Merry Christmas! I'm taking a brief break from the blog for the holidays, but there are new posts scheduled for the new year. But as Christmas is upon us, I thought I'd take a minute to reflect and remember the Christmas traditions over the years.
When my brother and I were kids in the 1970s and 1980s, Christmas was a pretty set schedule. Christmas Eve would be spent with the Dwyer family at Grandma and Grandpa's. Christmas morning was just for the four of us (or maybe five if we're talking about the early 70s when Dad's youngest sister lived with us) and Christmas dinner was with the Murray side of the family, usually at our house.
We started going to Grandma & Grandpa's on Christmas Eve about 1973 (if my recollection of family photos and home movies is correct.) By that time, there were 10 of us grandchildren of Don and Audley Dwyer -- the 5 Caseys, 2 Murrays, 2 Dwyer sisters, 1 Murphy. We kids were all sent downstairs to the big family room in the garage. It had once been the bedroom for my mother's two brothers, but changed over once they had moved out of the family home. The rules were simple -- no one was allowed upstairs until after dinner and presents. The lone exception to this rule was my oldest cousin Mark who would have been 13 when these parties started. The next closest kid was the oldest of his three younger sisters who was 9. I was his closest cousin at age 5. My 3 year old brother was his closest male relative. Yeah, pretty obvious why the 13 year old got to go upstairs with the grown ups. Now, we kids weren't left alone totally unsupervised -- especially in those early years -- the adults would rotate turns coming down and keeping an eye on us all. We did a pretty good job of keeping ourselves entertained since there were so many of us so close in age. I spent most of my time in those years with one of my Casey cousins who is only 10 months older than me. The Dwyer sisters were always so quiet and sat off to themselves that it wasn't until late in high school that I ever spent much time with them.
For the first few years, all of us got presents from every family. Since my mom was one of six kids, that meant five gifts plus one from Grandma and Grandpa. We now call those years the "greed fests" because, as you can imagine, a bunch of kids opening six presents each was a bit chaotic. Mark, being the oldest, would hand out the gifts to us younger kids. The funniest part of this, is that every year we all pretty much sat in the same spots. The boys on the floor at Mark's feet, the Dwyer sisters sharing the overstuffed chair, me and the Casey girls on the couch. The gifts had to be handed out in a particular order -- since there were so many of us close in age it was pretty common for everyone to get a variation on the same gift. After a while, there got to be too many of us to do gifts for everyone reasonably, so we drew names and everyone got two gifts. One from the person who drew their name, one from Grandma and Grandpa (the latter tended to be checks as we got older.)
Before driving home from Grandma and Grandpa's, my brother and I often had to change in to our pajamas (at least while we were under 10 or so) and we'd drive home we would pass a Doggie Diner that was at the corner of Junipero Serra Blvd. and 19th Ave. and I would always be sad to see there were one or two people sitting in there on Christmas Eve. It made me appreciate at a very young age having a large, loving family to spend the holidays with.
Christmas morning in the 1970s was also very familiar year in and year out. My brother and I would get up early to see what Santa had left and wake up Mom and Dad pretty much like any other kids. Mom would heat up some eggnog or hot chocolate once we'd torn through all the presents. Usually about a half hour after we'd opened presents there would be a knock on the door -- my brother's two friends from across the street were on the doorstep to see what we'd gotten for Christmas. We moved away from that neighborhood in 1979, but even today if there's a knock on the door on Christmas morning we say "Oh it must be K and J!"
After opening the presents and running outside to play with our friends, the Murray clan would descend upon the house for more food and presents and family time. There were only six of us cousins until the late 1980s, so we weren't banished to the garage like with the Dwyer family, but we usually were in either my or my brother's bedrooms for the most part while the grown ups socialized in the living room. We began rotating houses some time in the 1980s, so Christmas dinner wasn't always at my parents' house, but it was usually spent the same way -- kids off doing something in one part of the house, adults in another.
As we got older, the traditions changed a bit. By the mid 1980s, there were 18 grandchildren on the Dwyer side, most of whom were in high school or older, so everyone ate and opened presents upstairs. The younger cousins still all went downstairs to run around and play, but we all ate and opened presents together. We continued the tradition as we all got older and my cousins started getting married and having families of their own. Getting together on Christmas Eve finally ended when my grandfather passed away in 2000. Since then, we've had the Dwyer Family Christmas on the Sunday before Christmas -- usually at either my parents' house or at Mom's older brother's house. We stopped drawing names for gifts a few years ago too -- now just the youngest generation gets gifts generally from the grand-aunts and uncles.
Christmas dinner with the Murray family is largely unchanged, though the rotation of houses now includes those of my cousins. It's a tight squeeze with all of us most of the time, but we always make it work.
Christmas Eve is now just my immediate family. My brother, sister-in-law, and I go over to Mom and Dad's for dinner and then head to Mass. After Mass, my brother and sister-in-law head home and I go back and spend the night at Mom and Dad's. In recent years, my dad's younger brother also stays with them, so I'm on the couch while he gets the guest room. Christmas morning arrives and my brother and sister-in-law return for breakfast and presents before heading off to see her family. Mom and I play a round of Scrabble -- she usually wins -- and we get ready for the Murray family gathering. This year it will be at Mom and Dad's (hosted by me and my brother and sister-in-law who don't have big enough homes for the whole family) so we'll be a little busier cleaning and setting up for the family to arrive.
This is always my favorite time of the year because I am reminded just how fortunate I am to have such a large, close-knit, and loving family. My cousins are some of my closest friends and spending time with them and the rest of my family is always the best Christmas present I can imagine.
Friday, December 25, 2015
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Daniel P. Coleman's Military Service
One of the family stories handed down was that my great-grandfather Daniel Patrick Coleman left home at 15 to join the British Navy because he didn't get along with his stepmother. When Daniel first appears in the 1900 US Census, he is working as a sailor in San Francisco. I know he ultimately became a ships captain for a merchant shipping company. Putting those pieces of information together, I thought I'd look to see if I could find any record of Daniel’s service in the British Navy.
There are some British military records on Ancestry.com, but none of them provided enough information to determine if any of the Daniel Colemans that turned up in the searches was my great-grandfather. So I set off to look for British records. The National Archives of the United Kingdom has some military records available online so I decided to search there. Many of the records are for officers which I doubted Daniel was seeing as he enlisted at 15 and was Irish. There was a set of records for regular seaman's service, so I searched there.
Six different records came up for a Daniel Coleman and as I looked them over I found one born in Kinsale, Cork on March 28, 1860. Most of the records I have for my great-grandfather have him born on March 17, 1860, so I figured that was close enough to take a look. The UK National Archives deliberately distort the online images, so when I looked at the online image it was next to useless to identify whether or not I had found the right person. My only option then was to order a downloadable copy of the image. Fortunately, it only cost £3.30 -- about $5.00 US and was a fairly small document.
When I was able to download the record, I found it was loaded with useful information. A lot of the text is difficult to read, but the first entry is for service on a ship called the Revenge in September, 1875. That would match up with his joining the navy at 15. There are also several notations at the top with his height. The dates for each are a bit difficult to decipher, but they go from 5-feet even to 5-feet, 4-inches to 5-feet, 6-inches (maybe 8-inches?) Again, that would make sense if he joined as a still growing teenager. It's hard to judge how tall Daniel is in the pictures I have of him circa 1920, but he and Lizzie don't appear to be that much different in height so I'm guessing he wasn't particularly tall.
The record I downloaded was only one page long, but it lists all the ships Daniel served on from 1875 until 1898. The end date is a little puzzling as in the 1900 census, Daniel said he arrived in the US in 1892 and was a naturalized citizen. The dates are close enough in time that I’m not too concerned about the discrepancy.
There are columns for "Rating, &c.", "G.C. Badges worn", "Period of Service", "Character", "If Discharged, Whither and for what cause", and "Remarks." There are a lot of abbreviations and scribbles that make the notations in each column difficult to read. I’m guessing the "Rating, &c." column is his rank as one of the few scribbles I can figure out reads "Lg Seamn." The only other one that I can read clearly are the letters "A.B." -- possibly "assistant bosun"?
The "Character" column has the most interesting information. From the first entry onward there are many notations of "Good" or "Very Good." It's not until I got towards the bottom of the page that the entries changed to "Fair." Starting in about 1891 while serving on the ship Excellent things start to change. There's a note in the "Discharged" column that I can't figure out, but in the "Remarks" column next to it there is a notation "Sent to Portsmouth to be dealt with summarily." Unfortunately, the rest of the notations in the "Remarks" column are written very small and are really hard to read. Daniel went back to service on several different ships between 1892-1898, but there are several more notations of "Fair" in the "Character" column along with two notations of "Cells 7 ds", "Cells 5 ds", which I would imagine was some kind of disciplinary action. The last readable item is in the "Remarks" column and indicates Daniel was "granted a free discharge" from the British Navy on December 17, 1897.
