Some of you may have heard me complain about this before, but it bears repeating - it really bugs me when people disappear from the family tree. It happens more often than I'd like, too. People are there in one census and then poof! 10 years later, they're gone. No newspaper clippings, no death certificate, no marriage records. Nothing. Just...gone. Some of these people can eventually be found through a lot of hard searching, diligence and patience, but others will never be found.
I recently came across some startling information about just how close we came to having yet another member drop off the Hogan family tree. I've exchanged a few emails with a wonderful new cousin of ours, the daughter of one of Grannie's cousins, and she shared a newspaper article about the death of Frank Hogan, the brother of her grandfather, Harry Hogan, and my great-grandfather, Joseph Hogan.
Joseph and Harry had two older brothers - Frank and George - and a younger sister. Sadly, both brothers died at a relatively young age (24 and 26, respectively), and within a year of each other. I had found death certificates for both brothers, so I knew that George had died of pneumonia/meningitis and Frank had died in a railroad accident. Not much of a mystery here...or so I thought until our cousin shared the newspaper article.
As it turns out, Frank was very nearly another large question mark on our family tree.
In the early morning hours on May 1, 1912, Frank was struck by a train in Ashland, Ohio and killed instantly. Frank was not local to Ashland, so he was not known to the local authorities. Without any identification on the body, Frank was sent to the local funeral home as an unidentified body.
According to the article, a steady stream of people came through the funeral home to view the body over the next few days. With no identification, though, preparations were under way to bury Frank's body in the local "potters field" - the poor man's cemetery, where he would have been just another unidentified grave - on Sunday.
Fortunately, on Saturday afternoon, an unknown man arrived at the funeral parlor, according to the newspaper "drawn by curiosity," and identified the body as being Frank's. Ashland police contacted Mansfield police, and the Hogan family was notified.
The newspaper article further states that Frank's father, Michael Hogan, and his two brothers traveled to Ashland and identified the body. In 1912, Joe Hogan would have been 20 years old and Harry would have been 22. Frank's body had to have been horrific to see - according to the article, "the right arm and leg was cut from the body and internal injuries made death practically instantaneous." I can't even imagine what it must have been like for Joe and Harry to have to see their brother like that at such a young age.
Which brings me to another interesting possibility raised by this story. Grannie told me that it was her understanding that she had been named Frances after her mother's favorite brother, Frank, who had died in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. After researching the Fagan family, though, I am positive that none of the 11 Fagan children died during the Spanish flu - and none of them were named Frank.
Reading the article about Frank Hogan has me thinking, though - what if Grannie had assumed only been given an approximate year of death and had just made the assumption it was the flu epidemic? It wouldn't be the first time someone made an assumption about our family history, that's for sure. And what if she had the wrong side of the family? Her parents named their first son after Grandma Hogan's father, and their second after Joseph himself. Seeing his brother in the condition he must have been in after his death had to have been traumatic for Grandpa Hogan, so it's certainly possible that he chose to name his third child in honor of his late brother.
If that unknown man hadn't wandered into the funeral home, Frank Hogan's fate might never have been known. His family would have spent the rest of their lives wondering if Frank had simply run off, not knowing where he was or what had become of him. And maybe, if that had happened, Grannie Frannie wouldn't have been Frannie at all...
What's that they say about a butterfly flapping its wings?
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
New Year, New Mystery
Another year, another family mystery to solve...
According to census records and family documents, my great-great grandparents, Frederick Chapman and Sarah Jane Barnes, had five children: Charles, Mary ("Ada"), Constance, Samuel and Frederick William. Every record I can find indicates that although Frederick and Sarah Jane were both born and raised in England, their first three children were born in Ireland and the last two were born in Scotland. These records are also surprisingly consistent on the birth years of the children - 1866, 1867, 1870, 1873 and 1879.
Recently, I've been in contact with a Chapman cousin in England (a descendent of one of Frederick's brothers). He shared with me a newspaper article that clearly places Frederick Chapman in his hometown of Markfield, England about 1868. Of course, this got me thinking - if Frederick had two children born in Ireland in 1866 and 1867, what was he doing in Markfield in 1868? It was time to do a little more digging into Frederick and his family...
The first thing I did was start looking for documentation of the births of Frederick's children. I already had documentation for the youngest son, my great-grandfather Frederick William, but I needed exact dates for the other four children. I didn't have much luck on Ancestry.com (my first stop for genealogy queries), so I headed over to familysearch.org to see what records they had available. The first thing I found was a Scottish birth record transcription for Samuel Chapman, born 29 Aug 1873 - which fits with what I know of the family.
