1880 Census

As you may recall, the Murray family was missing in the 1880 census -- the pages I believed they were recorded on were missing from the microfilm. I sent an email to the National Archives in Washington, DC asking if they still existed and if so how I could obtain a copy. About a week later I received a reply that the original pages were not stored in DC and I should direct my query to the Missouri State Archives. This struck me as a bit odd, but I followed the link provided and submitted the query again. I got a response back that they only kept records for Missouri (which makes sense) and I should contact the California State Archives (which also makes sense.) 

I sent off my query for a third time, and on Wednesday I came home from work to find a message on my machine from the CA Secretary of State. They had found the pages and would send them to me at the address I had provided in my email request. Well, that sounds promising! (Not to mention surprising -- I expected to have to pay for copies!)  I didn't want to get my hopes up in case what was sent was the first four available pages (5-8) rather than the pages I was looking for (1-4.) 

I arrived home tonight to find an envelope from the CA Secretary of State in my mailbox, and inside were four sets of 11" x 17" pages stapled together in groups of two. I looked at the top of the first page, and found "Page No. 1, Enumeration District 196, San Francisco." Woo hoo! I scanned down the first page and saw Harry Place on lines 8-18 -- wow, they should appear on page 1! They're not on the first sheet, so I turn to the second sheet for lines 19-50. Line 20 -- there they are! John (age 38), works at a laundry, Bridget (37) is keeping house, John H. (11) and Mary A. (9) are at school, and Marshall E. (5) and Ellen A. (2) are at home. Joseph isn't born yet.

This confirms a few things for me, the first being that the 1870 census record that I found was indeed the right family. It looks like Mollie's proper name was Mary, so I'll have to keep searching on both names. Nellie apparently shaved a few years off her age when she married Edward Nelson since she shows up as 2 years old in June 1880. Since she was born in July, that would mean she was born in 1877, which is a year earlier than the age for her in the 1900 census. I have 8 other sheets of paper covering pages 2-4 of the Enumeration District and I plan to look them over to see if there are any other clues that might be useful. So glad to know I was on the right track and was able to find my family despite the missing records.

Death Certificate Discoveries and Disappointments

Back in February after I discovered the death notices for Bridget McDonough Murray and Ella (Nellie) Murray Nelson, I sent off for their death certificates in the hope that I could learn more about them. A couple of weeks ago I came home to find a plain white envelope from the Department of Public Health in my mailbox. I opened it up and saw that it was the death certificate for Nellie. As I read it over, I found that it had a lot of useful information.

According to the certificate, Nellie was born on July 4, 1883 which would have made her 25 when she died on March 4, 1909. According to the 1900 census record, she was born in July 1878 and figuring out her birth date is one of the things I was hoping to learn from the 1880 census record, but at least I have the day and a range for the year. According to the death certificate, she died in childbirth and from what I can decipher it doesn't appear that she delivered the child. Having spent a lot of time combing through the birth/marriage/death notice sections of the San Francisco Call, it didn't come as a surprise (and actually was what I suspected happened) as death in childbirth was fairly common. It's amazing how far we've come in the 100 or so years since Nellie's death. Where once it was commonplace for women to die in childbirth, it is now a rare circumstance (at least in the more developed parts of the world.)

I also learned that she and her husband Edward Nelson were living at the Overton Hotel in Santa Rosa, but had only been living in Santa Rosa for 4 months at the time of her death. I'll have to figure out where they were before then as I've yet to find a definitive record of them in San Francisco. I suspect Edward was working for the hotel because in the 1910 census I found a record for an Edward Nelson who is listed as widowed and is living with several other people with job titles like "porter" and "housekeeper." The death certificate also has Nellie's parents listed as John Murray and Bridget Donohue, but I suspect that is an error as the information would most likely have come from Edward. I'll make a note of it just in case though.

