- What are the titles and URLs of your genealogy blog/s? I have this one, You Are Where You Came From, at http://whereyoucamefrom.blogspot.com/, and help my husband with his letters blog, The Gleasue Letters, at http://gleasureharberletters.blogspot.com/.
- Do you have a wonderful "Cousin Bait" blog story? A link to a previous blog post might answer this question. This is definitely my best Cousin Bait story: http://whereyoucamefrom.blogspot.com/2011/11/serendipity-visit-to-old-homestead.html
- Why did you start blogging? Is there someone who inspired you to start blogging? I started blogging to share our family history with my relatives, and this was originally a private blog for their eyes only. When I realized how little interest most of my family had in ever reading it, though, I opened it to the public and found a wider audience.
- How did you decide on your blog/s title/s? I heard it somewhere, or made it up, or something. I've since come to regret it - it's too much of a mouthful, but it's too late to change it.
- Do you ever blog from mobile devices? What are they? Nope.
- How do you let others know when you have published a new post? I usually share posts on Google+ these days. I occasionally share them on Facebook, if I think a post would be of interest to a larger audience than just other genealogists.
- How long have you been blogging? I'm approaching my 5th anniversary.
- What widgets or elements do you consider essential on a genealogy blog? I'm not sure I consider anything "essential" beyond the ability to post and comment.
- What is the purpose of your blog/s? Who is your intended audience? The real purpose is to give me a place to analyze and interpret my research in ways I might not if I didn't have an outlet/know it would be public. That, and serving as "cousin bait," of course.
- Which of your posts are you particularly proud of? A couple from the past couple years that I particularly enjoy are On Serendipity, and Obstinately Ignoring Conflicting Evidence, and NYC Hurricane History: A Ruinous Gale, which I wrote during last year's Hurricane Sandy.
- How do you keep up with your blog reading? Not well. I never got into the habit of using a feed reader, and usually keep up best with what other people share publicly, particularly on Google+.
- What platform do you use for publishing your blog/s? Blogger.
- What new features would you like to see in your blogging software? I'm not sure, I've never really given it much thought.
- Which of your posts has been the most popular with readers? Apparently that is also On Serendipity, and Obstinately Ignoring Conflicting Evidence.
- Are you a sole blogger or do you contribute to a shared blog? I'm a sole blogger, though as I said, I also help my husband with his letters blog.
- How do you compose your blog posts? Slowly. It takes me forever to put together a post that I think is worth publishing, especially lately.
- Do you have any blogs that are not genealogy related? If you wish please share their titles and URLs. I have a gardening blog called How Does Your Urban Garden Grow? at http://howdoesyoururbangardengrow.blogspot.com/
- Have you listed your blog/s at Geneabloggers? Yes.
- Which resources have helped you with your blogging? I'm sure there are many, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
- What advice would you give to a new Geneablogger? Just keep writing. Even if you go through a slump - I've been through many - there's no reason not to pick back up again when you do have the time or the inclination to write.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
The Bloggers' Geneameme
Jill at Geniaus has started another Geneameme, in honor of Australia's National Family History Month. Here's my contribution:
Monday, August 26, 2013
Brooklyn Catholic Churches Map
I recently added a new Brooklyn Genealogy Resources page featuring, among other things, a map of Brooklyn Catholic churches. I created it a number of years ago, to assist in my own research, but I've always hoped it could be useful to other people, too. I've featured it in posts in the past, but thought I'd like to have it more prominently featured and more readily accessible. A number of people have told me they've found it helpful when I've linked to it on mailing lists and elsewhere, so here it is, permanently accessible. I am not the most tech-savvy person, so it had literally never occurred to me that I could embed it, other than in a post, until a couple of weeks ago.
View Brooklyn Catholic Churches in a larger map
The map currently includes the Brooklyn Catholic churches founded through 1900, though I hope to one day update it to include younger parishes.
Google has unfortunately rather gutted the functionality of this map since I originally created it. It used to be possible to take a custom map like this one, and then search for an address, like the address where you've found your family in census records. That address would then show up on the custom map, surrounded by the markers for the nearest churches. Now that searching for an address brings up that marker on a new map, you have to use two different tabs, or otherwise make sure that you're looking in the right neighborhood, rather than being able to plot the addresses against each other. It's still useful, I think, and I return to it frequently to work on different family lines, so I hope that my readers with Brooklyn roots will find it helpful, too - along with the other resources highlighted on the Brooklyn Genealogy Resources page.
This map was compiled using information from the Local Catholic Church and Family History & Genealogical Guide by Ann Mensch as well as the page Roman Catholic Churches of Brooklyn, N.Y. by Tim Desmond.
View Brooklyn Catholic Churches in a larger map
The map currently includes the Brooklyn Catholic churches founded through 1900, though I hope to one day update it to include younger parishes.
Google has unfortunately rather gutted the functionality of this map since I originally created it. It used to be possible to take a custom map like this one, and then search for an address, like the address where you've found your family in census records. That address would then show up on the custom map, surrounded by the markers for the nearest churches. Now that searching for an address brings up that marker on a new map, you have to use two different tabs, or otherwise make sure that you're looking in the right neighborhood, rather than being able to plot the addresses against each other. It's still useful, I think, and I return to it frequently to work on different family lines, so I hope that my readers with Brooklyn roots will find it helpful, too - along with the other resources highlighted on the Brooklyn Genealogy Resources page.
This map was compiled using information from the Local Catholic Church and Family History & Genealogical Guide by Ann Mensch as well as the page Roman Catholic Churches of Brooklyn, N.Y. by Tim Desmond.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Book Review: Sacrificed for Honor by David I. Kertzer
After I recently discovered that my great-great-grandmother Anna Pace was probably abandoned as an infant in Italy in the 1860s, fellow genealogist Peter Barbella recommended that I read Sacrificed for Honor: Italian Infant Abandonment and the Politics of Reproductive Control by David I. Kertzer. With a subtitle like that, what person in my position could say no?
It's times like this that I'm most glad to have joined such an active, welcoming, online genealogical community, both through Geneabloggers and on Google+. It honestly hadn't occurred to me, when I saw the records of a number of abandoned babies in the southern Italian towns that my family came from, that there might have been a monograph written about it. Only other people researching the same topics could have brought it to my attention.
Sacrificed for Honor is a book that's specifically about the widespread practice of infant abandonment in the 18th and 19th centuries, but it contains such a wealth of information about Italian social, religious, cultural, and familial practices that I'd suggest it to anyone with an interest in Italian history or genealogy.
The book focuses primarily on northern Italy, particularly the large cities of Milan and Florence, where most of the research thus far has been done. However, it gives enough history of practices in the south to put my Anna Pace's life in context for me. I'm expanding on this by using the records found on Antenati to create my own index of babies abandoned in Grumo Appula in the 1860s (g-g-grandma was born in 1864) to see if I can figure out the local context for abandonment. For example, the book tells us that in the South, many small towns had a "wheel" at which abandoned babies were left. (This in comparison to the North, where babies from small town were brought to nearby cities and left at their wheels.) However, having looked, so far, at 24 babies abandoned in the course of 18 months, there's no mention of a wheel, and each of the babies is described as having been discovered "behind the door of her house" by one of the 3 local midwives.