Looking further into the records, I found an Irish birth record for an Elizabeth Barnes Chapman, daughter of Frederick Chapman and Sarah Jane Barnes, born 16 Jan 1870. I don't have an Elizabeth on my family tree, but Constance Chapman's middle name was Eliza, and this record fits with her estimated birth year of 1870. So now that just left Charles and Mary Chapman, but unfortunately, neither child shows up in the Irish birth records available on familysearch.org.
Initially, I hadn't looked for the marriage record of Frederick and Sarah Jane because I was working under the assumption that they had been married in Ireland, and I assumed this would be a difficult record to get my hands on (I know, I know...assumptions are bad!). At this point, though, I was ready for a break from looking for the children, so I ran Sarah Jane's name through the England marriage records. Sure enough, the first record that popped up was a marriage of Sarah Jane Barnes and Frederick Chapman, recorded in 1868 in Devon, England (Sarah Jane's home county). Just to be sure it was my ancestors, I ordered the record from England, and it arrived today. Sure enough, this is the couple I was looking for - Sarah Jane Barnes and Frederick Chapman, married 24 Dec 1868 at the registrar's office in Newton Abbot, Devon.
Now, this throws a real monkey wrench into my understanding of the family - if Frederick and Sarah Jane were married in 1868 in England, they obviously didn't have two children in Ireland in 1866 and 1867. So where the heck did these kids come from?
In the 1871 Scotland census, Charles is listed as being born in England, but in every other census, marriage record, death record, etc, that I have come across, both Charles and Mary Chapman are listed as being born in Ireland.
On her marriage record, Sarah Jane is listed as a 'spinster' and Frederick as a 'bachelor' - meaning that neither had been married previously. However, they were married in the registrar's office, with the registrar's staff as witnesses. I'm no expert on nineteenth century marriage customs, but this strikes me as odd. Was there a reason they weren't married in the church and that no family members served as witnesses?
To go along with that question, there are a few others: When, exactly, were Charles Chapman and Mary Chapman born? Where? Was Frederick Chapman even their father? And if not, who was? Were they born out of wedlock? And, if Frederick wasn't their father, did either of them know that?
Nothing like a good mystery to kick off a new year of research!
(Also, as a side note...I find it amusing that it is both less expensive and faster to have a record sent to me from England than it is to have one sent from New York City.)
According to census records and family documents, my great-great grandparents, Frederick Chapman and Sarah Jane Barnes, had five children: Charles, Mary ("Ada"), Constance, Samuel and Frederick William. Every record I can find indicates that although Frederick and Sarah Jane were both born and raised in England, their first three children were born in Ireland and the last two were born in Scotland. These records are also surprisingly consistent on the birth years of the children - 1866, 1867, 1870, 1873 and 1879.
Recently, I've been in contact with a Chapman cousin in England (a descendent of one of Frederick's brothers). He shared with me a newspaper article that clearly places Frederick Chapman in his hometown of Markfield, England about 1868. Of course, this got me thinking - if Frederick had two children born in Ireland in 1866 and 1867, what was he doing in Markfield in 1868? It was time to do a little more digging into Frederick and his family...
The first thing I did was start looking for documentation of the births of Frederick's children. I already had documentation for the youngest son, my great-grandfather Frederick William, but I needed exact dates for the other four children. I didn't have much luck on Ancestry.com (my first stop for genealogy queries), so I headed over to familysearch.org to see what records they had available. The first thing I found was a Scottish birth record transcription for Samuel Chapman, born 29 Aug 1873 - which fits with what I know of the family.
Looking further into the records, I found an Irish birth record for an Elizabeth Barnes Chapman, daughter of Frederick Chapman and Sarah Jane Barnes, born 16 Jan 1870. I don't have an Elizabeth on my family tree, but Constance Chapman's middle name was Eliza, and this record fits with her estimated birth year of 1870. So now that just left Charles and Mary Chapman, but unfortunately, neither child shows up in the Irish birth records available on familysearch.org.
Initially, I hadn't looked for the marriage record of Frederick and Sarah Jane because I was working under the assumption that they had been married in Ireland, and I assumed this would be a difficult record to get my hands on (I know, I know...assumptions are bad!). At this point, though, I was ready for a break from looking for the children, so I ran Sarah Jane's name through the England marriage records. Sure enough, the first record that popped up was a marriage of Sarah Jane Barnes and Frederick Chapman, recorded in 1868 in Devon, England (Sarah Jane's home county). Just to be sure it was my ancestors, I ordered the record from England, and it arrived today. Sure enough, this is the couple I was looking for - Sarah Jane Barnes and Frederick Chapman, married 24 Dec 1868 at the registrar's office in Newton Abbot, Devon.