I wonder what those last few years in the Navy were like. Daniel would have been in his early thirties with 15 years of service. I know my grandmother was brought up with a strong dislike for the British, so I wonder if some of the tensions between Ireland and England were affecting what was happening on board ship.
There are a lot of different ships listed, so I'll have to see if I can find some history of those ships during the years Daniel was in the Navy. Where were they sent? What was going on in those regions? One of my Coleman cousins passed along a story that Daniel was in one of the Boer Wars and nearly died of malaria. There's nothing on the record that indicates either of those bits of information. Based on a quick look at Wikipedia, if that is accurate, it's likely Daniel fought in the first war in 1880-81 rather than in the second which took place in 1899-1902.
Once I had some basic information from the UK National Archives, I was able to go back to the records at Ancestry and see if I could match up any further records. One record turned up for Daniel in the "UK, Naval Medal and Award Rolls." It appears he won a service medal called the "Burmah Medal" while on the ship Ranger during the Third Burmese War in 1885-1887. I was able to confirm the record based on the service number attached to the record which also appeared on the record I had found in the UK National Archives. Maybe the story about nearly dying from malaria was related to the Burmese War rather than the Boer War? It doesn't look like Daniel ever received the medal as there was a notation that it was "returned to mint Feb 22." Looking at his service record, it looks like he left the Ranger in October, 1887 and joined the crew of the Cambridge for several months before heading to the Excellent in February, 1888.
It’s interesting that after Daniel's service in the British Navy that eventually both his son Daniel J. Coleman and grandson Edward K. Murray would both serve in the US Navy. Uncle Dan served during World War II and Uncle Eddie was a chaplain in the Navy for 30 years.
There are a lot of great nuggets I've uncovered in this one piece of paper, I just wish I could make out the writing a bit more. I imagine it might be slightly easier to read the original, but since that's in England, I don’t think I'll be taking a look at it any time soon! Still, I'll try to work out what I can and see what information I can find based on what I do know.
There are some British military records on Ancestry.com, but none of them provided enough information to determine if any of the Daniel Colemans that turned up in the searches was my great-grandfather. So I set off to look for British records. The National Archives of the United Kingdom has some military records available online so I decided to search there. Many of the records are for officers which I doubted Daniel was seeing as he enlisted at 15 and was Irish. There was a set of records for regular seaman's service, so I searched there.
Six different records came up for a Daniel Coleman and as I looked them over I found one born in Kinsale, Cork on March 28, 1860. Most of the records I have for my great-grandfather have him born on March 17, 1860, so I figured that was close enough to take a look. The UK National Archives deliberately distort the online images, so when I looked at the online image it was next to useless to identify whether or not I had found the right person. My only option then was to order a downloadable copy of the image. Fortunately, it only cost £3.30 -- about $5.00 US and was a fairly small document.
When I was able to download the record, I found it was loaded with useful information. A lot of the text is difficult to read, but the first entry is for service on a ship called the Revenge in September, 1875. That would match up with his joining the navy at 15. There are also several notations at the top with his height. The dates for each are a bit difficult to decipher, but they go from 5-feet even to 5-feet, 4-inches to 5-feet, 6-inches (maybe 8-inches?) Again, that would make sense if he joined as a still growing teenager. It's hard to judge how tall Daniel is in the pictures I have of him circa 1920, but he and Lizzie don't appear to be that much different in height so I'm guessing he wasn't particularly tall.
The record I downloaded was only one page long, but it lists all the ships Daniel served on from 1875 until 1898. The end date is a little puzzling as in the 1900 census, Daniel said he arrived in the US in 1892 and was a naturalized citizen. The dates are close enough in time that I’m not too concerned about the discrepancy.
There are columns for "Rating, &c.", "G.C. Badges worn", "Period of Service", "Character", "If Discharged, Whither and for what cause", and "Remarks." There are a lot of abbreviations and scribbles that make the notations in each column difficult to read. I’m guessing the "Rating, &c." column is his rank as one of the few scribbles I can figure out reads "Lg Seamn." The only other one that I can read clearly are the letters "A.B." -- possibly "assistant bosun"?
The "Character" column has the most interesting information. From the first entry onward there are many notations of "Good" or "Very Good." It's not until I got towards the bottom of the page that the entries changed to "Fair." Starting in about 1891 while serving on the ship Excellent things start to change. There's a note in the "Discharged" column that I can't figure out, but in the "Remarks" column next to it there is a notation "Sent to Portsmouth to be dealt with summarily." Unfortunately, the rest of the notations in the "Remarks" column are written very small and are really hard to read. Daniel went back to service on several different ships between 1892-1898, but there are several more notations of "Fair" in the "Character" column along with two notations of "Cells 7 ds", "Cells 5 ds", which I would imagine was some kind of disciplinary action. The last readable item is in the "Remarks" column and indicates Daniel was "granted a free discharge" from the British Navy on December 17, 1897.
I wonder what those last few years in the Navy were like. Daniel would have been in his early thirties with 15 years of service. I know my grandmother was brought up with a strong dislike for the British, so I wonder if some of the tensions between Ireland and England were affecting what was happening on board ship.
There are a lot of different ships listed, so I'll have to see if I can find some history of those ships during the years Daniel was in the Navy. Where were they sent? What was going on in those regions? One of my Coleman cousins passed along a story that Daniel was in one of the Boer Wars and nearly died of malaria. There's nothing on the record that indicates either of those bits of information. Based on a quick look at Wikipedia, if that is accurate, it's likely Daniel fought in the first war in 1880-81 rather than in the second which took place in 1899-1902.
Once I had some basic information from the UK National Archives, I was able to go back to the records at Ancestry and see if I could match up any further records. One record turned up for Daniel in the "UK, Naval Medal and Award Rolls." It appears he won a service medal called the "Burmah Medal" while on the ship Ranger during the Third Burmese War in 1885-1887. I was able to confirm the record based on the service number attached to the record which also appeared on the record I had found in the UK National Archives. Maybe the story about nearly dying from malaria was related to the Burmese War rather than the Boer War? It doesn't look like Daniel ever received the medal as there was a notation that it was "returned to mint Feb 22." Looking at his service record, it looks like he left the Ranger in October, 1887 and joined the crew of the Cambridge for several months before heading to the Excellent in February, 1888.
It’s interesting that after Daniel's service in the British Navy that eventually both his son Daniel J. Coleman and grandson Edward K. Murray would both serve in the US Navy. Uncle Dan served during World War II and Uncle Eddie was a chaplain in the Navy for 30 years.
There are a lot of great nuggets I've uncovered in this one piece of paper, I just wish I could make out the writing a bit more. I imagine it might be slightly easier to read the original, but since that's in England, I don’t think I'll be taking a look at it any time soon! Still, I'll try to work out what I can and see what information I can find based on what I do know.
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Answering and Reviewing Some Questions, Part 4
A continuation of answering and following up on some of the
questions I have discussed in earlier posts on this blog.
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After working through my O'Leary family in California, I went looking for Other O'Learys in Ireland. I found more siblings for my great grandmother Lizzie O'Leary than I had expected, and wasn't able to find a brother I had found in my San Francisco research -- Arthur O'Leary. I've still had a puzzle finding him and figuring out his story. I know he was living in San Francisco in 1904 because his name appears on Lizzie's immigration record, but I couldn't figure out his address or find him in the city directory. He's referenced again in Ellen O'Leary Ford's death notice in 1932. I did receive some information from one of my Coleman cousins that Arthur was adopted and eventually settled in Portland, OR where he ran a mill. If he was adopted, that might explain the difficulty in finding him in the birth and baptismal records for Ireland. My cousin also said he was the youngest sibling, which would mean he was likely born after 1880. That would mean he was in his early 20s when he arrived in San Francisco. This is another research point I need to revisit.
I still haven't worked out most of the rest of the siblings either. I was able to find John and his family in the Irish census records for 1901 and 1911. The other siblings who remained in Ireland are still difficult to locate. I did revisit the record I found for Jeremiah O'Leary, Jr. in the 1901 census to see if I was mistaken on my first assessment once I learned that John's wife's name was Hanora. I thought the Hannah O'Leary listed as that Jeremiah's sister might possibly be a sister-in-law, but when it said she wasn't married, I eliminated them again.
I may have found a death record in New York for Jeremiah, but I will need to order the death certificate to be certain.