Kertzer provides a ton of national context for the practice of infant abandonment. For example, did you know that unmarried parents in Italy were essentially required to "abandon" their illegitimate children to the huge network of foundling homes and foster parents set up to receive them? (The book even mentions one case of a 6-year-old boy, whose parents were unmarried but living together. When authorities found out that he was illegitimate, they intervened at that late date to remove him from the home and send him to a foster family - from which, of course, he promptly ran away.) Or that the vast majority of infants sent to foundling homes perished within the first 2 years of life, most of them within their first months, due to the difficulty of obtaining wetnurses in the days before safe, nutritious formula? This, despite the fact that the entire system was arranged to protect illegitimate babies from the ever-present dangers of abortion and infanticide.
I can't say that I agree with all of Kertzer's conclusions, particularly where he extrapolates into modern moral and political arenas. I won't spend too much time on my reasons on a blog that doesn't have a political purpose. Suffice it to say that the book makes clear where his beliefs and mine differ on things like women's rights and the sanctity of all life, at all stages of development. Had abortion been an officially sanctioned, accessible option in 1864 like it is today, there's a very good chance that Anna Pace never would have been born, and neither would her 7 children who survived infancy, among them my great-grandmother; or her 7 children, among them my grandfather; or his 8 children; or his 20 grandchildren (myself among them) or his 4 great-granchildren. You don't know my family, but they're pretty fantastic; I can attest my own life would have been least among these losses.
Putting the personal and the political aside, I can recommend Sacrificed for Honor by David I. Kertzer enthusiastically. In fact, I was thrilled to discover that Kertzer's website includes a long list of other articles he's authored on similar topics, and I've added them to my reading list to gain additional context on the childhood, maturation, and adulthood of foundlings like my great-great-grandmother. I don't have to agree with his politics to know that his scholarship has provided context to the murkiest line in my family. With a brick wall this thick, context might be all I have. Anna's parents are described as ignoti on her marriage certificate, and merely as the autori di suoi giorni on the record that describes her discovery behind the midwife's door. I'm thinking about testing my grandfather's mtDNA on the off chance that a match provides some more information, but that's uncertain and even would benefit from the context provided here. The book, though scholarly, is an easy and engaging read, suitable for anyone with genealogical research interests in Italy, and particularly for those of us with brick walls of this nature, and I recommend it highly.
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon.com affiliate links. This means that if you choose to make a purchase from Amazon after clicking one of these links, I will receive a small portion of your purchase price as a commission. I personally make a point of starting my Amazon shopping through the affiliate links of bloggers and friends whenever possible, so that large corporations are not the only beneficiaries of my purchases, and encourage others to do the same, regardless of whether they use my affiliate links or another blogger's.
It's times like this that I'm most glad to have joined such an active, welcoming, online genealogical community, both through Geneabloggers and on Google+. It honestly hadn't occurred to me, when I saw the records of a number of abandoned babies in the southern Italian towns that my family came from, that there might have been a monograph written about it. Only other people researching the same topics could have brought it to my attention.
Sacrificed for Honor is a book that's specifically about the widespread practice of infant abandonment in the 18th and 19th centuries, but it contains such a wealth of information about Italian social, religious, cultural, and familial practices that I'd suggest it to anyone with an interest in Italian history or genealogy.
The book focuses primarily on northern Italy, particularly the large cities of Milan and Florence, where most of the research thus far has been done. However, it gives enough history of practices in the south to put my Anna Pace's life in context for me. I'm expanding on this by using the records found on Antenati to create my own index of babies abandoned in Grumo Appula in the 1860s (g-g-grandma was born in 1864) to see if I can figure out the local context for abandonment. For example, the book tells us that in the South, many small towns had a "wheel" at which abandoned babies were left. (This in comparison to the North, where babies from small town were brought to nearby cities and left at their wheels.) However, having looked, so far, at 24 babies abandoned in the course of 18 months, there's no mention of a wheel, and each of the babies is described as having been discovered "behind the door of her house" by one of the 3 local midwives.
Kertzer provides a ton of national context for the practice of infant abandonment. For example, did you know that unmarried parents in Italy were essentially required to "abandon" their illegitimate children to the huge network of foundling homes and foster parents set up to receive them? (The book even mentions one case of a 6-year-old boy, whose parents were unmarried but living together. When authorities found out that he was illegitimate, they intervened at that late date to remove him from the home and send him to a foster family - from which, of course, he promptly ran away.) Or that the vast majority of infants sent to foundling homes perished within the first 2 years of life, most of them within their first months, due to the difficulty of obtaining wetnurses in the days before safe, nutritious formula? This, despite the fact that the entire system was arranged to protect illegitimate babies from the ever-present dangers of abortion and infanticide.
I can't say that I agree with all of Kertzer's conclusions, particularly where he extrapolates into modern moral and political arenas. I won't spend too much time on my reasons on a blog that doesn't have a political purpose. Suffice it to say that the book makes clear where his beliefs and mine differ on things like women's rights and the sanctity of all life, at all stages of development. Had abortion been an officially sanctioned, accessible option in 1864 like it is today, there's a very good chance that Anna Pace never would have been born, and neither would her 7 children who survived infancy, among them my great-grandmother; or her 7 children, among them my grandfather; or his 8 children; or his 20 grandchildren (myself among them) or his 4 great-granchildren. You don't know my family, but they're pretty fantastic; I can attest my own life would have been least among these losses.
Putting the personal and the political aside, I can recommend Sacrificed for Honor by David I. Kertzer enthusiastically. In fact, I was thrilled to discover that Kertzer's website includes a long list of other articles he's authored on similar topics, and I've added them to my reading list to gain additional context on the childhood, maturation, and adulthood of foundlings like my great-great-grandmother. I don't have to agree with his politics to know that his scholarship has provided context to the murkiest line in my family. With a brick wall this thick, context might be all I have. Anna's parents are described as ignoti on her marriage certificate, and merely as the autori di suoi giorni on the record that describes her discovery behind the midwife's door. I'm thinking about testing my grandfather's mtDNA on the off chance that a match provides some more information, but that's uncertain and even would benefit from the context provided here. The book, though scholarly, is an easy and engaging read, suitable for anyone with genealogical research interests in Italy, and particularly for those of us with brick walls of this nature, and I recommend it highly.
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon.com affiliate links. This means that if you choose to make a purchase from Amazon after clicking one of these links, I will receive a small portion of your purchase price as a commission. I personally make a point of starting my Amazon shopping through the affiliate links of bloggers and friends whenever possible, so that large corporations are not the only beneficiaries of my purchases, and encourage others to do the same, regardless of whether they use my affiliate links or another blogger's.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Poll: Did your ancestors live in Brooklyn?