Now, this throws a real monkey wrench into my understanding of the family - if Frederick and Sarah Jane were married in 1868 in England, they obviously didn't have two children in Ireland in 1866 and 1867. So where the heck did these kids come from?
In the 1871 Scotland census, Charles is listed as being born in England, but in every other census, marriage record, death record, etc, that I have come across, both Charles and Mary Chapman are listed as being born in Ireland.
On her marriage record, Sarah Jane is listed as a 'spinster' and Frederick as a 'bachelor' - meaning that neither had been married previously. However, they were married in the registrar's office, with the registrar's staff as witnesses. I'm no expert on nineteenth century marriage customs, but this strikes me as odd. Was there a reason they weren't married in the church and that no family members served as witnesses?
To go along with that question, there are a few others: When, exactly, were Charles Chapman and Mary Chapman born? Where? Was Frederick Chapman even their father? And if not, who was? Were they born out of wedlock? And, if Frederick wasn't their father, did either of them know that?
Nothing like a good mystery to kick off a new year of research!
(Also, as a side note...I find it amusing that it is both less expensive and faster to have a record sent to me from England than it is to have one sent from New York City.)
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Look Before You Leap!
Confession time...I finally did it. This week, I committed one of the cardinal genealogy sins. I found a census record on Ancestry.com, attached it to my tree, used it to add new names, and then moved on...without looking at the whole record!
I know, I know...what's the big deal, right? I got the names and dates from the transcription, who needs to look at the actual record? Turns out, it's actually a pretty big deal. It nearly caused me to put the wrong 3rd great grandfather on our family tree! (Don't laugh, that's a big deal!)
Here's what happened...
For the last few weeks, I've been in contact with two of the daughters of Opa's cousin Patricia Wiese (daughter of Grandma Taylor's sister, Eva Bauer Wiese). One of these cousins had done an oral history with Eva back in 1986, and she very kindly shared the transcript of this interview with me.
As some of you may remember from looking at my initial family trees, the Bauer line has been a mystery beyond Grandma Taylor's parents (Louis Bauer and Margaret Lechner), so I was very excited to see that Eva mentioned the names of her maternal grandparents - Peter and Eva Wachter. According to the transcript, Eva Wachter's first husband, a Mr. Lechner, died and she remarried Peter Wachter. There were several other members of her grandmother's family that Eva remembered - Anna, Mike and Evelyn Wachter. All of these would be clues to use in my search for records.
So I headed over to Ancestry and opened up the search page for the 1880 census. It's always bothered me that I was unable to find Margaret Lechner in this census, when she would have been about 7 or 8 years. If her mother had remarried, though, I thought it might be possible that the census taker had recorded Margaret with the last name of Wachter. No such luck, though - a search of the 1880 census turned up no records of Peter Wachter, Eva Wachter or Margaret Wachter.
I then moved on to the 1900 census. Almost immediately, I got a promising hit. In 1900, the following family was recorded in Manhattan:
Peter Wachter, head of household, age 40
Eva Wachter, wife, age 50
Annie Wachter, daughter, age 24
Michael Wachter, son, age 22
George Wachter, son, age 15
Peter Wachter, son, age 13
It certainly looked like this could be the family I was looking for. I then moved on and searched the 1910 census. Again, I very quickly got another promising hit, finding the following family in Manhattan:
Peter Wachter, head of household, age 50
Eva Wachter, wife, age 60
Michael Wachter, son, age 33
George Wachter, son, age 26
Peter Wachter Jr, son, age 24
If nothing else, this was very clearly the same family that I'd found in the 1900 census. I then looked for them in the 1920 census. I found Eva Wachter fairly quickly, this time living with one of her sons, George Wachter and his family. Her husband, Peter, was not recorded in the 1920 census, which likely meant that he died at some point between 1910 and 1920.
These census records gave me a valuable starting point for finding Margaret Lechner's father. The first thing I looked at was the birth year of the oldest Wachter child in the 1900 census. According to that record, Annie Wachter was born about 1876. Margaret Lechner was born in about 1872. That would mean that at some point between 1872 and 1876, Mr. Lechner died and Eva married Peter Wachter. Unfortunately, that excludes census years for finding him. So I headed over to the website of the German Genealogy Group, which hosts an index of the birth, marriage and death records on file at the NY Municipal Archives. Searching for the surname 'Lechner' between 1872 and 1876, I got two hits. One was for a four year old boy, which was obviously not what I was looking for. The other record, though, was for a Frederick Lechner, who died at age 30 in 1873. Eureka! I found him!