As you can see, there is a lot of information that can be learned from a single piece of paper. So you can imagine my excitement when, a week after Nellie's death certificate arrived I came home to find another plain white envelope from the Department of Public Health. When I opened it up the cover page informed me it was in response to my inquiry about Bridget Murray. Alas, when I turned to the second page I found it was a notice that the death certificate could not be found. Well darn. I had hoped that Bridget's death certificate would help identify her parents and thus allow me to dig up more on the McDonoughs. For now, I'll have to see if the other McDonoughs I've identified are relatives and try to track down the relative in Chelsea, Massachusetts and hope one of those will lead me to the family back in Ireland.

I've not given up all hope on finding Bridget's death certificate as I have found a record for her in the California Death Index for 1905-1939, so I hope that by requesting the record again and providing the additional information I found it will help dig up the record. It's still possible I'll be disappointed again and that the record has been lost in the 105 years since her death, but if there's one family trait that I've inherited it is Irish stubbornness!

1940 Census

After I posted my last update, I realized I had neglected to share what I had found out in the 1940 census records. I had hoped to find out if my great grandmother Mary Mullane had been married before she married my great grandfather Marshall Murray. When I looked at information about the 1940 census I noted that one of the questions that was asked of women was whether or not they had been married before, however what I had missed was that it was a supplemental question asked only of a random sampling of respondents. Alas, Mary Mullane was not one of the random samples, so I still haven't confirmed whether or not she was married to Edward Hayes before she married my great grandfather.

Nevertheless, I was able to gather some interesting information from the census records. When the records were posted on line in the beginning of April, they were not searchable by name (that is an effort still in progress) so I needed to know where my ancestors lived in order to find them in the census. I had a couple of addresses for my Murray relatives, but not specifically from 1940. I had asked my father if his family was living at the house on Niagara in 1940, and he said that they were and gave me the house number. I had addresses for Marshall Murray up to 1932 and then a gap until 1948, so I hoped one of those two addresses would be where I would find him in 1940.

When the census records came on line, I called up an available map that showed the census tracts and opened Google Maps to help orient myself to the streets. None of the Murrays were showing up where I thought they might, but I also wasn't sure I was reading the maps correctly. To test that I was reading the maps correctly, I decided to take a look for my Dwyer relatives since I knew for certain they were living on Westwood Drive in 1940. I found the corresponding map and looked for the enumeration districts in tract O6. In fairly short order I turned up my grandparents and great grandparents living exactly where I expected them to be and conveniently on the same page (my grandparents living across the street from my great grandparents.) It was fun scrolling through this set of images and recognizing all the street names and knowing exactly where they were with out having to cross-reference Google Maps. (That's the downside of not having lived in San Francisco proper -- I am only familiar with certain sections off the top of my head.) It was even more fun showing the page to my mother who recognized the names of the neighbors, some of whom I'd heard many stories about over the years.

Ok, so I was clearly reading the maps correctly. Why wasn't I finding the Murray side of the family? I thought about it and realized that they probably weren't living on Niagara in April 1940. My father had always told me that his grandfather had bought the house for his parents and the plan was for him to move in with them at some point. Just his grandfather (my great grandfather.) That meant the house had to have been purchased after my great grandmother had died. She died in July 1940 -- the house on Niagara hadn't been purchased yet!

I turned back to the city directories and went back to the 1932 listing and proceeded to march forward in time to see if I could find the right address. I eventually found Marshall and Mary living on Natoma in 1939. Nana and Grandpa Murray were living on 29th Street. One of the things that had thrown me in my searches was that Marshall and my grandfather Edward weren't working in the occupations I had expected after 1932, so when I searched and got an Edward Murray working as a watchman and another working as a reporter, I set them aside as the wrong people. It was only when I looked year to year that I realized that the watchman was Marshall and the reporter was my grandfather Edward! That was quite a surprise, and when I mentioned it to my father he said "oh yeah, he worked for the newspaper for a while." Thanks for the heads up Dad! From what I can tell, Grandpa Murray became a teamster around the time he and Nana were married in 1934.