Irish records are challenging in two ways. First is knowing if a record actually exists as so many records have been lost and destroyed over the years. The second is the more obvious problem that the records that do exist are in Ireland. The internet is great for identifying a lot of possible records, but most of what is available on line is a limited index of records found in Ireland. More and more are becoming available on line, but Ireland's privacy laws are a bit stricter than those in the US so what is available is more limited. Add in to the complication that I really need to know more about 20th century records so I can go back further makes working on the O'Leary/Coleman side of the family more challenging.
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The Baptismal Records were more promising. While I've not been able to confirm my findings (again, the challenges of records in Ireland), I do think they're good leads. I did realize I had mis-recorded the year of birth for Bartholomew Coleman. I had noted him as having been born in 1880 rather than 1870, so I went back to the baptismal records to see if he turned up when I entered the correct year. No such luck. A new source has come on line recently that makes it easier to scroll through the images, but I've only done a cursory check there. The best part of this is that it includes records from all over Ireland rather than just a few counties. While being able to identify my Murray/Mullane ancestors through these records is a long-shot since I still don't have parish information (or even county information for the Mullane side) and they were all born in the 1840s and it's hit or miss for records still existing for those years. Still, it's something I can try to sort through for possible leads.
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The Arrival of Lizzie O'Leary is the lone success I've had to date in finding immigration records for any of my ancestors. Of course, she's the most recent immigrant on record. Having arrived in the US in 1904 and coming through Ellis Island made her record much easier to find. I suspect that I may have reasonable luck finding Daniel Coleman in the records since he arrived sometime between 1892-1900. I thought perhaps I'd be able to find him traveling with his brother John, but according to the 1900 census, John arrived in 1877 -- well before Daniel. That John was already in the US is a helpful point though as it could prove useful in finding Daniel. The other immigrant points for the Murray/Mullane side, however, are going to be much more challenging. They all arrived in the 1860s or so and the records that are available from that time are pretty sparse. There are loads of passenger records, but the information gathered was pretty much name, age, occupation, and country of origin. Not knowing where my ancestors landed upon leaving Ireland means checking all major ports on the east coast as well as San Francisco on the off chance they emigrated directly to California. It's also possible they arrived in Canada before the US since both Canada and Ireland were part of the British Empire in the 1860s, so those are records to consider as well. That's a lot of haystacks to search through for a handful of needles!
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When I figured out What Happened to Mollie, I hadn't been able to find an article in the Oakland Tribune about the accident. I was only able to find a small blurb on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. The Tribune for 1917 has since become available on line, and I was able to find another small blurb about what happened. Though this story was on page 4 rather than page 1, it had a bit more information. It identified Mollie's husband as "Charles W. Johnson, a stevedore, 986 Stanford Avenue" which lines up with what I have already found. The story also mentions that Mollie had run out to the a nearby store and didn't return and that "it is thought she became confused in the rain and stepped in front of the train." That definitely puts more context on what happened.
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This concludes my blog review and hopefully helps bring some of the stories more life. It's definitely helped me remember points of interest I need to go back to and other roads I need to follow up on in my research. I've also been very lax at keeping this blog updated over the past few years, so I'm going to try to make a concerted effort to write more often, even if I only have observations of the process of research rather than results.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
After working through my O'Leary family in California, I went looking for Other O'Learys in Ireland. I found more siblings for my great grandmother Lizzie O'Leary than I had expected, and wasn't able to find a brother I had found in my San Francisco research -- Arthur O'Leary. I've still had a puzzle finding him and figuring out his story. I know he was living in San Francisco in 1904 because his name appears on Lizzie's immigration record, but I couldn't figure out his address or find him in the city directory. He's referenced again in Ellen O'Leary Ford's death notice in 1932. I did receive some information from one of my Coleman cousins that Arthur was adopted and eventually settled in Portland, OR where he ran a mill. If he was adopted, that might explain the difficulty in finding him in the birth and baptismal records for Ireland. My cousin also said he was the youngest sibling, which would mean he was likely born after 1880. That would mean he was in his early 20s when he arrived in San Francisco. This is another research point I need to revisit.
I still haven't worked out most of the rest of the siblings either. I was able to find John and his family in the Irish census records for 1901 and 1911. The other siblings who remained in Ireland are still difficult to locate. I did revisit the record I found for Jeremiah O'Leary, Jr. in the 1901 census to see if I was mistaken on my first assessment once I learned that John's wife's name was Hanora. I thought the Hannah O'Leary listed as that Jeremiah's sister might possibly be a sister-in-law, but when it said she wasn't married, I eliminated them again.
I may have found a death record in New York for Jeremiah, but I will need to order the death certificate to be certain.
Irish records are challenging in two ways. First is knowing if a record actually exists as so many records have been lost and destroyed over the years. The second is the more obvious problem that the records that do exist are in Ireland. The internet is great for identifying a lot of possible records, but most of what is available on line is a limited index of records found in Ireland. More and more are becoming available on line, but Ireland's privacy laws are a bit stricter than those in the US so what is available is more limited. Add in to the complication that I really need to know more about 20th century records so I can go back further makes working on the O'Leary/Coleman side of the family more challenging.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The Baptismal Records were more promising. While I've not been able to confirm my findings (again, the challenges of records in Ireland), I do think they're good leads. I did realize I had mis-recorded the year of birth for Bartholomew Coleman. I had noted him as having been born in 1880 rather than 1870, so I went back to the baptismal records to see if he turned up when I entered the correct year. No such luck. A new source has come on line recently that makes it easier to scroll through the images, but I've only done a cursory check there. The best part of this is that it includes records from all over Ireland rather than just a few counties. While being able to identify my Murray/Mullane ancestors through these records is a long-shot since I still don't have parish information (or even county information for the Mullane side) and they were all born in the 1840s and it's hit or miss for records still existing for those years. Still, it's something I can try to sort through for possible leads.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The Arrival of Lizzie O'Leary is the lone success I've had to date in finding immigration records for any of my ancestors. Of course, she's the most recent immigrant on record. Having arrived in the US in 1904 and coming through Ellis Island made her record much easier to find. I suspect that I may have reasonable luck finding Daniel Coleman in the records since he arrived sometime between 1892-1900. I thought perhaps I'd be able to find him traveling with his brother John, but according to the 1900 census, John arrived in 1877 -- well before Daniel. That John was already in the US is a helpful point though as it could prove useful in finding Daniel. The other immigrant points for the Murray/Mullane side, however, are going to be much more challenging. They all arrived in the 1860s or so and the records that are available from that time are pretty sparse. There are loads of passenger records, but the information gathered was pretty much name, age, occupation, and country of origin. Not knowing where my ancestors landed upon leaving Ireland means checking all major ports on the east coast as well as San Francisco on the off chance they emigrated directly to California. It's also possible they arrived in Canada before the US since both Canada and Ireland were part of the British Empire in the 1860s, so those are records to consider as well. That's a lot of haystacks to search through for a handful of needles!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
When I figured out What Happened to Mollie, I hadn't been able to find an article in the Oakland Tribune about the accident. I was only able to find a small blurb on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. The Tribune for 1917 has since become available on line, and I was able to find another small blurb about what happened. Though this story was on page 4 rather than page 1, it had a bit more information. It identified Mollie's husband as "Charles W. Johnson, a stevedore, 986 Stanford Avenue" which lines up with what I have already found. The story also mentions that Mollie had run out to the a nearby store and didn't return and that "it is thought she became confused in the rain and stepped in front of the train." That definitely puts more context on what happened.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
This concludes my blog review and hopefully helps bring some of the stories more life. It's definitely helped me remember points of interest I need to go back to and other roads I need to follow up on in my research. I've also been very lax at keeping this blog updated over the past few years, so I'm going to try to make a concerted effort to write more often, even if I only have observations of the process of research rather than results.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Answering and Reviewing Some Questions, Part 3
A continuation of answering and following up on some of the
questions I have discussed in earlier posts on this blog.
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I started looking at the O'Leary side of my family tree in O'Learys and O'Looneys -- Oh My! and started digging around in what I could learn from cousins on that side of the family. Unlike my Murray/Mullane side of the family, there are relatives I know on the Coleman/O'Leary side. My grandmother Elizabeth Coleman was one of five children (including an older brother who died in childhood) and there are cousins in my father's generation that I've grown up around. While I've only been in intermittent contact with them recently, the leads I got from them when I started out were invaluable. Among the information I received were some family photos that I never knew existed, but I also received a copy of a marriage certificate of my great-grandparents from one cousin. This corrected one error I had originally. The family lore I was told had my great-grandparents married at St. Phillip's Church. In actuality, they were married at Most Holy Redeemer. The witnesses to their marriage were an Alexander Christiansen and Gertrude Alexander. According to my cousin, Alexander Christiansen was a doctor friend of my great grandfather's. I haven't looked in to him much, but he's on the list of friends and neighbors to learn a little bit about. Gertrude Alexander was a name I knew when I received the copy of the marriage certificate.