I quickly added Frederick to the family tree and declared him to be my 3rd great grandfather. End of story, right? Wrong...
The next day, I went back to the 1900 census to see if I could figure out Peter and Eva Wachter's marriage date. Opening up the record (rather than just the index transcription), the first thing I looked for was the column that listed years married. For Peter and Eva, that was listed as 16 years, which would be a marriage year of 1884 - after two of their children (Annie and Michael Wachter) were born. Could this just be a transcription error? Or could there have been (gasp!) children born out of wedlock?
Moving across the page, the 1900 census had another interesting piece of information (not shown in the picture above) - immigration year. For Eva, this year was 1872. Interestingly, if this is correct and if I have Margaret Lechner's birth year correct, this could mean that she was already pregnant with Margaret when she immigrated...but that's a story for another post, after I've done more research. More relevant to figuring out the mystery of Peter and Eva, Peter Wachter's immigration year is listed as 1882. If that info is true, then that leaves only two possibilities - either Annie and Michael were his children with a first wife, or Annie and Michael were not his children.
Looking at the 1910 census, Peter and Eva are listed as being married 25 years, which would give them a marriage year of 1885. In the world of census records, I've learned that a difference of a year or two is fairly common from census to census, so the single year difference didn't concern me. Looking at the record, I noticed that the census taker did something unusual (and helpful) on this record. In the column recording relationship status, you typically see several letters denoting status - 'S' for single, 'M' for married, 'D' for divorced, and 'W' for widowed. In this record, though, I noticed that Peter was listed as 'M1' and Eva as 'M2'. Looking down the page, I realized that this census taker had most kindly recorded not just that someone was married, but also whether it was their first or second marriage.
So this was Peter Wachter's first marriage, making it highly unlikely that Annie and Michael were actually his children. His immigration year of 1882 also explains why I couldn't find him in the 1880 census - he was still in Germany! But if Annie and Michael were not actually Wachters, who were they?
I started to wonder if maybe I had jumped too quickly in assuming that Frederick Lechner was Margaret's father. If Peter and Eva Wachter hadn't married until 1884 or 1885, Margaret's father could have died much later than 1873. In fact, it was pretty clear to me that if Annie and Michael weren't Wachters, they were probably actually Lechners, which would mean that Frederick Lechner could not possibly have been Margaret's father.
Going back to the 1880 census, I searched for Eva Lechner, hoping to either find a young widow with three children or a married couple. After a couple of promising hits that didn't quite match up, I found this record:
Well, Eva, Annie and Michael are there as expected...but if this is our family, who the heck is Rachel? After a little head scratching, I've come to the conclusion that Rachel must be Margaret Lechner. The only reason I can come up with for the name switch is that perhaps Rachel was her middle name. Based on her age and the other family members present, I'm quite sure this is our family. It certainly explains why I was never able to find Margaret in the 1880 census!
So it appears that Margaret Lechner's father was actually Michael Lechner. Heading back to the German Genealogy Group's death index, I found a Michael Lechner who died 1 Aug 1881 at age 31. Given the census data, this Michael Lechner is very likely my actual 3rd great grandfather.
And there you have it...a very long-winded version of why I should always triple check my records! The discovery of the names of Michael Lechner and Eva Lechner Wachter open up brand new avenues of research for me, so look for more updates to come as I learn more about this family.
I know, I know...what's the big deal, right? I got the names and dates from the transcription, who needs to look at the actual record? Turns out, it's actually a pretty big deal. It nearly caused me to put the wrong 3rd great grandfather on our family tree! (Don't laugh, that's a big deal!)
Here's what happened...
For the last few weeks, I've been in contact with two of the daughters of Opa's cousin Patricia Wiese (daughter of Grandma Taylor's sister, Eva Bauer Wiese). One of these cousins had done an oral history with Eva back in 1986, and she very kindly shared the transcript of this interview with me.
As some of you may remember from looking at my initial family trees, the Bauer line has been a mystery beyond Grandma Taylor's parents (Louis Bauer and Margaret Lechner), so I was very excited to see that Eva mentioned the names of her maternal grandparents - Peter and Eva Wachter. According to the transcript, Eva Wachter's first husband, a Mr. Lechner, died and she remarried Peter Wachter. There were several other members of her grandmother's family that Eva remembered - Anna, Mike and Evelyn Wachter. All of these would be clues to use in my search for records.