There is an oft-quoted statistic that 1 in 7 Americans can trace their ancestry through Brooklyn, NY. This is almost certainly complete bunk, but it's telling nonetheless: lots of people have lived in Brooklyn. For several decades in the nineteenth century, Brooklyn - then independent - was the third largest city America.* Today, if Brooklyn were still an independent city and not a borough of New York City, it would be the fourth largest city in the country.
My US-research has been almost entirely Brooklyn-based. Three quarters of my grandparents were born there, and a number of their parents and grandparents before them. As a result, I spend a lot of research time on Brooklyn, and I devote a lot of additional time to reading and learning about Brooklyn's history over the past couple of centuries. When I first started exploring the online genealogy community, I searched on Geneabloggers for other genealogy blogs about Brooklyn, and was shocked by how little I found. Plenty of content from the Virtual Dime Museum, some from the Ancestral Archaeologist and Tracing the Tribe, and more recently, the blog Brooklyn in Love and at War. But there was very little else that either focused on Brooklyn or treated it with any regularity.
Wondering about this disconnect has led me to ask the following poll question of my readers: Did your ancestors live in Brooklyn? I'd love to get as large a sample as possible - we'll see how readers of a genealogy-focused blog compare to that mythical 1 in 7 - so please select an answer below.
*I wish could find the contemporary newspaper articles, in which Brooklyn papers are proud and Manhattan papers, ever superior, are absolutely incredulous. If memory serves, they say things like "Brooklyn now claims to be the 3rd large city in the Union," despite the fact that it's Census data, not Brooklyn egos, that underlie the claim.
My US-research has been almost entirely Brooklyn-based. Three quarters of my grandparents were born there, and a number of their parents and grandparents before them. As a result, I spend a lot of research time on Brooklyn, and I devote a lot of additional time to reading and learning about Brooklyn's history over the past couple of centuries. When I first started exploring the online genealogy community, I searched on Geneabloggers for other genealogy blogs about Brooklyn, and was shocked by how little I found. Plenty of content from the Virtual Dime Museum, some from the Ancestral Archaeologist and Tracing the Tribe, and more recently, the blog Brooklyn in Love and at War. But there was very little else that either focused on Brooklyn or treated it with any regularity.
Wondering about this disconnect has led me to ask the following poll question of my readers: Did your ancestors live in Brooklyn? I'd love to get as large a sample as possible - we'll see how readers of a genealogy-focused blog compare to that mythical 1 in 7 - so please select an answer below.
Did your ancestors live in Brooklyn?
*I wish could find the contemporary newspaper articles, in which Brooklyn papers are proud and Manhattan papers, ever superior, are absolutely incredulous. If memory serves, they say things like "Brooklyn now claims to be the 3rd large city in the Union," despite the fact that it's Census data, not Brooklyn egos, that underlie the claim.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Finding Louisa
My 2x great-grandmother, Julia Toner Mulvaney, had a sister named Louisa. Born around 1857, Louisa Toner seemed to disappear from the census records after 1875, and for the longest time, I couldn't find any evidence of her until her death in 1918.
In 1860, Louisa, 3, is enumerated with her family in South Brooklyn:
In 1865, Louisa is 8 years old:
In 1870, Louisa, 13, is at school:
In 1875, Louisa, 17, is living with her family, including her married sister Elizabeth and brother-in-law Thomas Loughlin:
In 1880, I can't find any of the Toner family on the federal census, and in 1892, I can't find anyone but the Loughlins on the NYS census.
After that, the rest of the surviving Toner children - Julia, Elizabeth, and Mary Toner Murphy - show up in census records with their families. But not Louisa. I couldn't find a single record of her until she died in 1918. At some point, she married a man by the name of Deegan, according to both familial memory and her death certificate, but I have no idea what his first name was. Family lore says that he made buttons, but even with that information, city directories have proved no help. Despite the fact that Louisa's death certificate claims that she was a life-long resident of New York City, there was no evidence of her life between her teens and her 50s. For years, the preceding part of this post was all I knew about Louisa.
Louisa's death certificate lists her residence as 391 Baltic St. at her death in 1918, but I've had trouble finding the enumeration for this address in the 1915 NYS Census, even when I page through each sheet of AD 08 ED 02, which is where Steve Morse's AD/ED Finder tool suggests the building should be.
Louisa is buried in a grave with my 2x great-aunt, Auntie Mae; Mae's husband Uncle Johnny; and an infant named Charlotte Reade who seemed unconnected to the rest of the family. I ordered baby Charlotte's death certificate, though, and when it arrived recently, I realized I'd been mistaken. Not only is she not unconnected to the family, but might she be the only connection we have to Mr. Deegan's family?
Charlotte's parents' names are given as John Reade and Minerva Deegan. Her home address, of 391 Warren St., puts her living right around the corner from Louisa's home at 391 Baltic. I didn't know who Minerva Deegan was, but my first guess was that she might be a sister of our Mr. Deegan. The truth never even occurred to me.
I went searching for Minerva Deegan, hoping her unusual first name would be easier to find than a Louisa in a haystack, or a Mr. Deegan whose first name I didn't even know. If I could find a link to the Deegan family through her, it might lead me to Louisa eventually.
That's sort of what happened.
The first record I found was of a Minerva Deegan who was the daughter of "Niele" and Louisa Deegan, living at home with her parents and an Irish-born servant, Mary Doren.
Why this record never showed up in all the years I spent searching for Louisa Deegan I may never know, but I'd certainly never seen it before. Minerva was born in May 1882, and it gives us a name for Mr. Deegan - though that name would prove less useful than I might have hoped. That the Deegans employed a servant struck me as a little unusual, because I assumed that a "cloak cutter" - Niele's occupation - was a low-level garment industry job. Asking around revealed that it's actually a highly-skilled garment industry job and might well bring a good wage.
Minerva soon disappears from the Deegan family, and it's probably because she grew up and got married to John Reade. On top of that, "Niele" is not the name by which Mr. Deegan is enumerated through the next few decades. Nonetheless, these Deegans - who had proved so elusive for so long - suddenly started popping up like crocuses in springtime.
In the 1905 NYS Census, the family consists of Louise and William Degan, and they're living in Manhattan, not Brooklyn. However, Mr. Deegan is still a cloak cutter, and all their other information matches, so I feel pretty confident that this is the correct couple.
In the 1910 Federal Census, the household consists of William B. and Louise Degan and a boarder, Henry Wagner. They're still living in Manhattan, and William's job is given as a "Cutter" in the "Clothing" industry.
In the 1915 NYS Census, William and Louise Deegan and a boarder (Harry Buston) are still living in Manhattan - this despite Louisa's home address being in Brooklyn when she died a mere 3 years later. William is a "Clothing cutter."
I have yet to find more information about Minerva Deegan Reade in the years between when she's enumerated with her parents in 1900 and when her daughter dies in 1918. Despite her unusual name, she isn't showing up easily for me this time around. Stay tuned for an update when, with any luck, I track down the rest of the Deegan and Reade families.