When I found my great grandfather Daniel Coleman in the 1900 census, he was living with his brother John Coleman and wife Sadie (Sarah.) There were two other families living with them at the time. Joseph Myers and his daughter Lillian were one family. The other were Jesse and Gertrude Alexander. When I saw Gertrude's name on the marriage certificate, I decided to go back and take a closer look at who she might be and how she was connected. I knew from the 1900 census record that Joesph Myers was Sadie Coleman's father, so I tried to look for Joseph and Sarah in the 1880 census. When I found them, I discovered that in addition to her sister Lillian, who appears in the 1900 record, she had three older brothers and two more sisters. One of the sisters was named Gertrude. A-ha! Gertrude Alexander was Gertrude Myers, so she was connected through marriage. In the collection of photos I recieved, there is a picture of my great grandparents on their wedding day and standing in the photo beside my great grandparents are Alexander Christiansen and Gertrude Alexander!
I also found some of my O'Leary relatives through looking at the partial invitation list to my parents wedding in 1965. After quickly identifying a few people and tracking them down, I never followed up with Mom and Dad about some of the other names on the list. I suspect most of them are family friends on my father's side rather than relatives, but since I never asked I don't know for certain. I need to sit down with Mom & Dad soon to do that. Perhaps over the holidays!
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As I went Onward with the O'Learys, I was able to identify several of my grandmother's first cousins and their children. The difficulty was in identifying some of their spouses. The first unidentified spouse was for Arthur Patrick Ford. I've learned since my initial investigations that he went by "Pat" which was a huge help in finding him in the records and helped me identify his wife as Kathleen Fee. Pat and Kathleen Ford had a daughter named Mary Catherine who died in 1999.
The curious spouse was that of Catherine Ford Dwyer. Since my mother's family is Dwyer, Catherine has always been a bit of a curiosity over the years. A big part of the problem I had initially looking for Catherine and her husband was that I kept looking for them in San Francisco. It wasn't until I found Catherine living in Washington D.C. in the 1940 census that I was able to break through the wall. I found a 1940 marriage record for Catherine Hanora Ford and Edward Ambrose Dwyer in Washington, D.C. Edward Dwyer was born in Syracuse, New York and died in 1956 in Maryland. Catherine had him buried with her parents in Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA. Catherine died in 1987 and I can't find any record of them having any children.
One of the other items I found while looking at the Ford family was that Ellen O'Leary Ford had died of second and third degree burns. I recently discovered a coroner's report on her death and it was quite awful. The report said her clothing caught fire from a "lighted gas plate" while she was preparing dinner. She ran into the yard screaming and was aided by a neighbor before being sent to the hospital where she later died. One interesting bit of information from the coroner's report was a note that the San Francisco Fire Department was represented by a Captain Tenebsky of the "truck company on Waller near Stanyan." That quickly caught my attention. My father is a retired SF firefighter and one of the places he was stationed was 12 Truck on Stanyan Street. I haven't been there since I was a kid, so I wasn't sure of the cross streets and took to Google Maps to locate the intersection. Waller and Stanyan is closer to Golden Gate Park than the current location of Station 12, so I asked my father if the station had moved up Stanyan. He told me it had, which means about 40 years after Ellen Ford died my father worked at the same fire station that had responded to the fire that killed her. Another weird coincidence in the winding path through my family's history!
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I started looking at the O'Leary side of my family tree in O'Learys and O'Looneys -- Oh My! and started digging around in what I could learn from cousins on that side of the family. Unlike my Murray/Mullane side of the family, there are relatives I know on the Coleman/O'Leary side. My grandmother Elizabeth Coleman was one of five children (including an older brother who died in childhood) and there are cousins in my father's generation that I've grown up around. While I've only been in intermittent contact with them recently, the leads I got from them when I started out were invaluable. Among the information I received were some family photos that I never knew existed, but I also received a copy of a marriage certificate of my great-grandparents from one cousin. This corrected one error I had originally. The family lore I was told had my great-grandparents married at St. Phillip's Church. In actuality, they were married at Most Holy Redeemer. The witnesses to their marriage were an Alexander Christiansen and Gertrude Alexander. According to my cousin, Alexander Christiansen was a doctor friend of my great grandfather's. I haven't looked in to him much, but he's on the list of friends and neighbors to learn a little bit about. Gertrude Alexander was a name I knew when I received the copy of the marriage certificate.
When I found my great grandfather Daniel Coleman in the 1900 census, he was living with his brother John Coleman and wife Sadie (Sarah.) There were two other families living with them at the time. Joseph Myers and his daughter Lillian were one family. The other were Jesse and Gertrude Alexander. When I saw Gertrude's name on the marriage certificate, I decided to go back and take a closer look at who she might be and how she was connected. I knew from the 1900 census record that Joesph Myers was Sadie Coleman's father, so I tried to look for Joseph and Sarah in the 1880 census. When I found them, I discovered that in addition to her sister Lillian, who appears in the 1900 record, she had three older brothers and two more sisters. One of the sisters was named Gertrude. A-ha! Gertrude Alexander was Gertrude Myers, so she was connected through marriage. In the collection of photos I recieved, there is a picture of my great grandparents on their wedding day and standing in the photo beside my great grandparents are Alexander Christiansen and Gertrude Alexander!
I also found some of my O'Leary relatives through looking at the partial invitation list to my parents wedding in 1965. After quickly identifying a few people and tracking them down, I never followed up with Mom and Dad about some of the other names on the list. I suspect most of them are family friends on my father's side rather than relatives, but since I never asked I don't know for certain. I need to sit down with Mom & Dad soon to do that. Perhaps over the holidays!
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As I went Onward with the O'Learys, I was able to identify several of my grandmother's first cousins and their children. The difficulty was in identifying some of their spouses. The first unidentified spouse was for Arthur Patrick Ford. I've learned since my initial investigations that he went by "Pat" which was a huge help in finding him in the records and helped me identify his wife as Kathleen Fee. Pat and Kathleen Ford had a daughter named Mary Catherine who died in 1999.
The curious spouse was that of Catherine Ford Dwyer. Since my mother's family is Dwyer, Catherine has always been a bit of a curiosity over the years. A big part of the problem I had initially looking for Catherine and her husband was that I kept looking for them in San Francisco. It wasn't until I found Catherine living in Washington D.C. in the 1940 census that I was able to break through the wall. I found a 1940 marriage record for Catherine Hanora Ford and Edward Ambrose Dwyer in Washington, D.C. Edward Dwyer was born in Syracuse, New York and died in 1956 in Maryland. Catherine had him buried with her parents in Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA. Catherine died in 1987 and I can't find any record of them having any children.
One of the other items I found while looking at the Ford family was that Ellen O'Leary Ford had died of second and third degree burns. I recently discovered a coroner's report on her death and it was quite awful. The report said her clothing caught fire from a "lighted gas plate" while she was preparing dinner. She ran into the yard screaming and was aided by a neighbor before being sent to the hospital where she later died. One interesting bit of information from the coroner's report was a note that the San Francisco Fire Department was represented by a Captain Tenebsky of the "truck company on Waller near Stanyan." That quickly caught my attention. My father is a retired SF firefighter and one of the places he was stationed was 12 Truck on Stanyan Street. I haven't been there since I was a kid, so I wasn't sure of the cross streets and took to Google Maps to locate the intersection. Waller and Stanyan is closer to Golden Gate Park than the current location of Station 12, so I asked my father if the station had moved up Stanyan. He told me it had, which means about 40 years after Ellen Ford died my father worked at the same fire station that had responded to the fire that killed her. Another weird coincidence in the winding path through my family's history!
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Answering and Reviewing Some Questions, Part 2
In my last post, I started answering and following up on some of the questions I have discussed in earlier posts on this blog. This post continues the review of past entries with updates and current status.
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When I was reviewing the 1940 Census trying to locate my family, I realized one of the reasons I'd had difficulty finding my grandparents and great-grandparents was that neither Marshall nor Edward Murray were working in occupations I had expected them to be. The most curious discovery was that my grandfather Edward had appeared in several 1930s directories as a "reporter". A reporter? Grandpa Murray was a teamster, what's this reporter business? I asked my father about it and he said yes, his father had worked for a newspaper. Dad wasn't sure which one and thought he might have been a photographer. I'll need to do some digging to see if I can find out what exactly Grandpa Murray was doing when he worked at a newspaper. Dad also said that his father didn't graduate from high school, but according to the 1940 census he had completed 12 years of school. My grandmother was the informant on that, so presumably she knew whether or not my grandfather had graduated.