So I headed over to Ancestry and opened up the search page for the 1880 census. It's always bothered me that I was unable to find Margaret Lechner in this census, when she would have been about 7 or 8 years. If her mother had remarried, though, I thought it might be possible that the census taker had recorded Margaret with the last name of Wachter. No such luck, though - a search of the 1880 census turned up no records of Peter Wachter, Eva Wachter or Margaret Wachter.
I then moved on to the 1900 census. Almost immediately, I got a promising hit. In 1900, the following family was recorded in Manhattan:
Peter Wachter, head of household, age 40
Eva Wachter, wife, age 50
Annie Wachter, daughter, age 24
Michael Wachter, son, age 22
George Wachter, son, age 15
Peter Wachter, son, age 13
It certainly looked like this could be the family I was looking for. I then moved on and searched the 1910 census. Again, I very quickly got another promising hit, finding the following family in Manhattan:
Peter Wachter, head of household, age 50
Eva Wachter, wife, age 60
Michael Wachter, son, age 33
George Wachter, son, age 26
Peter Wachter Jr, son, age 24
If nothing else, this was very clearly the same family that I'd found in the 1900 census. I then looked for them in the 1920 census. I found Eva Wachter fairly quickly, this time living with one of her sons, George Wachter and his family. Her husband, Peter, was not recorded in the 1920 census, which likely meant that he died at some point between 1910 and 1920.
These census records gave me a valuable starting point for finding Margaret Lechner's father. The first thing I looked at was the birth year of the oldest Wachter child in the 1900 census. According to that record, Annie Wachter was born about 1876. Margaret Lechner was born in about 1872. That would mean that at some point between 1872 and 1876, Mr. Lechner died and Eva married Peter Wachter. Unfortunately, that excludes census years for finding him. So I headed over to the website of the German Genealogy Group, which hosts an index of the birth, marriage and death records on file at the NY Municipal Archives. Searching for the surname 'Lechner' between 1872 and 1876, I got two hits. One was for a four year old boy, which was obviously not what I was looking for. The other record, though, was for a Frederick Lechner, who died at age 30 in 1873. Eureka! I found him!
I quickly added Frederick to the family tree and declared him to be my 3rd great grandfather. End of story, right? Wrong...
The next day, I went back to the 1900 census to see if I could figure out Peter and Eva Wachter's marriage date. Opening up the record (rather than just the index transcription), the first thing I looked for was the column that listed years married. For Peter and Eva, that was listed as 16 years, which would be a marriage year of 1884 - after two of their children (Annie and Michael Wachter) were born. Could this just be a transcription error? Or could there have been (gasp!) children born out of wedlock?
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| 1900 Census |
Moving across the page, the 1900 census had another interesting piece of information (not shown in the picture above) - immigration year. For Eva, this year was 1872. Interestingly, if this is correct and if I have Margaret Lechner's birth year correct, this could mean that she was already pregnant with Margaret when she immigrated...but that's a story for another post, after I've done more research. More relevant to figuring out the mystery of Peter and Eva, Peter Wachter's immigration year is listed as 1882. If that info is true, then that leaves only two possibilities - either Annie and Michael were his children with a first wife, or Annie and Michael were not his children.
 |
| 1910 Census |
Looking at the 1910 census, Peter and Eva are listed as being married 25 years, which would give them a marriage year of 1885. In the world of census records, I've learned that a difference of a year or two is fairly common from census to census, so the single year difference didn't concern me. Looking at the record, I noticed that the census taker did something unusual (and helpful) on this record. In the column recording relationship status, you typically see several letters denoting status - 'S' for single, 'M' for married, 'D' for divorced, and 'W' for widowed. In this record, though, I noticed that Peter was listed as 'M1' and Eva as 'M2'. Looking down the page, I realized that this census taker had most kindly recorded not just that someone was married, but also whether it was their first or second marriage.
So this was Peter Wachter's first marriage, making it highly unlikely that Annie and Michael were actually his children. His immigration year of 1882 also explains why I couldn't find him in the 1880 census - he was still in Germany! But if Annie and Michael were not actually Wachters, who were they?