Now that I had found everyone (including the Colemans living on Bosworth) what information could I get? Most of it was things I already knew, but because of the Great Depression there were more questions about employment than had been asked in previous censuses. The items that leaped out at me the most were related to the cost of living -- what was being paid in rent (or the value of the house if owned) and what the person's annual income was.

It was fascinating to see what my ancestors earned in 1940. It ranged from nothing (my great grandfather Daniel Coleman, who was 80 by 1940) to $4,200 (my great grandfather Ignatius Dwyer who was the registrar of voters for San Francisco.) Most intriguing, however, was Marshall Murray. He was earning $1,000 per year as a watchman and paying $16 per month in rent. How on earth was he able to afford to buy a house for my grandparents if he was making that little? Dad's stories always said that his grandfather had bought the house outright for his parents and it cost $4,500. Where did Marshall come up with that much money? Right now, my best guess is that there was some kind of death benefit paid after my great grandmother died in July 1940. It's as good a guess as any I suppose.

So, while I didn't find the information I had hoped in the 1940 census, I did learn some new things about the family during that time frame. And I definitely need to look more into this whole "Edward Murray, reporter" business.

More McDonoughs?

I have spent more time than I could have imagined staring at census records from 1880 looking for the Murray family.  As I've mentioned earlier, the pages I expected them to turn up on are currently missing.  However, one benefit of the scrutiny I've given to this particular set of records has pointed me in another direction while I await an answer from the National Archives.  I noticed that there is a Patrick McDonough living on Filbert in 1880, in the same Enumeration District where I expected to find John and Bridget Murray.  Since Patrick McDonough lived so near the Murrays, I wondered, could he be related to Bridget?  Maybe a brother?  Patrick McDonough is 45 in the census record and a native of Ireland, which would make him about 5 or 6 years older than Bridget, so it's a possibility.

I decided to track Patrick backwards to see if he was indeed related to Bridget and started paging back through the San Francisco City Directories.  When I got to the 1864-1865 directory (printed in Oct 1864), I made an interesting discovery -- a Bridget McDonough working as an ironer at the Russ House Laundry.  Is this "my" Bridget?  It would seem likely, since in the 1867 directory she was working as a laundress and according to the 1900 census she arrived in the US in 1866, which is close enough in time to think they are one and the same.  Another discovery in the 1864-65 directory is a Betsey McDonough working as a domestic at the Russ House Laundry and a Thomas McDonough working as a porter at the Russ House.  Could these be other relatives?  None of the Russ House McDonoughs appear in the 1865-66 city directory (printed in Dec 1865), but there is a Thomas working as a laborer in 1867.  Whether or not that is the same Thomas, I'll need to look further.

I've only begun digging on these possibilities, so it is too soon to tell if they are indeed relatives.  The Russ House McDonoughs would seem a good possibility but I'm having a bit of difficulty tracking them in my preliminary searches.  Patrick McDonough is a little more iffy.  A closer look at his census record from 1880 shows his oldest son, John H. McDonough, was born in Pennsylvania in about 1860, which would have him in the US quite a bit before Bridget. That wouldn't be a reason to eliminate him as it is quite possible that he came over earlier and assisted Bridget's immigration.  I'll need to do some more digging, especially in the 1860 census of Pennsylvania to see if I can turn up Patrick and his family.

I was a bit curious about the Russ House since it clearly appeared to be a hotel in the 1860s, but I wasn't familiar with it. So I did a quick search and found this.  It helped to learn that the original building no longer exists, so I'm not a complete failure as a fourth generation San Franciscan (ok, we'll add an "-ish" to that since I've never lived within the city limits of San Francisco.)  Alas, that the rebuilt Russ Building was the tallest building in San Francisco into the mid-1960s is probably something I should know.