In 1860, Louisa, 3, is enumerated with her family in South Brooklyn:
 |
| Toner family, 1860 |
In 1865, Louisa is 8 years old:
 |
| Toner family, 1865 |
In 1870, Louisa, 13, is at school:
In 1875, Louisa, 17, is living with her family, including her married sister Elizabeth and brother-in-law Thomas Loughlin:
 |
| Toner and Loughlin families, 1875 |
In 1880, I can't find any of the Toner family on the federal census, and in 1892, I can't find anyone but the Loughlins on the NYS census.
After that, the rest of the surviving Toner children - Julia, Elizabeth, and Mary Toner Murphy - show up in census records with their families. But not Louisa. I couldn't find a single record of her until she died in 1918. At some point, she married a man by the name of Deegan, according to both familial memory and her death certificate, but I have no idea what his first name was. Family lore says that he made buttons, but even with that information, city directories have proved no help. Despite the fact that Louisa's death certificate claims that she was a life-long resident of New York City, there was no evidence of her life between her teens and her 50s. For years, the preceding part of this post was all I knew about Louisa.
Louisa's death certificate lists her residence as 391 Baltic St. at her death in 1918, but I've had trouble finding the enumeration for this address in the 1915 NYS Census, even when I page through each sheet of AD 08 ED 02, which is where Steve Morse's AD/ED Finder tool suggests the building should be.
Louisa is buried in a grave with my 2x great-aunt, Auntie Mae; Mae's husband Uncle Johnny; and an infant named Charlotte Reade who seemed unconnected to the rest of the family. I ordered baby Charlotte's death certificate, though, and when it arrived recently, I realized I'd been mistaken. Not only is she not unconnected to the family, but might she be the only connection we have to Mr. Deegan's family?
 |
| Excerpt from the death certificate of Charlotte Reade, Brooklyn NY, 17 July 1918 |
Charlotte's parents' names are given as John Reade and Minerva Deegan. Her home address, of 391 Warren St., puts her living right around the corner from Louisa's home at 391 Baltic. I didn't know who Minerva Deegan was, but my first guess was that she might be a sister of our Mr. Deegan. The truth never even occurred to me.
I went searching for Minerva Deegan, hoping her unusual first name would be easier to find than a Louisa in a haystack, or a Mr. Deegan whose first name I didn't even know. If I could find a link to the Deegan family through her, it might lead me to Louisa eventually.
That's sort of what happened.
The first record I found was of a Minerva Deegan who was the daughter of "Niele" and Louisa Deegan, living at home with her parents and an Irish-born servant, Mary Doren.
 |
| Deegan Family, 1900 |
Minerva soon disappears from the Deegan family, and it's probably because she grew up and got married to John Reade. On top of that, "Niele" is not the name by which Mr. Deegan is enumerated through the next few decades. Nonetheless, these Deegans - who had proved so elusive for so long - suddenly started popping up like crocuses in springtime.
 |
| Deegan Family, 1905 |
 |
| Deegan Family, 1910 |
 |
| Deegan Family, 1915 |
I have yet to find more information about Minerva Deegan Reade in the years between when she's enumerated with her parents in 1900 and when her daughter dies in 1918. Despite her unusual name, she isn't showing up easily for me this time around. Stay tuned for an update when, with any luck, I track down the rest of the Deegan and Reade families.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Top 10 Reasons to Stop Blogging for Months at a Time
10. How many times can you post about working your way through each of the nearly-identical vital records of all of your great-great-grandparents' siblings?
9. My job has the audacity to expect me to work before they'll give me a paycheck.
8. Because dinner has to make it to the table every. single. night.
7. Too busy reading scholarly books that greatly contribute to my historical understanding and advance my genealogical studies.
6. Too busy reading chick lit.
5. Daylight Savings Time.
4. The beach.
3. 8 weddings in 12 months. [See also: Top 10 Reasons I Can't Afford my Genealogical Habit or Any of the Other Pastimes I Used to Enjoy]
2. Too many interesting articles about food policy, monoculture, and the microbiome on Slate.
and the #1 reason to stop blogging for months at a time:
1. Spending time and resources on enjoying real-live relatives instead of on researching and writing about long-dead ones.
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon.com affiliate links. This means that if you choose to make a purchase from Amazon after clicking one of these links, I will receive a small portion of your purchase price as a commission. I personally make a point of starting my Amazon shopping through the affiliate links of bloggers and friends whenever possible, so that large corporations are not the only beneficiaries of my purchases, and encourage others to do the same, regardless of whether they use my affiliate links or another blogger's.
Friday, July 19, 2013
The unexpected phone call
I remember when I was first told that unexpected phone calls were scary.
I was about 12 years old, and my family was vacationing in Ireland. We were eating lunch at a restaurant attached to the hotel where we were staying in Dingle, and during the meal, our waiter came over, asked for my mom, and told her that she had received a phone call. I thought this was so cool. Here we were, all the way in Ireland, and someone was calling our family! In my mind, it was the equivalent of running into someone you know from on the streets of a foreign country. But my mom did not have a "what a nice surprise!" expression on her face as she got up to take the call, and my dad, remaining at the table, was clearly agitated.
I asked what was wrong, and he explained that unexpected phone calls - calls at the wrong time, calls when you're supposed to be unreachable, calls when someone clearly had to track you down, when the only people with your itinerary have it "just in case" - unexpected phone calls are not generally the bearers of good news. Now I, too, was scared - until my mom came back with news that the relative who'd been watching our house and dog had a question about using the car, or parking regulations, or some similarly mundane automotive matter. Although I accepted the premise that unexpected calls could be scary, the experience was not exactly convincing evidence of that.
I also remember when I really learned how scary an unexpected phone call could be.
I was a Junior in college, living right off of campus, and I generally kept rather later hours than my roommates did. One weekend morning at 2:30 or 3:00am, a few of my friends walked me back to my house after a night out. I often did that walk alone at night - it wasn't far and it wasn't scary - but they were still up and about and flirting with the idea of going out, or maybe staying in to finish up that last 30-pack of Busch Lite, so they came along for the walk when I decided to leave. I went upstairs and sat down at my computer in my darkened bedroom, not wanting to wake my sleeping roommate. I'd only been there 5 minutes or so when my cell phone started vibrating in my back pocket. That I was getting a call wasn't unexpected, and I assumed that the guys were making one last push to go on a nighttime adventure and were trying to entice me to join them. Then I brought my phone up and saw who was calling.
Mom cell.
My heart hit my knees. There were very few reasons why my mother would call me at 3am, none of them good. Trying to stay calm, I quickly and quietly left the room, still not wanting to wake my roommate. In the 15 seconds that it took me to get up and cross the room, every loved one I have died a dozen deaths. My mind raced, trying to figure out who it was. Not Mom, not if she's calling. Dad or Anna? Laura? Probably not Grandma or Grandpa, Dad would call then - or would he? - but maybe Pop . . . Is it Gina or Jamie? At this time of night, another college student, someone who'd be out late, drinking too much or doing dangerous things. If it's Dad's voice on the other end, then it is Mom . . . Car accidents, house fires, alcohol poisoning, could it be more than one person?