I still haven't figured out for certain how my great grandfather paid for the house on Natoma. I'm still guessing there was a life insurance payment after my great grandmother died in July, 1940, but I haven't found any evidence of that yet. I'm not entirely sure where I might find that information either, so it's an item of interest that sits on a back burner for now.
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Muddling Through the Mullanes was my first attempt at clarifying the Mullane relationships, and fortunately my best guess assumptions proved correct. That means that my great grandmother Mary Mullane's brothers had a lot of loss. Her brothers Phillip, Edward, and Patrick all lost children between 1905 and 1917.
The first child lost was Phillip's daughter Maria Nora Mullane who died on August 28, 1905 at the age of 2 months, 22 days old. I was able to find a copy of her burial record from Holy Cross at sfgenealogy.com and it appears she died from enteritis (at least that's the best guess I can come up with as the handwritten record is atrocious!)
Edward was the next brother to lose a child. On January 8, 1915, Edward and his wife Margaret lost their son Thomas Joseph Mullane. He was only about three and a half. I don't have a copy of his death certificate and the records at sfgenealogy.com only go up to January, 1911. My best guess would be some kind of illness.
Edward lost his second child, a daughter named Margaret a little over a year later on June 20, 1916. Margaret was only three months old at the time of her death.
The next child lost was Patrick's daughter Myrtle Marie Mullane. She died on July 3 or 4, 1916 (the death notice and headstone say July 3, the CA Death Index says July 4) in Sonoma County. Her death notice says "in Verano", which I'm guessing is El Verano. El Verano is a resort town just outside of Sonoma city near several hot springs. Based on the date of her death, I'm guessing the family were on vacation for the Independence Day holiday when she died. Again, I don't have a copy of her death certificate, but I'm guessing there was some sort of accident.
The family tragedies didn't end there. Phillip and his wife Mary lost two of their three sons in 1917. First Edward Ignatius on February 25 then Phillip Clayton just a month later on March 27. Edward was about thirteen and a half and died within days of my great grandfather Marshall Murray's sister Mollie (Mary) Murray Johnson. Phillip was a few months shy of his tenth birthday. Again, I would need copies of their death certificates to know how they died, but based on the proximities of their respective deaths, I would guess some contagious illness was the cause. Whether it was the flu, tuberculosis, measles, or some other illness that is much more survivable and preventable today is something left to be determined.
The losses in the Mullane family during this time weren't limited to the children of my great granduncles. My great grandmother had 6 or 7 brothers, and three of them also died between 1905-1917. Thomas Michael Mullane died on March 19, 1910 of tuberculosis. I only recently discovered his death notice in the San Francisco Chronicle and discovered he was married to a woman named Jennie, so I will need to follow up on her. Oldest brother John Martin Mullane also died of tuberculosis a year later on April 15, 1911. It doesn't appear that he ever married. Finally Edward (George) Washington Mullane died not long after his daughter Margaret on January 16, 1917, also of tuberculosis. The coroner's report of his death indicated he had suffered from tuberculosis "for some time", so it's possible that with so many family members with tuberculosis that some of the children were exposed to it and also died from it.
That is quite a lot of loss in over about a 12 year period and again reminds me of how much has changed over the past century. Today, tuberculosis is pretty rare in the United States and can be treated with antibiotics (though it appears that a drug resistant form has developed in recent years making it more difficult to treat.) I decided to take a quick look at the leading causes of death in 1910 -- about the midpoint for the many Mullane deaths. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the leading causes of death for adults between 20-50 are tuberculosis and typhoid (excluding the high percentage of deaths related to post-partum infections) and for children 10 and under it's diarrhea/enteritis and bronchopnuemonia. In 2010, the leading causes of death are cancer and heart disease (presumably this is for adults, I wasn't able to find an easy split.) Similarly, in 1915 the infant mortality rate was about 100 per every 1,000 live births or 10% of all children. By 2013 (the most recent date I was able to find) the number has dropped to 5.6 infant deaths per every 1,000 live births or just 0.56%. It's good to be reminded every once and a while just how much progress has been made over the last 100 years. Sometimes it's all too easy to take for granted the advances modern medicine and technology have given rather than being amazed at the progress that has been made.
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When I was reviewing the 1940 Census trying to locate my family, I realized one of the reasons I'd had difficulty finding my grandparents and great-grandparents was that neither Marshall nor Edward Murray were working in occupations I had expected them to be. The most curious discovery was that my grandfather Edward had appeared in several 1930s directories as a "reporter". A reporter? Grandpa Murray was a teamster, what's this reporter business? I asked my father about it and he said yes, his father had worked for a newspaper. Dad wasn't sure which one and thought he might have been a photographer. I'll need to do some digging to see if I can find out what exactly Grandpa Murray was doing when he worked at a newspaper. Dad also said that his father didn't graduate from high school, but according to the 1940 census he had completed 12 years of school. My grandmother was the informant on that, so presumably she knew whether or not my grandfather had graduated.
I still haven't figured out for certain how my great grandfather paid for the house on Natoma. I'm still guessing there was a life insurance payment after my great grandmother died in July, 1940, but I haven't found any evidence of that yet. I'm not entirely sure where I might find that information either, so it's an item of interest that sits on a back burner for now.
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Muddling Through the Mullanes was my first attempt at clarifying the Mullane relationships, and fortunately my best guess assumptions proved correct. That means that my great grandmother Mary Mullane's brothers had a lot of loss. Her brothers Phillip, Edward, and Patrick all lost children between 1905 and 1917.
The first child lost was Phillip's daughter Maria Nora Mullane who died on August 28, 1905 at the age of 2 months, 22 days old. I was able to find a copy of her burial record from Holy Cross at sfgenealogy.com and it appears she died from enteritis (at least that's the best guess I can come up with as the handwritten record is atrocious!)
Edward was the next brother to lose a child. On January 8, 1915, Edward and his wife Margaret lost their son Thomas Joseph Mullane. He was only about three and a half. I don't have a copy of his death certificate and the records at sfgenealogy.com only go up to January, 1911. My best guess would be some kind of illness.
Edward lost his second child, a daughter named Margaret a little over a year later on June 20, 1916. Margaret was only three months old at the time of her death.
The next child lost was Patrick's daughter Myrtle Marie Mullane. She died on July 3 or 4, 1916 (the death notice and headstone say July 3, the CA Death Index says July 4) in Sonoma County. Her death notice says "in Verano", which I'm guessing is El Verano. El Verano is a resort town just outside of Sonoma city near several hot springs. Based on the date of her death, I'm guessing the family were on vacation for the Independence Day holiday when she died. Again, I don't have a copy of her death certificate, but I'm guessing there was some sort of accident.
The family tragedies didn't end there. Phillip and his wife Mary lost two of their three sons in 1917. First Edward Ignatius on February 25 then Phillip Clayton just a month later on March 27. Edward was about thirteen and a half and died within days of my great grandfather Marshall Murray's sister Mollie (Mary) Murray Johnson. Phillip was a few months shy of his tenth birthday. Again, I would need copies of their death certificates to know how they died, but based on the proximities of their respective deaths, I would guess some contagious illness was the cause. Whether it was the flu, tuberculosis, measles, or some other illness that is much more survivable and preventable today is something left to be determined.
The losses in the Mullane family during this time weren't limited to the children of my great granduncles. My great grandmother had 6 or 7 brothers, and three of them also died between 1905-1917. Thomas Michael Mullane died on March 19, 1910 of tuberculosis. I only recently discovered his death notice in the San Francisco Chronicle and discovered he was married to a woman named Jennie, so I will need to follow up on her. Oldest brother John Martin Mullane also died of tuberculosis a year later on April 15, 1911. It doesn't appear that he ever married. Finally Edward (George) Washington Mullane died not long after his daughter Margaret on January 16, 1917, also of tuberculosis. The coroner's report of his death indicated he had suffered from tuberculosis "for some time", so it's possible that with so many family members with tuberculosis that some of the children were exposed to it and also died from it.