I started to wonder if maybe I had jumped too quickly in assuming that Frederick Lechner was Margaret's father. If Peter and Eva Wachter hadn't married until 1884 or 1885, Margaret's father could have died much later than 1873. In fact, it was pretty clear to me that if Annie and Michael weren't Wachters, they were probably actually Lechners, which would mean that Frederick Lechner could not possibly have been Margaret's father.
Going back to the 1880 census, I searched for Eva Lechner, hoping to either find a young widow with three children or a married couple. After a couple of promising hits that didn't quite match up, I found this record:
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| 1880 Census |
Well, Eva, Annie and Michael are there as expected...but if this is our family, who the heck is Rachel? After a little head scratching, I've come to the conclusion that Rachel must be Margaret Lechner. The only reason I can come up with for the name switch is that perhaps Rachel was her middle name. Based on her age and the other family members present, I'm quite sure this is our family. It certainly explains why I was never able to find Margaret in the 1880 census!
So it appears that Margaret Lechner's father was actually Michael Lechner. Heading back to the German Genealogy Group's death index, I found a Michael Lechner who died 1 Aug 1881 at age 31. Given the census data, this Michael Lechner is very likely my actual 3rd great grandfather.
And there you have it...a very long-winded version of why I should always triple check my records! The discovery of the names of Michael Lechner and Eva Lechner Wachter open up brand new avenues of research for me, so look for more updates to come as I learn more about this family.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Mistaken Identity
Today, while sorting through some of my family pictures to find one I wanted to send to my cousin, I noticed something odd in a photograph that had been labelled "Catherine Hogan & John"...namely, that the woman in the picture didn't actually look much like my great-grandmother. I had scanned and filed the picture last November, and must have been in a hurry when I did so, because I had never noticed this before. I had another picture of Grandma Hogan from a similar time period, and a comparison confirmed what I thought - this woman was not Grandma Hogan. Just to be sure, I had my dad take another look at the two pictures, and he agreed - the woman in question was definitely not his grandmother.
It was then that I actually looked at what she was wearing. The woman in this picture was wearing a uniform which I quickly recognized from my research into another member of the family - a World War I Navy uniform. Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed that I just glanced over this picture and didn't notice the uniform earlier. There's really only one woman this could be - Marie Hogan, sister of my great-grandfather Joseph Hogan, who served in the Navy in World War I as a part of the first group of women ever allowed to legally enlist in non-nurse roles.
So, here's the picture with the correct information:
Marie Catherine Hogan with her nephew, John Hogan, circa 1918/19; probably Bronx, New York.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Oh Canada...
As many of you know, our Lacey family has been in Salinas since, well, before there was a place called Salinas. According the information I have, my 3rd great-grandfather, Joseph Vanderlip Lacey, first came to California in the late 1850s with his family - his wife, Isabella; children, Mary and James; father, Isaac; mother, Maria; brother, Frederick; and two sisters, Arabella (in the photo on the right) and Augusta.We have a letter written by my great-great uncle, Garth Lacey, which indicates that he believed the family had come from St. Catharine's, Ontario, Canada. Joseph was Garth's grandfather, putting him much closer to the events and much more likely to know at least some of the details of this family.
But none of this tells us how the Lacey family ended up in Canada, what they were doing there, or how long they had been there. In the mid-1800s, it was not uncommon for immigrants to come first to Canada, stay for a few years, then immigrate to the United States. Was this what our Laceys had done?
A look at the 1860 U.S. census was the first clue to our Canadian heritage. In it, the entire Lacey family mentioned above is living in Monterey, California. Every member of the family, with the sole exception of Joseph's wife, is listed as having been born in Canada. If this is true, three generations born in the country would certainly indicate more than a short stopover on the immigration path.
This was good information, and quite exciting to have found. I rushed home that evening, dutifully plugged it into our family tree and then proceeded to promptly do nothing with it. Great going, Colleen.
About four weeks ago, I dusted off this little fact and, just to see what I'd get, googled Thorold. It turns out to be a small town in Ontario, located very close to St. Catharine's. This was looking quite promising as the Canadian home of the Lacey family. Adding the name Lacey to my search turned out to be even more fruitful, with this post from a genealogy forum coming up as the first result. Voila! A Lacey family from Thorold!
But were these our Laceys? The patriarch on this family tree, George Lacey, did have a son named Isaac. The author of the tree does not have a birth date for Isaac Lacey (our Isaac was born about 1804), but does have a marriage date of 1826, to a woman named Maria Larroway (our Isaac's wife was named Maria). So far, so good...but that was all he had on Isaac.