I mustered all the strength I had and answered the phone slowly, calmly, quietly.
Hello?
Hi Katie
My sister's voice. Did I wake you up? She was drunk dialing me.
No, but you scared the crap out of me! Why are you using Mom's phone? I thought someone died!
She'd forgotten she had Mom's phone . . . hers was broken, Mom lent her one . . . all sorts of inexcusable excuses that I had no time for as my heart slowly climbed back up towards my chest, my knees went weak, and I started breathing again. Any other day, I'd have relished a drunk phone call from my sister, who I didn't talk to often enough, who I feared wasn't having a good time at college. I'd been drunk myself, 2 minutes ago, but unexpected phone calls are literal buzzkills and I felt sober enough to drive a car, take a test, interview for a job. Anything but talk to the drunk girl on the other end of the phone who was in the mood for a giggly late-night chat.
It wasn't the unexpected phone call my parents warned me about. But it did a pretty solid impression of the real thing.
Note: This post should not be interpreted as meaning that my disappearance from this blog over the past few months was the result of an unexpected tragedy. I've just been busy. And/or lazy.
I was about 12 years old, and my family was vacationing in Ireland. We were eating lunch at a restaurant attached to the hotel where we were staying in Dingle, and during the meal, our waiter came over, asked for my mom, and told her that she had received a phone call. I thought this was so cool. Here we were, all the way in Ireland, and someone was calling our family! In my mind, it was the equivalent of running into someone you know from on the streets of a foreign country. But my mom did not have a "what a nice surprise!" expression on her face as she got up to take the call, and my dad, remaining at the table, was clearly agitated.
I asked what was wrong, and he explained that unexpected phone calls - calls at the wrong time, calls when you're supposed to be unreachable, calls when someone clearly had to track you down, when the only people with your itinerary have it "just in case" - unexpected phone calls are not generally the bearers of good news. Now I, too, was scared - until my mom came back with news that the relative who'd been watching our house and dog had a question about using the car, or parking regulations, or some similarly mundane automotive matter. Although I accepted the premise that unexpected calls could be scary, the experience was not exactly convincing evidence of that.
I also remember when I really learned how scary an unexpected phone call could be.
I was a Junior in college, living right off of campus, and I generally kept rather later hours than my roommates did. One weekend morning at 2:30 or 3:00am, a few of my friends walked me back to my house after a night out. I often did that walk alone at night - it wasn't far and it wasn't scary - but they were still up and about and flirting with the idea of going out, or maybe staying in to finish up that last 30-pack of Busch Lite, so they came along for the walk when I decided to leave. I went upstairs and sat down at my computer in my darkened bedroom, not wanting to wake my sleeping roommate. I'd only been there 5 minutes or so when my cell phone started vibrating in my back pocket. That I was getting a call wasn't unexpected, and I assumed that the guys were making one last push to go on a nighttime adventure and were trying to entice me to join them. Then I brought my phone up and saw who was calling.
Mom cell.
My heart hit my knees. There were very few reasons why my mother would call me at 3am, none of them good. Trying to stay calm, I quickly and quietly left the room, still not wanting to wake my roommate. In the 15 seconds that it took me to get up and cross the room, every loved one I have died a dozen deaths. My mind raced, trying to figure out who it was. Not Mom, not if she's calling. Dad or Anna? Laura? Probably not Grandma or Grandpa, Dad would call then - or would he? - but maybe Pop . . . Is it Gina or Jamie? At this time of night, another college student, someone who'd be out late, drinking too much or doing dangerous things. If it's Dad's voice on the other end, then it is Mom . . . Car accidents, house fires, alcohol poisoning, could it be more than one person?
I mustered all the strength I had and answered the phone slowly, calmly, quietly.
Hello?
My sister's voice. Did I wake you up? She was drunk dialing me.
No, but you scared the crap out of me! Why are you using Mom's phone? I thought someone died!
She'd forgotten she had Mom's phone . . . hers was broken, Mom lent her one . . . all sorts of inexcusable excuses that I had no time for as my heart slowly climbed back up towards my chest, my knees went weak, and I started breathing again. Any other day, I'd have relished a drunk phone call from my sister, who I didn't talk to often enough, who I feared wasn't having a good time at college. I'd been drunk myself, 2 minutes ago, but unexpected phone calls are literal buzzkills and I felt sober enough to drive a car, take a test, interview for a job. Anything but talk to the drunk girl on the other end of the phone who was in the mood for a giggly late-night chat.
It wasn't the unexpected phone call my parents warned me about. But it did a pretty solid impression of the real thing.
Note: This post should not be interpreted as meaning that my disappearance from this blog over the past few months was the result of an unexpected tragedy. I've just been busy. And/or lazy.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
SNGF: My Mother's Mother's Patrilineal Line
It's been a while, but I thought I'd try to participate in this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge, as posed by Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings. Except - my mother and her mother are both living, and neither, I think, would want to be identified by name online. I'll do what I can, operating under the no living persons restriction.
1. What was your mother's mother's name? [This falls under the no living persons restriction.]
2. What is your mother's mother's patrilineal line?
-Carmine Lanzillotto (1894-1969)
-Giuseppe Lanzillotto (1851-1931)
-Nicola Lanzillotto (????-????)
3. Can you identify male siblings of your mother's mother, and any living male descendants of those siblings? My grandmother had 3 brothers, 2 of whom are still living. I sometimes still get confused by which of my mother's many, many cousins go with which aunts and uncles, but I can confidently say that among them they had at least 3 sons and one grandson, and quite possibly more.
More than anything else, what this exercise has revealed is that I need to sit down with my mother and have her help me sketch out her side of the family tree - not our ancestors, who I have a handle on, but her cousins, who are so numerous as to defy all but the sharpest memories.
1. What was your mother's mother's name? [This falls under the no living persons restriction.]
2. What is your mother's mother's patrilineal line?
-Carmine Lanzillotto (1894-1969)
-Giuseppe Lanzillotto (1851-1931)
-Nicola Lanzillotto (????-????)
3. Can you identify male siblings of your mother's mother, and any living male descendants of those siblings? My grandmother had 3 brothers, 2 of whom are still living. I sometimes still get confused by which of my mother's many, many cousins go with which aunts and uncles, but I can confidently say that among them they had at least 3 sons and one grandson, and quite possibly more.
More than anything else, what this exercise has revealed is that I need to sit down with my mother and have her help me sketch out her side of the family tree - not our ancestors, who I have a handle on, but her cousins, who are so numerous as to defy all but the sharpest memories.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
I think I just hit my first brick wall
I've been spending a lot of time lately - when I can find the time -
going through microfilmed Civil Registration records from Bitetto, Bari,
Puglia, Italy. 3/4 of my Italian great-grandparents came from Bitetto,
so this gives me the most bang for my $7.50.* However, I recently
discovered, through the Italian Family History Research community on Google+, that the Italian government is putting these same records online at an Italian genealogy website called Antenati ("Ancestors"). Although only a small portion of these are online so far, Bari is among those provinces that have been uploaded.