That is quite a lot of loss in over about a 12 year period and again reminds me of how much has changed over the past century. Today, tuberculosis is pretty rare in the United States and can be treated with antibiotics (though it appears that a drug resistant form has developed in recent years making it more difficult to treat.) I decided to take a quick look at the leading causes of death in 1910 -- about the midpoint for the many Mullane deaths. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the leading causes of death for adults between 20-50 are tuberculosis and typhoid (excluding the high percentage of deaths related to post-partum infections) and for children 10 and under it's diarrhea/enteritis and bronchopnuemonia. In 2010, the leading causes of death are cancer and heart disease (presumably this is for adults, I wasn't able to find an easy split.) Similarly, in 1915 the infant mortality rate was about 100 per every 1,000 live births or 10% of all children. By 2013 (the most recent date I was able to find) the number has dropped to 5.6 infant deaths per every 1,000 live births or just 0.56%. It's good to be reminded every once and a while just how much progress has been made over the last 100 years. Sometimes it's all too easy to take for granted the advances modern medicine and technology have given rather than being amazed at the progress that has been made.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Answering and Reviewing Some Questions, Part 1
I realized that over the four years since I started this blog I had posed a bunch of different questions that I may have not answered in a follow up post, so I decided to go back through the 40 or so posts I have written and see what I may have forgotten to update. I'll also try to put in quick links to questions that were answered in case something was missed. This will be a multi-part post and one that will appear from time to time as I move along in my research since I suspect there will be more instances of me plowing ahead and forgetting to update all the answers I find and/or forgetting to go back and look at some other questions.
The First Month of Digging brought up a lot of questions and I think I've answered most of them by now. Some questions, like what happened to my Murray family relatives during and immediately following the 1906 earthquake and fire will probably remain a mystery. That kind of information is usually found in family stories and I know of none. Many of the other questions that I pondered in that first month have been answered though.
When did they come to California is another partially answered question. Based on what I've been able to find in the San Francisco city directories and the 1900 census record has given me a rough estimate. In the 1900 census, Bridget shows up as having arrived in the US in 1866. I first find her with a certainty in the 1867 city directory working at the Occidental Laundry. However I also found a Bridget McDonough working at the Russ House laundry in 1864 with several other McDonoughs. I'm not 100% sure that's "my" Bridget, so I've put that record in my "maybe" file for now. John Murray first shows up in the city directories in 1862 working at Easton's laundry. So I have a reasonable timeline for both of them arriving in California. But what about the question of when they arrived in the United States? While it's possible they both emigrated from Ireland directly to California, it's more likely they arrived in the US on the east coast before moving across the country. I haven't, to date, found any definitive records of the arrival of either Bridget or John. The best lead I have is for Bridget as her death notice asked that papers in Chelsea, Massachusetts be notified. That leads me to believe there was some kind of family in Massachusetts and that Bridget may have landed in Boston before moving west. As for John -- that's definitely going to be a needle in haystack. John Murray is a common enough name and the immigration records of the 1860s contain very little information that would allow me to identify one John Murray from another with any certainty. The most interesting part of this question though gives rise to another question. If John and Bridget arrived on the east coast sometime between 1860-1866, what was traveling across the entire continent in the middle of the US Civil War like?
The question of what happened to my great grandfather's older brother John Henry is another open question. I only have spotty records for him. After finding him living with the rest of the family in 1900-01, I have very little hard evidence on him. He witnessed my great grandparents' wedding in 1918 and I know he's buried at Holy Cross Cemetery with his brother Joseph, so I know he died in 1930. Those are the only hard records I have for him. Again, with a name like John Murray, it's a bit tricky tracking him down. I have a couple of possibilities in census records, but nothing definite.
I haven't quite found all of the Murrays in the 1910 census. Bridget and Nellie (Ella) have died by 1910 and I'm pretty sure I've found Mollie living with her husband. The brothers, however, are a bit more of a challenge. I have a reasonable guess for Joseph, but nothing for either Marshall or John Henry, so that's one area I need to keep looking.
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The Mystery of Mary Mullane introduced me to my first real puzzler of the family -- that my great grandmother was married to someone named Denis Edward Hayes before she married my great grandfather Marshall. Edward Hayes seems to have dropped out of the records after the 1910 census and I haven't a clue what happened to him. Based on what I do know, I'm guessing Edward Hayes abandoned my great grandmother sometime around 1910. My great grandparents weren't married until 1918, four years after my grandfather was born and the information my great grandmother provided for the marriage license wasn't entirely truthful. Both of those facts lead me to believe Edward Hayes ran off. I haven't put a bunch of effort in to tracking him down, but do have some potential leads to follow up. The best of those is from the 1940 census which has an Edward Hayes who is the right age and divorced living at the Napa State Hospital, but with such a big gap between records I can't be certain I've got the right person. And, like Joseph Murray's wife Agnes, has me wondering what put him in the state hospital in the first place!
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More McDonoughs was my first lead on some possible relatives of my great-great grandmother Bridget McDonough Murray. I found a Patrick McDonough living near the Murrays in the 1880 census and other searches turned up a Thomas and Betsey McDonough working with a Bridget McDonough at the Russ House in 1864. I haven't spent much time on the McDonoughs recently, so I haven't found any connection between any of these people to my great-great grandmother. I did spend some time on them when they first turned up then set it aside for a few months. When I went back and took a look at the work I'd done, I discovered I'd made several mistakes and gotten different families mixed up so had to scrap a lot of what I did and go back to the beginning. I think what I've gathered to date is accurate, but it is pretty limited and I've as yet to make any connections.
The First Month of Digging brought up a lot of questions and I think I've answered most of them by now. Some questions, like what happened to my Murray family relatives during and immediately following the 1906 earthquake and fire will probably remain a mystery. That kind of information is usually found in family stories and I know of none. Many of the other questions that I pondered in that first month have been answered though.
- What was Bridget's husband's name? When did he die?
- Who is Joseph's wife? Why isn't she living with him in 1920?
- What happened to Mary and Nellie? Did they marry?
- Who were my great-grandmother's parents? Did she have any siblings?
When did they come to California is another partially answered question. Based on what I've been able to find in the San Francisco city directories and the 1900 census record has given me a rough estimate. In the 1900 census, Bridget shows up as having arrived in the US in 1866. I first find her with a certainty in the 1867 city directory working at the Occidental Laundry. However I also found a Bridget McDonough working at the Russ House laundry in 1864 with several other McDonoughs. I'm not 100% sure that's "my" Bridget, so I've put that record in my "maybe" file for now. John Murray first shows up in the city directories in 1862 working at Easton's laundry. So I have a reasonable timeline for both of them arriving in California. But what about the question of when they arrived in the United States? While it's possible they both emigrated from Ireland directly to California, it's more likely they arrived in the US on the east coast before moving across the country. I haven't, to date, found any definitive records of the arrival of either Bridget or John. The best lead I have is for Bridget as her death notice asked that papers in Chelsea, Massachusetts be notified. That leads me to believe there was some kind of family in Massachusetts and that Bridget may have landed in Boston before moving west. As for John -- that's definitely going to be a needle in haystack. John Murray is a common enough name and the immigration records of the 1860s contain very little information that would allow me to identify one John Murray from another with any certainty. The most interesting part of this question though gives rise to another question. If John and Bridget arrived on the east coast sometime between 1860-1866, what was traveling across the entire continent in the middle of the US Civil War like?
The question of what happened to my great grandfather's older brother John Henry is another open question. I only have spotty records for him. After finding him living with the rest of the family in 1900-01, I have very little hard evidence on him. He witnessed my great grandparents' wedding in 1918 and I know he's buried at Holy Cross Cemetery with his brother Joseph, so I know he died in 1930. Those are the only hard records I have for him. Again, with a name like John Murray, it's a bit tricky tracking him down. I have a couple of possibilities in census records, but nothing definite.
I haven't quite found all of the Murrays in the 1910 census. Bridget and Nellie (Ella) have died by 1910 and I'm pretty sure I've found Mollie living with her husband. The brothers, however, are a bit more of a challenge. I have a reasonable guess for Joseph, but nothing for either Marshall or John Henry, so that's one area I need to keep looking.
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The Mystery of Mary Mullane introduced me to my first real puzzler of the family -- that my great grandmother was married to someone named Denis Edward Hayes before she married my great grandfather Marshall. Edward Hayes seems to have dropped out of the records after the 1910 census and I haven't a clue what happened to him. Based on what I do know, I'm guessing Edward Hayes abandoned my great grandmother sometime around 1910. My great grandparents weren't married until 1918, four years after my grandfather was born and the information my great grandmother provided for the marriage license wasn't entirely truthful. Both of those facts lead me to believe Edward Hayes ran off. I haven't put a bunch of effort in to tracking him down, but do have some potential leads to follow up. The best of those is from the 1940 census which has an Edward Hayes who is the right age and divorced living at the Napa State Hospital, but with such a big gap between records I can't be certain I've got the right person. And, like Joseph Murray's wife Agnes, has me wondering what put him in the state hospital in the first place!
