their hut and the big pole, half choked with salt water and nearly scared to death. 

According to Ask Mr. Coney Island, "The extent of injuries to the indians is unknown and the show did not reopen."

Although I know that last year Hurricane Irene cause serious damage to upstate farmers, one complaint that NYC and Long Island won't likely have after today's storm is the condition of the crops. In 1893, it was reported that "the fruit crop is practically ruined and the corn, which withstood the drought, is leveled to the ground and in many places torn up by the roots. The situation of the farmers is thus made particularly distressing."

As I read through the article, I hoped to come across some descriptions of the situations of the actual neighborhoods my family were living in, but I had no such luck. I saw pictures of Red Hook (2012) flooding by early this afternoon, so I'm sure that my South Brooklyn (1893) ancestors had to contend with the same. Between that, and reading that Brooklynites had spent the night of 23 August 1893 "listening all night to the beating of the rain on roofs and windows; they had heard the howling of the gale and the crash of falling trees and their curiosity was stimulated," I was able to begin to imagine my ancestors living through that storm, as I was living through this one.

*My family were living in Brooklyn, which is New York City now, but wasn't then.

What's "ancient history" in genealogy?

Earlier this week, I was on the verge of issuing a research challenge. I was curious about the story behind a 1940s newspaper mention of a collateral family line, but didn't have the slightest idea how to go about researching it. I didn't know exactly what had happened or where it had happened. How could I even begin looking? So I started writing a post to put it out to the genealogy community. I was going to ask for advice, and hey, if anyone wanted to do the research themselves, I wouldn't say no. But as I began to describe the research I had done thus far, I realized I wasn't quite sure. I had searched Fulton History, but had I searched only the Brooklyn Eagle, or I had I searched the entire site?

I don't know whether I had failed to search the entire database when I first investigated, or whether I had done so, but the Long Island Star-Journal hadn't yet been added. One way or another, I found the article I was looking for after mere moments of searching. It answered some questions, but raised some more. And it provided enough information that I no longer feel comfortable "putting it out there." As of the when the article I found went to print, "police were investigating," and though the article doesn't say it, the likely conclusions seem to be tragic accident or murder-suicide.

The incident in question took place in 1947, and although the deceased did not, to my knowledge leave any direct descendants, they had younger siblings who could still be alive. I imagine that every genealogist with a blog, or a book, or any platform on which to publicize his research at some point has to struggle with drawing the line that separates "ancient history" from "the not-so-distant past." Is it when the people involved are still living? (Among the letters written to my husband's great-grandfather throughout his life are some from the 1950s whose author, we have recently learned, is still living. That obviously very much impacts a decision on whether or not to post them.) What about when the people who knew the people involved are still living? While sensitivity is necessary here, it's really a rather stringent requirement. Should I not write about my great-great-grandmother (1868-1941) because her grandchildren remember her well? My great-uncles wouldn't demand that, and I've based my decisions off of their wishes . . . but she has other descendants I'm not in contact with.

There's no one alive today who remembers, for example, my great-great-great-grandfather, Mathew Madigan (1840-1892). I can write anything I want about him (anything true, that is). But when I posted about his grandson's death a few years ago, I quickly had second thoughts, and took down all specifics.

Where do you draw the line?

Learning from other people, OR, GenealogyBank is awesome!

I finally caved and got a subscription to GenealogyBank. I told myself it was mostly for my husband, whose ancestors come from backwards states like Massachusetts and New Jersey, states whose newspapers haven't been made available online en masse by the unbeatable Thomas M. Tryniski of the unmatched FultonHistory website. My ancestors are all New Yorkers - even more, they're (almost) all Brooklynites, up until the last 50 years. What more could I ask than a site that has the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, plus dozens and dozens of other New York papers, just in case?

I should have known better. After all, I read lots of genealogy blogs, right? If you didn't know better, you might assume I pay attention to them, too. I sure thought I did. I remember two posts in the not-too-distant past about making sure you check multiple newspapers for your ancestors. Kerry Scott, of ClueWagon, posted Why You Should Always Check the Second Newspaper. That was literally the title of the post. Why you should always check the second newspaper. And what did I think? "Good thing I don't ever have to check other papers, since everyone in Brooklyn read the Eagle!" Humor me for a moment and take a look at the Brooklyn Public Library's list of Brooklyn newspapers that they have on microfilm. You don't have to read it. Just look at how very long it is. Then you can roll your eyes, if you must. Meanwhile, Liz Haigney Lynch of The Ancestral Archaeologist posted News You Can Use, in which she even mentioned multiple Brooklyn newspapers. And it's true that, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that the responsible thing to do would be to one day check out the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union. But the Brooklyn Public Library was so very far away, and reading years of newspapers on microfilm can be so very tedious. I still didn't think I needed a subscription to GenealogyBank. After all, GenealogyBank doesn't have the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union, so what good will it do me? I'll still need to get to Brooklyn to read the Standard Union, and what other newspapers will do me any good?