I have to admit that I was getting a little bored with this Italian research. The most exciting thing about genealogy, of course, is piecing together stories, solving mysteries, getting to know your ancestors. But Civil Registration is just Civil Registration, and I wasn't doing any of that. I was compiling lists of births, marriages, and deaths, which barely goes beyond collecting names. And yet it's the groundwork that needs to be done before I can move on from Nati, Matrimoni, and Morti to the Atti Diversi that might contain some more of the details that go beyond BMDs. I also have hopes of eventually figuring out what the local newspapers were and how I could gain access to them, but I haven't gotten there yet.
With easy access to all of Bari at my fingertips, I stepped away from Bitetto to the other town where my ancestors originated, the nearby town of Toritto. My great-grandmother Maria D'Ingeo was born either in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, or in Toritto, Italy, and her parents were Domenico D'Ingeo and Anna Pace. Unfortunately, the birth records only go through 1899 and Maria D'Ingeo was born in 1902, so this doesn't resolve the question of her birth. However, I was able to quickly find the birth record of Maria's older brother Vincenzo ("James") because he had listed his 1891 birth date not-too-inaccurately on his American draft registration. This confirmed their parents' names and gave me a good place to start looking for their marriage record, since all reports were that Vincenzo was the oldest child.
I found the marriage of Domenico D'Ingeo and Anna Pace on 31 Jan 1886, and annoyance over boring vital records dissipated.
The first point of interest is the date: 5 years passed between the wedding and their first known child. I'll have to spend more time on birth records in the intervening 5 years to see if there were any other children who didn't survive.
A second point of interest was that neither spouse was from Toritto, although both were living there. Domenico had been born in Terlizzi, and Anna in Grumo Appula. Both are nearby towns, but I'll have to learn more about the area to figure out if there was something in particular drawing them to Toritto.
Additionally, this record complete one additional generation in the D'Ingeo line, introducing me to my great-great-great-grandmother Rosa Rutigliano.
However, the vastly more interesting item was Anna Pace's parents - or lack thereof. The atto di matrimonio is a standard form with blanks left to be filled in. It reads, roughly translated:
"In front of me, [name] official of the Stato Civile, presented themselves:
1. Domenico D'Ingeo, age twenty-four, farmer, born in Terlizzi, residing in Toritto, son of the late Vincenzo, residing in life in Toritto, and of the late Rosa Rutigliano, residing in life in Terlizzi;
2. Anna Pace, age twenty-one, farmer, born in Grumo Appula, residing in Toritto, daughter of unknown father, residing in ________ and of unknown mother, residing in . . ."
As I scrolled down the page, I had first read figlia di padre ignoto and I thought I understood. She didn't know who her father was! Maybe her mother didn't even know who the father was! Then I kept reading, and was shocked. Clearly, Anna didn't know the identity of either of her parents. How does that happen?
While my first thought was that she could have been orphaned at a young age, a trip through the Atti diversi of a different town and an unrelated year showed that the majority of those acts recorded the discovery of abandoned babies. I still have to find some time to page through both birth records and Atti diversi for Grumo Appula in the mid-1860s to see when and how Anna Pace makes her appearance, but my guess at the moment is that she was another abandoned baby.
If that's the case, it seems like I'm staring down the brick wall of an impenetrable brick fortress with no doors or windows. Anna could be the beginning and the end of the Pace line in my family.
*$7.50 is the price to order 1 roll of microfilm from the Family History Center.
I have to admit that I was getting a little bored with this Italian research. The most exciting thing about genealogy, of course, is piecing together stories, solving mysteries, getting to know your ancestors. But Civil Registration is just Civil Registration, and I wasn't doing any of that. I was compiling lists of births, marriages, and deaths, which barely goes beyond collecting names. And yet it's the groundwork that needs to be done before I can move on from Nati, Matrimoni, and Morti to the Atti Diversi that might contain some more of the details that go beyond BMDs. I also have hopes of eventually figuring out what the local newspapers were and how I could gain access to them, but I haven't gotten there yet.
With easy access to all of Bari at my fingertips, I stepped away from Bitetto to the other town where my ancestors originated, the nearby town of Toritto. My great-grandmother Maria D'Ingeo was born either in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, or in Toritto, Italy, and her parents were Domenico D'Ingeo and Anna Pace. Unfortunately, the birth records only go through 1899 and Maria D'Ingeo was born in 1902, so this doesn't resolve the question of her birth. However, I was able to quickly find the birth record of Maria's older brother Vincenzo ("James") because he had listed his 1891 birth date not-too-inaccurately on his American draft registration. This confirmed their parents' names and gave me a good place to start looking for their marriage record, since all reports were that Vincenzo was the oldest child.
I found the marriage of Domenico D'Ingeo and Anna Pace on 31 Jan 1886, and annoyance over boring vital records dissipated.
The first point of interest is the date: 5 years passed between the wedding and their first known child. I'll have to spend more time on birth records in the intervening 5 years to see if there were any other children who didn't survive.
A second point of interest was that neither spouse was from Toritto, although both were living there. Domenico had been born in Terlizzi, and Anna in Grumo Appula. Both are nearby towns, but I'll have to learn more about the area to figure out if there was something in particular drawing them to Toritto.
Additionally, this record complete one additional generation in the D'Ingeo line, introducing me to my great-great-great-grandmother Rosa Rutigliano.
However, the vastly more interesting item was Anna Pace's parents - or lack thereof. The atto di matrimonio is a standard form with blanks left to be filled in. It reads, roughly translated:
"In front of me, [name] official of the Stato Civile, presented themselves:
1. Domenico D'Ingeo, age twenty-four, farmer, born in Terlizzi, residing in Toritto, son of the late Vincenzo, residing in life in Toritto, and of the late Rosa Rutigliano, residing in life in Terlizzi;
2. Anna Pace, age twenty-one, farmer, born in Grumo Appula, residing in Toritto, daughter of unknown father, residing in ________ and of unknown mother, residing in . . ."
As I scrolled down the page, I had first read figlia di padre ignoto and I thought I understood. She didn't know who her father was! Maybe her mother didn't even know who the father was! Then I kept reading, and was shocked. Clearly, Anna didn't know the identity of either of her parents. How does that happen?
While my first thought was that she could have been orphaned at a young age, a trip through the Atti diversi of a different town and an unrelated year showed that the majority of those acts recorded the discovery of abandoned babies. I still have to find some time to page through both birth records and Atti diversi for Grumo Appula in the mid-1860s to see when and how Anna Pace makes her appearance, but my guess at the moment is that she was another abandoned baby.
If that's the case, it seems like I'm staring down the brick wall of an impenetrable brick fortress with no doors or windows. Anna could be the beginning and the end of the Pace line in my family.
*$7.50 is the price to order 1 roll of microfilm from the Family History Center.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Online Resource: The Bowery Boys' podcasts
I recently discovered the Bowery Boys
podcast, and can't believe I've never heard of it before. The podcast
covers various aspects of NYC history, focusing on a different topic
each episode.