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More McDonoughs was my first lead on some possible relatives of my great-great grandmother Bridget McDonough Murray. I found a Patrick McDonough living near the Murrays in the 1880 census and other searches turned up a Thomas and Betsey McDonough working with a Bridget McDonough at the Russ House in 1864. I haven't spent much time on the McDonoughs recently, so I haven't found any connection between any of these people to my great-great grandmother. I did spend some time on them when they first turned up then set it aside for a few months. When I went back and took a look at the work I'd done, I discovered I'd made several mistakes and gotten different families mixed up so had to scrap a lot of what I did and go back to the beginning. I think what I've gathered to date is accurate, but it is pretty limited and I've as yet to make any connections.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Men (and Women) of Mystery
Ever since I was a kid, one of my favorite genres of novels has been the mystery/detective tales. From plowing through all the Agatha Christie novels while in junior high school to more contemporary authors like Michael Connelly, I've always enjoyed stories that have an aspect of trying to guess how they will end. I've also always been a fan of jig-saw puzzles. So that I'm fascinated by trying to unravel the stories of my family history shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Over the last 4 years or so I've uncovered a whole slew of people that I (and much of the rest of the family) knew nothing about. From the simple things like learning the names of my great-great grandparents on both the Murray and Coleman sides of the family to discovering the names of great grandaunts and uncles I'd never heard of to figuring out what happened to all these people, it's been a great adventure and a never ending series of mysteries and puzzles to work out.
Beyond working out the puzzles of people I've found with a direct connection to me and my family, I've also encountered a number of people that appear momentarily with my relatives and then disappear. I've also encountered people who seem to ride alongside continuously but I have no idea what the connection is between them and my family. I'm not sure which is more frustrating -- people who seem obviously connected but can't be found beyond a single record or ones who don't appear connected at all but appear in multiple records.
The first time I encountered people I couldn't figure out the connection was when I found my great-great grandparents John and Bridget Murray in the 1870 census. They were living with another couple John and Margaret Feehan. John is a 23 year old shoemaker from Ireland and Margaret is 20 years old and from New York. I did a cursory search on them and discovered that John died in 1875 and was from County Louth, Ireland. Since John Murray was from Galway and Bridget McDonough Murray was from Sligo, I figured John and Margaret Feehan were friends they made upon arriving in San Francisco and set them aside. It's possible there may be some other connection to find, but that's to study at a much later time.
Then I hit my first real conundrum. I was searching for my Mullane relatives and found them living at 45 Belcher Street between 1894 and 1897. This enabled me to discover my great-great grandmother Mary Mullane and her brothers, but there was one name that appeared in 1895 and then disappeared again completely. There was someone named Richard E. Mullane living with the rest of the Mullane family at 45 Belcher in 1895. At first I thought he might be another of Mary's brothers, but as I dug through the years I found no brother with the name Richard. So who is he? Where did he come from? Where did he go? I can't find any other record for him. There are two other mysterious Mullanes who appear at the 45 Belcher address -- Edwin and Joseph. Those two may be one of Mary's brothers recorded mistakenly. The 1880 census lists a Joseph among the brothers and he appears again in 1900 and is in the city directories between 1894-1909. The confusion comes in 1898 when there are two Josephs living in the Belcher house. To make matters worse starting in 1895 there is a Timothy Joseph Mullane living in the same house. Tracking Timothy forward, I found a record from a funeral home collection that included his death notice in the paper. "T. Joseph Mullane ... brother of Phillip and Patrick Mullane and Mrs. Mary (Edward) Murray." So, it is possible that Timothy and at least one of the Josephs are the same person, but I can't put them together. Edwin Mullane appears from 1897-1899, and I strongly suspect that this is a misprint for Mary's brother Edward Mullane I just can't prove it.
So I've stuck Richard, Joseph, and Edwin Mullane over to one side to puzzle over later. Perhaps they're other relatives that will turn up or are actually people I've already identified that were mistakenly identified in the city directories.
And then there are the Comerfords. In the 1910 census a John W. Comerford and his daughter Maime are listed as lodgers with Patrick Mullane and his wife Ellen. John Comerford is still living with Patrick and Ellen in the 1920 census. When I went to Holy Cross Cemetery looking for Patrick's grave, I discovered among the many people he's buried with, there is Mary Comerford who died in 1917! I went back to find Mary Comerford in the 1900 census since she's 13 in 1910, and she turns up living in the family of Jeremiah and Mary Sullivan -- Ellen Mullane's parents! She's only 4 years old and neither of her parents are living with the Sullivans and she's listed as a "lodger." Right now my guess is the Comerfords are related to the Sullivans some how, but I'm not entirely sure. I also double checked the burial records for the plot where Patrick Mullane was buried on sfgenealogy.com since the headstone also listed a Mary Donohue in the plot. It turns out that Patrick Mullane was buried with his daughter Myrtle, along with John and Mary Comerford, Jeremiah Sullivan, and Mary and John Donohue. Patrick, Myrtle, Mary Comerford, Jeremiah Sullivan, and Mary Donohue are listed on the headstone. Jeremiah Sullivan was Patrick's father-in-law and I believe Mary Donohue was his mother-in-law who remarried after Jeremiah's death (thus explaining John Donohue.) I haven't tied in the Comerfords anywhere yet and I don't know what happened to Ellen Sullivan Mullane. She's not buried with the rest of the family and I've yet to find a death record for her, so even the mystery people lead to other family mysteries.
The final group of mystery people are the employers and business partners I've encountered. I'm curious about these people also and what their stories are and how they relate to my family's stories. I've done very little digging into these people other than to note their names when they appear. This group is definitely the lowest priority of mystery people.
I've spent a little bit of time trying to track down all these people to see how they fit in, but with so many other puzzles to work out they are definitely secondary in my research. Still, as someone who loves working out puzzles, I won't leave them alone entirely.
Beyond working out the puzzles of people I've found with a direct connection to me and my family, I've also encountered a number of people that appear momentarily with my relatives and then disappear. I've also encountered people who seem to ride alongside continuously but I have no idea what the connection is between them and my family. I'm not sure which is more frustrating -- people who seem obviously connected but can't be found beyond a single record or ones who don't appear connected at all but appear in multiple records.
The first time I encountered people I couldn't figure out the connection was when I found my great-great grandparents John and Bridget Murray in the 1870 census. They were living with another couple John and Margaret Feehan. John is a 23 year old shoemaker from Ireland and Margaret is 20 years old and from New York. I did a cursory search on them and discovered that John died in 1875 and was from County Louth, Ireland. Since John Murray was from Galway and Bridget McDonough Murray was from Sligo, I figured John and Margaret Feehan were friends they made upon arriving in San Francisco and set them aside. It's possible there may be some other connection to find, but that's to study at a much later time.
Then I hit my first real conundrum. I was searching for my Mullane relatives and found them living at 45 Belcher Street between 1894 and 1897. This enabled me to discover my great-great grandmother Mary Mullane and her brothers, but there was one name that appeared in 1895 and then disappeared again completely. There was someone named Richard E. Mullane living with the rest of the Mullane family at 45 Belcher in 1895. At first I thought he might be another of Mary's brothers, but as I dug through the years I found no brother with the name Richard. So who is he? Where did he come from? Where did he go? I can't find any other record for him. There are two other mysterious Mullanes who appear at the 45 Belcher address -- Edwin and Joseph. Those two may be one of Mary's brothers recorded mistakenly. The 1880 census lists a Joseph among the brothers and he appears again in 1900 and is in the city directories between 1894-1909. The confusion comes in 1898 when there are two Josephs living in the Belcher house. To make matters worse starting in 1895 there is a Timothy Joseph Mullane living in the same house. Tracking Timothy forward, I found a record from a funeral home collection that included his death notice in the paper. "T. Joseph Mullane ... brother of Phillip and Patrick Mullane and Mrs. Mary (Edward) Murray." So, it is possible that Timothy and at least one of the Josephs are the same person, but I can't put them together. Edwin Mullane appears from 1897-1899, and I strongly suspect that this is a misprint for Mary's brother Edward Mullane I just can't prove it.
So I've stuck Richard, Joseph, and Edwin Mullane over to one side to puzzle over later. Perhaps they're other relatives that will turn up or are actually people I've already identified that were mistakenly identified in the city directories.