Still, Thorold had only a few hundred residents in the first half of the 1800s. The odds of there being two Isaac Laceys born about the same time, in the same town, who both married a woman named Maria...well, those odds seem pretty small. To confirm, though, I decided to do a bit more research on the rest of the extended Lacey family of Thorold.
In the 1897 "Jubilee History of Thorold, Township and Town," the Lacey family appears several times. Among the information in this book is the following brief mention of Isaac Lacey's sister, Abigail:
"Abigail S. Lacey, wife of Robert W. Hagar and daughter of George and Elizabeth Lacey, was born July 28th, 1801 on lot 117, Thorold Township, and died at Salinas City, California, January 16th, 1884."
Now I was getting excited...what were the odds, even if there I accepted that there were two Isaac Laceys, that the sister of one would end up in the small pioneer town in California as the family of the other Isaac Lacey?
Robert Hagar turns out to have been Abigail Lacey's first husband; her second husband's name was Collins Matthews. With this information, I went back the 1860 U.S. census records. And what do you know...guess who I found living right next to Isaac Lacey in Monterey in 1860? Yup...Abigail Matthews!
So there you have it...our Isaac Lacey appears to be the son of George Lacey and Elizabeth Lee, of Thorold, Ontario, Canada. And before Thorold? Well, it appears that George and Elizabeth immigrated to Canada from New Jersey around the turn of the nineteenth century. Before that? Well, that answer's probably another few rounds of research away...
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Assumptions...you know what they say...
It has been quite a while since I updated with the progress I've been making - so long, in fact, that I'm not quite sure what to share first! Let's start with a discovery I made just this past week...
I've talked from time to time about how valuable the information received from relatives is, but how everything must be verified - although it is tempting to believe that our family stories are always true, information changes over the years as stories are told again and again. It's a bit like a game of telephone, and when putting together a genealogy, it is the researcher's responsibility to document and verify everything. You know what they say about assumptions!
As many of you know, I have been actively trying to locate my grandparents' cousins (or their children, in the case of those cousins no longer alive). An important first step has been tracing the lives of their parents, the aunts and uncles of my grandparents.
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| Original caption: "Uncle Otto & me" |
My great-grandmother, Loretta Bauer Taylor, was one of three sisters who lived to adulthood (a fourth sister died at age six, and an unknown sibling died in infancy). Tracing her sisters has been difficult, in part due to the fact that, for reasons unknown, by the time my grandparents were married in 1948, my great-grandmother had very little contact with her mother or her sisters. My only source for information on these two women was my grandmother, who knew only a bit about them.
The older of the two sisters, Evelyn Bauer, was married to a man by the name of Otto Wiese (seen in the image at the right, with my grandfather, about 1925/6). I was able to locate Evelyn's death records fairly easily, but I seemed to hit a bit of a brick wall when looking for information on Otto. This past Thanksgiving, when telling me what she knew about the Bauer sisters, Grannie told me she'd never met Otto and that she thought Evelyn and her husband had divorced because she was, in Grannie's words, "a career woman." Still, a divorce didn't explain why I could find no records of Otto past the 1930 census, when he was living with Evelyn and their two daughters, Virginia and Patricia.
This past week, I was browsing through a compilation of death notices from the New York Times from the first half of the twentieth century. On a whim, I typed in Otto's name, and was quite surprised to see the following record first on the results list, from August 1934:
"WIESE - Otto A. Guiding Star Lodge, No. 585, F. and A. M. Brethren: Sorrowful announcement is made of the passing of Brother Otto A. Wiese. Masonic Funeral services at his late residence, 1,052 Rhinelander Av., Friday evening at 8:30 o'clock."
Our Otto's full name was Otto Adolph Wiese. Could this be the same Otto Wiese? And if it was, did this mean he and Evelyn had divorced between the 1930 census and his death in 1934? Or had they not actually been divorced at all? The next record in the results list was another announcement of Otto Wiese's death:
"WIESE - Otto A., Aug 7, 1934, beloved husband of Evelyn M. Wiese and father of Virginia and Patricia. Masonic service Guiding Star Lodge, No. 585, F. and A. M., Friday, 8:30 P.M., at his late residence, 1,052 Rhinelander Av., Bronx."
If there was any doubt that this Otto was Evelyn's husband, that announcement removed it. Evelyn and Otto were, in fact, not divorced at all. Grannie never met Uncle Otto, not because of a divorce, but because he had died 14 years before she married into the family. Whether someone else in the family was divorced and she got them mixed up, or she simply made an assumption based on his absence, I really can't say.