I started with last year's episode on Red Hook, of course, since that's where all my people lived. I've been picking and choosing the episodes most relevant to my family's history since then, but I'd love to work my way through the entire archive. (Luckily, I have a few days of important but rather tedious and mindless work to do in the coming weeks, so I've got lots of listening time available.) The recent episode on New York City's consolidation is a must-listen for anyone researching in NYC who might not be familiar with what exactly constituted "New York City" and when. (Hint: it looked very different before 1898.) A couple of the topics that they've covered that I most want to listen to are the Civil War Draft Riots, Collect Pond and Canal Street, and Old St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Although this sampling tends to be biased towards the era and geography of my own family's history in New York, the same bias is in no way reflected in the topics covered by the Bowery Boys, which extend from Peter Stuyvesant to JFK Airport. I highly recommend these podcasts to anyone with an interest in New York City history, or anyone with family who lived here at any point, as it will add history and context to your research.
I started with last year's episode on Red Hook, of course, since that's where all my people lived. I've been picking and choosing the episodes most relevant to my family's history since then, but I'd love to work my way through the entire archive. (Luckily, I have a few days of important but rather tedious and mindless work to do in the coming weeks, so I've got lots of listening time available.) The recent episode on New York City's consolidation is a must-listen for anyone researching in NYC who might not be familiar with what exactly constituted "New York City" and when. (Hint: it looked very different before 1898.) A couple of the topics that they've covered that I most want to listen to are the Civil War Draft Riots, Collect Pond and Canal Street, and Old St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Although this sampling tends to be biased towards the era and geography of my own family's history in New York, the same bias is in no way reflected in the topics covered by the Bowery Boys, which extend from Peter Stuyvesant to JFK Airport. I highly recommend these podcasts to anyone with an interest in New York City history, or anyone with family who lived here at any point, as it will add history and context to your research.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Laight St.: How my sister's boyfriend accidentally solved a genealogy mystery
In December, my cousin got married in Hoboken, NJ. Rather than get a hotel room, we had planned to take the PATH train back to NYC afterwards. However, NJ's transit system was still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Sandy, and we had to drive home instead. On our way to Queens, we dropped off my sister and her boyfriend in Brooklyn.
This is all relevant only because we ended up taking a trip we had never intended to take, driving a route we'd never driven before and don't expect to ever have to drive again. My husband's iPhone had died, and my sister and I have phones that think T9 texting is high-tech*, so my sister's boyfriend Cayce was reading the directions off of his phone in the back seat:
"Continue onto Late Street," he read.
I whirled around. "Onto what street?!"
"Did I say it wrong? It's L-A-I-G-H-T. "Lite" Street, maybe? It should turn into Canal Street."
"It turns into Canal Street?!"
At this point, I'm sure it seemed that I was having an extraordinarily difficult time understanding some fairly simple directions. Luckily, I was not behind the wheel, because though I was thinking about roads, my thoughts were not on the road.
"That's it! Cayce, you just solved a mystery!"
I have in my possession a semi-anonymous account of the history of the Mulcahy family, transcribed on my blog here. It says that my great-great-grandmother, Mary Ann Madigan, "was born on Lake St. in Manhattan." This was always a stumbling block for me, because there isn't a Lake Street in Manhattan. As best I could discern, there had never been a Lake Street in Manhattan. The only address I've ever actually found for the Madigans in Manhattan is 482 Canal Street. It had occurred to me that someone had confused two bodies of water and said "Lake" where they meant "Canal," but that seemed an unlikely mistake.
Although the account I had, written by an unnamed cousin of my grandmother, is not perfect, it has proved to be relatively accurate over the years. The only things that appear to be incorrect are the assertion that James Madigan was the youngest child in his family (he seems to have been in the middle) and the spelling of Loretta Madigan's married name as Rickett instead of Rickert. That last one is key, because it means I already knew that someone was writing things as they sounded, not looking at the names on documents and transcribing them accurately. (I've been told that the research was done by this cousin's wife, so either she had collected stories from people who were still alive without having them clarify spellings, or she had read out pieces of her research to her husband so he could write out these notes for his cousins, and he wrote what he heard.)
I had been aware for some time, since discovering the proper spelling of Rickert and confirming that there was no evidence that there had been a Lake Street in Manhattan in the 19th century, that "Lake" could have been a phonetic spelling of a different street name, but I had no way of figuring out which one, and it clearly wasn't similar enough that Google would return it when I searched for "Lake Street."
When Cayce read us the directions late that winter night, it all became instantly clear. Not only did Laight Street sound very much like the Lake Street I was looking for, but it also is in the correct neighborhood, only blocks from the address where I've confirmed the Madigans lived a few years later. I still use qualifying language when I talk about it, because I have no proof, but I can also tell you that I really have no doubts. I'm about as certain about Laight Street as I can be about something for which there is no definitive evidence.
If not for the fact that all 4 of us in the car that night are too "frugal" (cheap?) to spring for a hotel room when we're only 30 minutes from home; if not for the unfortunate storm damage to the transit infrastructure in northern New Jersey; if not for the fact that none of us are familiar enough with that neighborhood to be able to navigate it without directions; if not for Ben's failure to charge his iPhone, so he wasn't reading directions silently to himself but having them read aloud; if not for Cayce's innate knowledge of how to pronounce "Laight,"** I might still have absolutely no idea where my great-great-grandmother was most likely living when she was supposed to be on the nonexistent "Lake St. in Manhattan."
*by choice
**I've since looked it up; it seems that "LATE" is the correct pronunciation, but I think I'd have looked at Laight and said "LITE," and maybe never made the connection.
This is all relevant only because we ended up taking a trip we had never intended to take, driving a route we'd never driven before and don't expect to ever have to drive again. My husband's iPhone had died, and my sister and I have phones that think T9 texting is high-tech*, so my sister's boyfriend Cayce was reading the directions off of his phone in the back seat:
"Continue onto Late Street," he read.
I whirled around. "Onto what street?!"
"Did I say it wrong? It's L-A-I-G-H-T. "Lite" Street, maybe? It should turn into Canal Street."
"It turns into Canal Street?!"
At this point, I'm sure it seemed that I was having an extraordinarily difficult time understanding some fairly simple directions. Luckily, I was not behind the wheel, because though I was thinking about roads, my thoughts were not on the road.
"That's it! Cayce, you just solved a mystery!"
I have in my possession a semi-anonymous account of the history of the Mulcahy family, transcribed on my blog here. It says that my great-great-grandmother, Mary Ann Madigan, "was born on Lake St. in Manhattan." This was always a stumbling block for me, because there isn't a Lake Street in Manhattan. As best I could discern, there had never been a Lake Street in Manhattan. The only address I've ever actually found for the Madigans in Manhattan is 482 Canal Street. It had occurred to me that someone had confused two bodies of water and said "Lake" where they meant "Canal," but that seemed an unlikely mistake.
