The First Attempt to Find J Manning

While preparing posts on my search for Julia Manning, I found an early draft tracking my first attempts to find "J. Manning." The post is incomplete, but shows where my thinking was circa 2018 when I worked up the draft. Notice I eliminated Julia pretty quickly. Stay tuned to find out what I've learned since.

My great-great grandmother Mary Manning Mullane died in February 1892 and her death notice mentions she is the "niece of J. Manning." Mary was born around 1845 making her about 46 when she died, so that would mean J. Manning was likely in his or her sixties or early seventies in 1892. It is possible he or she was older or younger than that, but it's a safe age range to start searching. That would mean J. Manning would have been born sometime in the 1820s or 1830s, though the range from 1810-1840 isn't totally out of the question. My great-great grandmother was born in Ireland, so again it is likely that J. Manning was also born in Ireland. Since the death notice appears in the San Francisco Call, and also references a cousin living in Oakland, I believe J. Manning also lived in San Francisco in 1892.

Great, that's a start, right? I need to find someone with a first name that starts with J and was born between about 1820-1835 in Ireland. Now the trick is to identify exactly who this J. Manning is. I was able to find my great-great grandmother "B. Murray" easily enough, so it's off to the San Francisco city directories to see what I'm up against. I first checked the 1892 city directory where I found the following:

• J.J. Manning living at 1115 Castro Street.
• Julia Manning, music teacher, living at 7th and Railroad Avenues
• 9 different James Mannings
• 3 different Jeremiah Mannings, though one is a Jr. and at the same residence as one of the others, so probably someone I can eliminate.
• 5 different John Mannings
•  2 different Joseph Mannings

So that is a total of 20 possibilities (21 if Jeremiah, Jr. is included.) I save the page from the 1892 directory and then go take a look at the 1891 directory. From there I found the following:

• 12 different James Mannings
• 6 different John Mannings
• 1 Joseph Manning living at 612 Taylor Street.

That's still 19 possibilities that I need to compare to the 1892 directory, but I may be able to eliminate the Jeremiahs and Julia Manning. I decided to step back one more year to 1890 and see what I would find there:

• 8 different James Mannings
• 1 Jeremiah Manning living at 1120 Elm Avenue.
• 7 different John Mannings
• 1 Joseph Manning living at 1212 Howard Street.

Down to 17 possibilities, but we've got a Jeremiah back in the picture. I decided to stop there and cross-reference the three years of names and addresses to see which people appeared most consistently at the same address with the same occupation. That's a lot of people to track down and with out an 1890 census, I have to look for voter registrations to see if I can find any of them close to 1892. I eliminate Julia right off the bat as she only appears once in the three years of directories I looked at and since she is a woman I would not be able to find her in the 1890s voter records.