At the last census before Otto's death, Evelyn was not working. At this point, I think it is safe to say that Evelyn was not a career woman by choice, but by necessity. At the time of Otto's death, her children were 10 and 6, and as a construction worker, Otto can't have left a great deal for them to live on.
Evelyn Wiese outlived her husband by nearly 60 years, but never remarried. She died in 1992, at the age of 95. I am still trying to trace her children, Virginia and Patricia, but it is difficult without exact birthdates or any indication of what their married names might be.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Have You Seen Me?
Stop the presses! We interrupt this broadcast for a breaking news alert...our cousins are missing!
Sorry, couldn't resist the urge to be silly...you all know how I can be. In all seriousness, though, while many of our cousins may not be missing in the grand scheme of life, they are missing to me.
I'm talking about the cousins of my grandparents' generation. These are people who may be able to provide a vital link to our family's story. You never know which one might have an old family bible or pictures of ancestors we've never had a chance to see, or might have heard stories that would otherwise be lost.
My goal for 2011 is to locate at least one of these cousins each month. It won't be as easy as it might seem - many records for these cousins are not yet old enough to be considered public domain, so tracing them through marriages and moves can be tricky.
That, my dear family, is where you come in! Think of this post as one of those "Have You Seen Me?" ads from the back of the milk carton. Anything at all that you may know about these cousins could be helpful - a spouse's name, where you remember them living, anything at all.
We'll do my father's side of the family (that would be the Taylor, Bauer, Hogan and Fagan cousins) in this post, and then we'll tackle my mother's side of the family in another post. On the Taylor/Bauer side, I believe I have at least the names of all the cousins. On the Hogan/Fagan side, however, I may need some help uncovering even the names of some of the cousins!
First up, the Taylor & Bauer cousins...
Children of Florence Taylor:
And now, the Hogan & Fagan cousins:
Sorry, couldn't resist the urge to be silly...you all know how I can be. In all seriousness, though, while many of our cousins may not be missing in the grand scheme of life, they are missing to me.
I'm talking about the cousins of my grandparents' generation. These are people who may be able to provide a vital link to our family's story. You never know which one might have an old family bible or pictures of ancestors we've never had a chance to see, or might have heard stories that would otherwise be lost.
My goal for 2011 is to locate at least one of these cousins each month. It won't be as easy as it might seem - many records for these cousins are not yet old enough to be considered public domain, so tracing them through marriages and moves can be tricky.
That, my dear family, is where you come in! Think of this post as one of those "Have You Seen Me?" ads from the back of the milk carton. Anything at all that you may know about these cousins could be helpful - a spouse's name, where you remember them living, anything at all.
We'll do my father's side of the family (that would be the Taylor, Bauer, Hogan and Fagan cousins) in this post, and then we'll tackle my mother's side of the family in another post. On the Taylor/Bauer side, I believe I have at least the names of all the cousins. On the Hogan/Fagan side, however, I may need some help uncovering even the names of some of the cousins!
First up, the Taylor & Bauer cousins...
Children of Florence Taylor:
- Corinne Poggi - born 1922; I believe she died in the early 1940s
Children of Charles Taylor:
- Warren Taylor - born 1934
- Diane Taylor - born 1938; died 2008
- Douglas Taylor - born 1943
- Judith Taylor - born 1946; married Randal Hearn in 1965
Children of Edward Taylor:
- Joan Taylor - born 1930
- Geraldine Taylor - born 1935
Children of Robert Taylor:
- Virginia Taylor - born 1947
- Maureen Taylor - born 1949
Children of Evelyn Bauer:
- Virginia Wiese - born 1924
- Patricia Wiese - born 1928
Children of Theresa Bauer:
- James Costelloe - born 1922; died 2008
- Margaret "Peg" Costelloe - born 1926
- Loretta Costelloe - born 1928
And now, the Hogan & Fagan cousins:
Children of Harry Hogan:
- Mary Katherine Hogan - born 1917
- Robert Hogan - born 1926
Children of Marie Hogan:
- Unknown. Aunt Marie married William Adams, but I do not know the names/ages of any children
Children of Thomas Fagan:
- Mary Fagan - born 1912; died 2004
- Thomas Fagan - born 1916
Children of Julia Fagan:
- Charles Rowe - born 1901
- Edward Rowe - born 1908
- Malcolm Rowe - born 1909
Children of Edward Fagan:
- Kathleen Fagan - born 1925
- Edward Fagan - born 1927
- John Fagan - born 1933
Thanks, everyone!!
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