Although the account I had, written by an unnamed cousin of my grandmother, is not perfect, it has proved to be relatively accurate over the years. The only things that appear to be incorrect are the assertion that James Madigan was the youngest child in his family (he seems to have been in the middle) and the spelling of Loretta Madigan's married name as Rickett instead of Rickert. That last one is key, because it means I already knew that someone was writing things as they sounded, not looking at the names on documents and transcribing them accurately. (I've been told that the research was done by this cousin's wife, so either she had collected stories from people who were still alive without having them clarify spellings, or she had read out pieces of her research to her husband so he could write out these notes for his cousins, and he wrote what he heard.)
I had been aware for some time, since discovering the proper spelling of Rickert and confirming that there was no evidence that there had been a Lake Street in Manhattan in the 19th century, that "Lake" could have been a phonetic spelling of a different street name, but I had no way of figuring out which one, and it clearly wasn't similar enough that Google would return it when I searched for "Lake Street."
When Cayce read us the directions late that winter night, it all became instantly clear. Not only did Laight Street sound very much like the Lake Street I was looking for, but it also is in the correct neighborhood, only blocks from the address where I've confirmed the Madigans lived a few years later. I still use qualifying language when I talk about it, because I have no proof, but I can also tell you that I really have no doubts. I'm about as certain about Laight Street as I can be about something for which there is no definitive evidence.
If not for the fact that all 4 of us in the car that night are too "frugal" (cheap?) to spring for a hotel room when we're only 30 minutes from home; if not for the unfortunate storm damage to the transit infrastructure in northern New Jersey; if not for the fact that none of us are familiar enough with that neighborhood to be able to navigate it without directions; if not for Ben's failure to charge his iPhone, so he wasn't reading directions silently to himself but having them read aloud; if not for Cayce's innate knowledge of how to pronounce "Laight,"** I might still have absolutely no idea where my great-great-grandmother was most likely living when she was supposed to be on the nonexistent "Lake St. in Manhattan."
*by choice
**I've since looked it up; it seems that "LATE" is the correct pronunciation, but I think I'd have looked at Laight and said "LITE," and maybe never made the connection.
Monday, April 1, 2013
My Missing Mary
I am having the hardest time figuring out what's going on with my O'Hara family in the first decade of the 1900s, after they returned from a brief sojourn in their Irish homeland. The family consisted of parents John O'Hara and Mary E. King, and children John J., Eugene W., Patrick, Malinda, and Mary.
In 1900, they're enumerated in Brooklyn, at 253 Clinton Ave. (John, Mary E., John J., Eugene)
In 1901, their son Patrick was born, on 15 Dec., at Castle St., Castlebar Co. Mayo, Ireland.
On 1 May 1902, they arrived back in NYC. (John, Mary, John, Eugene, Patrick)
On 6 April 1905, their daughter Malinda was born in Brooklyn and, 10 days later, baptized at St. Augustine's Catholic Church.
In June 1905, they were enumerated at 586 Baltic St. (John, Mary, John, Eugene, Pacey, Malina)
In April 1910, they were enumerated at 527 Baltic St. (John, Mary, John Jr., Eugene, Patrick, Melinda)
On 29 Oct 1910, Malinda died at home, at 527 Baltic St., age 5 1/2.
On 20 September 1911, their daughter Mary died at home, at 527 Baltic St., age 3.
Who?
Mary O'Hara existed according to both family lore and her death certificate. Both put her at 3 years of age at her death in 1911. And yet there's no evidence of her life. She's not a between-the-censuses baby. She was alive - she was about 2 - in 1910. But she's missing from the one census that should be a record of her. And although the O'Hara family lived in the same 2-block stretch of Baltic St. from 1905 through 1911, she was not baptized at St. Augustine's Church (116 6th Ave.), the nearby church where her sister had been baptized a few years earlier. I haven't been able to get a response from any of the other Catholic churches that I've contacted in the neighborhood. If they were switching churches, there must have been something going on, some story behind it. (I attend Mass at a few different local churches, depending on my schedule, but I can't imagine celebrating my family's important sacraments all over the place willy-nilly - not without a good reason.)
I have a baptismal certificate for Malinda, and death certificates for both girls. I've just requested a birth certificate for Malinda, and I've requested one for a Mary O'Hara. (There are a good half a dozen other Mary O'Haras born in Brooklyn between 1907 and 1909 who could be my missing Mary, and if this one's not right, I'll be requesting the rest of them next.)
There are lots of between-the-censuses babies in my family tree, and each of them has a sad story. But I can't get Mary out of my mind. Because she's not. Because she should be there, and she's missing. And it make me so curious - where is she? - at the same time that it makes me so sad. I hate that there's no record of this little girl except her death, especially when there definitely should be.
In 1900, they're enumerated in Brooklyn, at 253 Clinton Ave. (John, Mary E., John J., Eugene)
In 1901, their son Patrick was born, on 15 Dec., at Castle St., Castlebar Co. Mayo, Ireland.
On 1 May 1902, they arrived back in NYC. (John, Mary, John, Eugene, Patrick)
On 6 April 1905, their daughter Malinda was born in Brooklyn and, 10 days later, baptized at St. Augustine's Catholic Church.
In June 1905, they were enumerated at 586 Baltic St. (John, Mary, John, Eugene, Pacey, Malina)
In April 1910, they were enumerated at 527 Baltic St. (John, Mary, John Jr., Eugene, Patrick, Melinda)
On 29 Oct 1910, Malinda died at home, at 527 Baltic St., age 5 1/2.
On 20 September 1911, their daughter Mary died at home, at 527 Baltic St., age 3.
Who?
Mary O'Hara existed according to both family lore and her death certificate. Both put her at 3 years of age at her death in 1911. And yet there's no evidence of her life. She's not a between-the-censuses baby. She was alive - she was about 2 - in 1910. But she's missing from the one census that should be a record of her. And although the O'Hara family lived in the same 2-block stretch of Baltic St. from 1905 through 1911, she was not baptized at St. Augustine's Church (116 6th Ave.), the nearby church where her sister had been baptized a few years earlier. I haven't been able to get a response from any of the other Catholic churches that I've contacted in the neighborhood. If they were switching churches, there must have been something going on, some story behind it. (I attend Mass at a few different local churches, depending on my schedule, but I can't imagine celebrating my family's important sacraments all over the place willy-nilly - not without a good reason.)
I have a baptismal certificate for Malinda, and death certificates for both girls. I've just requested a birth certificate for Malinda, and I've requested one for a Mary O'Hara. (There are a good half a dozen other Mary O'Haras born in Brooklyn between 1907 and 1909 who could be my missing Mary, and if this one's not right, I'll be requesting the rest of them next.)
There are lots of between-the-censuses babies in my family tree, and each of them has a sad story. But I can't get Mary out of my mind. Because she's not. Because she should be there, and she's missing. And it make me so curious - where is she? - at the same time that it makes me so sad. I hate that there's no record of this little girl except her death, especially when there definitely should be.
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