It turns out that the one newspaper that will do me the most good is one I didn't even know I needed. By the 1910s, the Mulvaneys were publishing their death notices in the Daily Eagle, like all good ancestors do when they know the Eagle will be available free online in a century or so. But a few decades earlier, back in the 1870s and 1880s, it seems that the Mulvaneys were dedicated New York Herald readers.

In less than an hour from the time when we began our GenealogyBank subscription, I had come across the following, from the 10 February 1883 edition of the Herald:

MULVANY - On Thursday, February 8, BRIDGET, beloved wife of James Mulvany, native of Kells, county Meath, Ireland. Friends of the family are invited to attend the funeral, from her late residence, 127 King st., Brooklyn, Sunday, 11th, at two o'clock. 

How long had I been trying to find out where in Ireland these Mulvaneys originated? Oh, only approximately forever. It was the one last family whose Irish hometown I didn't know. And "Kells, county Meath" waited, tucked away in a database I wasn't willing to subscribe to because I was sure that all the newspapers I would ever need the Eagle (free online) and the Standard Union (only on microfilm) (and occasionally the Times, but really not until after consolidation, which wasn't until the immigrant Mulvaneys were long dead).

In sum, pay attention to what you read, listen to people who know more than you do, read lots of newspapers, and don't be as dumb as I am.

How would Great-Grandma bake?

There are a couple of genealogy or history related books on my list of things to read while I'm unemployed/a housewife (Annals of the Famine in Ireland; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), but what I've recently started reading instead is Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. It is a fascinating, enlightening, eye-opening book, though I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you're open to taking a long, hard look at what you eat and where it comes from. Of course, I do think the author probably has his biases, as we all do. I recently watched his movie The Botany of Desire, where he rails against monoculture. He certainly makes good points, but to attribute the Irish Potato Famine strictly to the fact that growing a single variety of potato left the crop more open to disease with not one single mention of a single political, economic, social, or religious factor? Yes it's a movie about biology, but the Potato Famine wasn't a strictly biological tragedy, and can't honestly be presented as one. If he's committed similar omissions elsewhere, though, they haven't been in areas where I'm knowledgable enough to pick up on them. With that in mind, and if you want to know where your food comes from, I'm enjoying The Omnivore's Dilemma so far.

Now, one of the most exciting wedding presents we got was a bread machine, and I'd already started using it to bake bread recreationally. I'd have nice, thick, slices of homemade bread during the day as snacks, or a slice for breakfast, or as a side with dinner. But we were still buying loaves of sliced bread to make sandwiches. It was almost as if we thought of the fresh, homemade bread as some sort of novel new extra, not "real" bread like the stuff in the plastic bag from the shelf in the store. Thanks to this book, I made the somewhat radical decision not to pick up any bread when I went grocery shopping yesterday, despite the fact that we had no store-bought bread at home. (When I told Ben that I would make him a sandwich on homemade bread for lunch today, he responded "I'm going to have to get rid of that book!")

I also have recipes for baking bread the old-fashioned way, in the oven, and I'm thinking of trying out a sourdough starter, too. But what I'd really like to do is bake bread the old-fashioned way. The recipes I find on the internet can't be the same as the recipes my great-grandmothers would have learned a century or more ago. (Is cottage cheese really a standard bread ingredient? Or, more to the point, was cottage historically a standard bread ingredient?) The bread recipe that Grandma Molly learned from Mary Gillan Quinn, or the recipe that Nana learned from Julia Toner Mulvaney? That would be a recipe I'd love to try. The 19th century was no nostalgic era of good nutrition and food purity (see: swill milk) - but I'd still be really interested in baking the bread my great-grandmother baked. (When I add milk, it'll be milk that complies with FDA regulations, after all.)

I used the Fulton History website to search old newspapers for bread recipes. As it turns out, bread recipes did not often appear in late 19th century newspapers. (If everyone knows how to bake bread, why print the recipe? When was the last time your local paper printed a step-by-step guide to sending an e-mail?) They often appeared in mid-20th century papers, but I'm not really interested in bread recipes from the 50s, when everyone was eating Wonderbread, anyway. There were only a couple of recipes I came across that met my criteria, and I may try them all - if I can figure them out!

Elmira NY Morning Telegram, 1898

Geneva NY Gazette, 1879

Interesting - a recipe for potato bread, I guess. Not sure whether I'll try this one. I also can't tell how much flour Miss Davidson added. (Is it really more important to tell us where the flour was milled than to tell us how much of it to use?)

Hudson NY Evening Register, 1886

Syracuse NY Evening Herald, 1895

Can anyone help me with this - what is "sweet milk"? I'd like to try my hand at some of these, but some of the terminology is a little difficult to penetrate.