And then there are the Comerfords. In the 1910 census a John W. Comerford and his daughter Maime are listed as lodgers with Patrick Mullane and his wife Ellen. John Comerford is still living with Patrick and Ellen in the 1920 census. When I went to Holy Cross Cemetery looking for Patrick's grave, I discovered among the many people he's buried with, there is Mary Comerford who died in 1917! I went back to find Mary Comerford in the 1900 census since she's 13 in 1910, and she turns up living in the family of Jeremiah and Mary Sullivan -- Ellen Mullane's parents! She's only 4 years old and neither of her parents are living with the Sullivans and she's listed as a "lodger." Right now my guess is the Comerfords are related to the Sullivans some how, but I'm not entirely sure. I also double checked the burial records for the plot where Patrick Mullane was buried on sfgenealogy.com since the headstone also listed a Mary Donohue in the plot. It turns out that Patrick Mullane was buried with his daughter Myrtle, along with John and Mary Comerford, Jeremiah Sullivan, and Mary and John Donohue. Patrick, Myrtle, Mary Comerford, Jeremiah Sullivan, and Mary Donohue are listed on the headstone. Jeremiah Sullivan was Patrick's father-in-law and I believe Mary Donohue was his mother-in-law who remarried after Jeremiah's death (thus explaining John Donohue.) I haven't tied in the Comerfords anywhere yet and I don't know what happened to Ellen Sullivan Mullane. She's not buried with the rest of the family and I've yet to find a death record for her, so even the mystery people lead to other family mysteries.
The final group of mystery people are the employers and business partners I've encountered. I'm curious about these people also and what their stories are and how they relate to my family's stories. I've done very little digging into these people other than to note their names when they appear. This group is definitely the lowest priority of mystery people.
I've spent a little bit of time trying to track down all these people to see how they fit in, but with so many other puzzles to work out they are definitely secondary in my research. Still, as someone who loves working out puzzles, I won't leave them alone entirely.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Following Up on Marshall's Siblings -- Joseph S. Murray
When I started researching the Murray family roots back in January, 2012 one of the first things I discovered was that my great-grandfather Marshall Edward Murray was one of six children. That was stunning news since there wasn't any knowledge of these siblings handed down. So one of the tasks I had was to identify and find out what happened to Marshall's siblings. To date, I have been able to track down information on all five siblings, but there have been several mysteries to figure out. Having, after much effort, figured out what happened to his older sister Mary (aka Mollie), I turned my focus on younger brother Joseph.
After initially finding Joseph with the rest of the family in the 1900 census and tracking him through 1905 through the city directories, I lost him until he showed up in the 1920 census living with my great-grandparents Marshall and Mary Murray. The census shows that he was married, but there is no wife living with the rest of the family. I went back to the city directories to see if I could figure out what Joseph's wife's name might be. The difficulty in this was sorting between two different Joseph S. Murrays that appeared in the directories. When one of the two I was tracking turned up with a wife named Agnes in the 1914 directory, I opted to look further at that Joseph.
I turned then to newspaper archives. I did a search for Joseph and Agnes and found a notice of a marriage license issued to a Joseph S. Murray and Mary A. McCarthy in the May 3, 1910 issue of the San Francisco Call. Having already dealt with a number of people who used their middle name over their first name, I thought his might be a good lead especially as Joseph was listed as age 32 which was about right.
Next it was over to the San Francisco County records at FamilySearch.org. These records aren't indexed yet (or at least weren't at the time I searched, some partial indexing has begun recently) so it meant scrolling through individual records. Since I had a date to look for the issuance of the marriage license, I was able to quickly narrow down the image sets to check. Through the records, I was able to find that Joseph Stephen Murray married Mary Agnes McCarthy on May 2, 1910 by a justice of the peace. I also learned that Mary Agnes had been married previously and her maiden name was Mary Agnes Barnes.
Since the notice in the Call stated that both Joseph and Mary Agnes were living at 420 Dolores Street, I went back to the 1910 census to see if I could find them. Joseph was not living at the 420 Dolores Street address when the census was taken in April, 1910, but I was able to find Agnes M. McCarthy and her 15-year-old daughter Nelly C. McCarthy.
So it seems I had identified the correct couple, but that left a few questions unanswered. Did I identify the correct Joseph S. Murray? And what happened to Agnes? Going on the guess that I had the right couple, I looked for Agnes in the 1920 census. The best bet turns up as a resident in the state hospital in Napa.
The Murrays all seem to disappear from the city directories between 1917-1919 when Marshall and Mary reappear, but no such luck with Joseph and Agnes, so I was stuck with Joseph living with Marshall and Mary in 1920 with out his wife. It wasn't until I was digging around in Mollie Murray's story that I hit on a death notice for Joseph in 1920. I sent off for Joseph's death certificate to see what information that might hold.
When Joseph's death certificate arrived, it confirmed that I had guessed right -- his wife is listed as Agnes Murray! I'll have to search a bit more to find out what happened to Agnes, but at least I was on the right track. Also, as is often the case, the death certificate provided some other useful information. Beyond learning Joseph's cause of death (tuberculosis, which he appears to have been suffering from for a period of 8 months prior to his death) I also learned he was a checker for the Southern Pacific Railroad. I was able to find payroll records for Joseph between October 1916 and October 1919 which indicate he made between about $40 and $60 every two weeks. Based on a couple of conversion sites I found online, that looks to be between about $13,660 and $20,485 per year in today's dollars -- definitely not enough to live in San Francisco in 2015!
Now that I've wrapped up Joseph, that leaves figuring out what happened to John Henry. I'm also curious about what happened to Agnes's daughter Nelly, but that will be another side track search to follow up when I'm stuck at a wall.
After initially finding Joseph with the rest of the family in the 1900 census and tracking him through 1905 through the city directories, I lost him until he showed up in the 1920 census living with my great-grandparents Marshall and Mary Murray. The census shows that he was married, but there is no wife living with the rest of the family. I went back to the city directories to see if I could figure out what Joseph's wife's name might be. The difficulty in this was sorting between two different Joseph S. Murrays that appeared in the directories. When one of the two I was tracking turned up with a wife named Agnes in the 1914 directory, I opted to look further at that Joseph.
I turned then to newspaper archives. I did a search for Joseph and Agnes and found a notice of a marriage license issued to a Joseph S. Murray and Mary A. McCarthy in the May 3, 1910 issue of the San Francisco Call. Having already dealt with a number of people who used their middle name over their first name, I thought his might be a good lead especially as Joseph was listed as age 32 which was about right.
Next it was over to the San Francisco County records at FamilySearch.org. These records aren't indexed yet (or at least weren't at the time I searched, some partial indexing has begun recently) so it meant scrolling through individual records. Since I had a date to look for the issuance of the marriage license, I was able to quickly narrow down the image sets to check. Through the records, I was able to find that Joseph Stephen Murray married Mary Agnes McCarthy on May 2, 1910 by a justice of the peace. I also learned that Mary Agnes had been married previously and her maiden name was Mary Agnes Barnes.
Since the notice in the Call stated that both Joseph and Mary Agnes were living at 420 Dolores Street, I went back to the 1910 census to see if I could find them. Joseph was not living at the 420 Dolores Street address when the census was taken in April, 1910, but I was able to find Agnes M. McCarthy and her 15-year-old daughter Nelly C. McCarthy.
So it seems I had identified the correct couple, but that left a few questions unanswered. Did I identify the correct Joseph S. Murray? And what happened to Agnes? Going on the guess that I had the right couple, I looked for Agnes in the 1920 census. The best bet turns up as a resident in the state hospital in Napa.
The Murrays all seem to disappear from the city directories between 1917-1919 when Marshall and Mary reappear, but no such luck with Joseph and Agnes, so I was stuck with Joseph living with Marshall and Mary in 1920 with out his wife. It wasn't until I was digging around in Mollie Murray's story that I hit on a death notice for Joseph in 1920. I sent off for Joseph's death certificate to see what information that might hold.
When Joseph's death certificate arrived, it confirmed that I had guessed right -- his wife is listed as Agnes Murray! I'll have to search a bit more to find out what happened to Agnes, but at least I was on the right track. Also, as is often the case, the death certificate provided some other useful information. Beyond learning Joseph's cause of death (tuberculosis, which he appears to have been suffering from for a period of 8 months prior to his death) I also learned he was a checker for the Southern Pacific Railroad. I was able to find payroll records for Joseph between October 1916 and October 1919 which indicate he made between about $40 and $60 every two weeks. Based on a couple of conversion sites I found online, that looks to be between about $13,660 and $20,485 per year in today's dollars -- definitely not enough to live in San Francisco in 2015!
Now that I've wrapped up Joseph, that leaves figuring out what happened to John Henry. I'm also curious about what happened to Agnes's daughter Nelly, but that will be another side track search to follow up when I'm stuck at a wall.
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