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!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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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