Death of John J Dowd, 26 July 1946

From the Brooklyn Eagle, via Fulton History:

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

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

Mary E. King O'Hara Death Notice, 1949

From the November 7, 1949 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle, via Fulton History:

O'HARA - MARY E. (nee King), of 505 6th Street, on November 5, 1949, beloved wife of the late John J.; dear mother of John, Eugene, Patrick and Joseph. Reposing McCaddin Funeral Home, 24 7th Avenue, until Wednesday 9:30 a.m. Solemn Requiem Mass, St. Saviour's Church, 10 o'clock. Internment Holy Cross Cemetery.

This one will be a new experience for me. Grandma Mary King O'Hara died so recently that her death certificate will have to be ordered from the NYC Department of Health, not the Municipal Archives, like I usually do. (1949 is the dividing line for where death certificates are held.) I haven't let myself spend money for a vital record in months. I'm getting so excited!

John J. O'Hara Death Notice, December 1946

From the December 4, 1946 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle, via Fulton History:

O'HARA - JOHN J., of 505 6th Street, December 3, 1946, beloved husband of Mary E. (nee King); devoted father of John J., Eugene W., Patrick F., and Joseph A. O'Hara. Reposing Henry McCaddin & Son Home, 24 7th Avenue, until Friday, 9:30 am. Solemn Requiem Mass, St. Saviour's Church, 10:00. internment Holy Cross Cemetery.

And as a treat to myself for finishing a paper I had due yesterday, I'm going to let myself order the death certificate! Stay tuned. . .

More Mary Gillen Quinn - Death Notice

From the Brooklyn Eagle, via Fulton History, Mary Gillen Quinn's obituary:

QUINN—On February 8, 1941,
MARY, at her residence, 524 5th
Street, beloved mother of Martin
and Terrence Quinn, Mrs. William
Maines, Mrs. John O'Hara, Mrs.
Harry Kunze. Reposing at Chapel,
40 Lafayette Avenue. Funeral
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.; requiem mass
St. Saviour's R. C. Church. Interment
Holy Cross Cemetery.
Harold J. Reid, Director.

Michael Mulcahy Obituary

Michael Mulcahy
Michael Mulcahy of 85 Luqueer
street, a retired liquor dealer of the
old Twelfth Ward, where he was in
business for many years, died Saturday,
after a brief illness, and the
funeral will be held tomorrow morning
at 9:30 o'clock, with a requiem
mass in the R. C Church of St. Mary
Star of the Sea, of which deceased was
an old member. The interment will be
in Holy Cross Cemetery. Mr. Mulcahy
was born in Limerick, Ireland, and
settled in South Brooklyn in his early
youth. He was a member of the
Catholic Benevolent Legion. He is
survived by seven sons and two
daughters.

Sometimes you get caught up seeing how far you can take your genealogical pursuits laterally that you forget to look for your direct antecedents. I just came across an obituary for Michael Mulcahy, my great-great-grandfather, that gives quite a personal picture of his life. Little phrases - "where he was in business for many years," "of which the deceased was an old member," "in his early youth" lend some personality and the adjectives really point out that these were things considered worth mentioning about him. The obituary appeared in the January 22, 1917 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and it was found via Fulton History.

Who's Nora O'Donnell Loftus?

In the Saturday, June 3, 1916 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, via Fulton History, it's listed that a marriage license was granted to a (this is difficult to read) James Loftus, 25, of 151 Baltic St., and a Nora O'Donnell, 24, of 1450 Fulton St. This is the address that the Quinn family were living at two years earlier when Hugh Quinn died. The reason I think it might be relevant is that, some 6 years earlier, in 1910, the Quinns had a nephew living with them - one Hugh O'Donnell.

Interesting, perhaps.

Death of Fr. Alphonse Rickert, May 29, 1940

RICKERT—On Wednesday, May
29, 1940, at St. Bernard's Rectory,
651 Hicks St., REV. ALPHONSE M.
RICKERT, chaplain of the Catholic
Seamen's Institute of Brooklyn;
beloved brother of Joseph J., Frank
J. Rickert, Mrs. Lawrence J. Maier,
Sister Therese Marie of Maryknoll
and Sister Margaret Elizabeth, S.S.J.
Remains will lie in state at St. Bernard's
Church until 9:30 am Saturday. Divine
office and solemn mass of requiem 10:30
am at St. James Pro-cathedral.
Interment Holy Cross Cemetery.

From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, via Fulton History.

Papa's Obituary

I found Papa's death notice in the NY Times. He died on Christmas Day, 1970. The 9 grandchildren would have been. . .Lynn, Kevin, Eileen, Gail, Nancy, Brian, Kerry, and Eileen. I don't know which of his 6 brothers predeceased him. His brothers were James (d. 1987), Matthew , John, Gerard (d. 1997), Vincent (d. 1995), and Michael (d. 1978). (Death dates based on information from the Griffins, based on which I would have to conclude that it was either Matthew or John who predeceased Papa.) His two surviving sisters were his only two sisters, Mary Mulcahy Bohls and Margaret Mulcahy Hennessy.