Cemeteries

Well here I go walking back into a cemetery.  Last weekend, my friend George and I went to East Orange, to Holy Sepulcher cemetery, which is a huge Catholic Cemetery located between exit 144 and 145 on the Garden State Parkway.  When you live in New Jersey, you describe the area where you live by exit number on the GSP, I live off of exit 98.  Anyway, Holy Sepulcher is a huge cemetery and the GSP goes right up the middle of it, you can't miss it from the Parkway.  So all George has is a section and plot number and there is nobody working at the cemetery to give us any help in finding the grave.  When you drive into the cemetery,  you see headstones as far as the eye can see, except of course for the Garden State Parkway running past you.

We looked for an hour in the section where the grave was listed and I headed to the car, because it was getting a little chilly.  George wanted to look down one more row, so I drove the car to where we would finish, and parked there and got out and started looking again.  Then George calls me saying that he found it.  This was George's great grandfather, and he was a Polish immigrant who died in 1922 and I cannot begin to try to spell the name we were looking for.  But George found the headstone, and get this, it was home made.  Yeah, you read it right, it was home made.  The headstone was a big thick poured concrete block.  It looks like whoever made it used pipes for a mold or like re-bar to hold it together.  And the top had a rusty pipe sticking up, maybe it had been fashioned like a cross and had rusted away over the years.  But the writing on the front with the deceased's name looked like it was written with a stick in almost dry cement.  Like when you were a kid and someone poured a sidewalk or patio, and you would put your hand print there when it was almost dry.  It was very interesting, not to mention difficult to read, because it was also written in Polish.  It looks like whoever created the headstone poured the block graveside, because I don't know how they would have gotten it here from another location.  It looks a lot heavier than anything that I'd care to try to move. So George took pictures and will try to get a translation of the writings.

Here is a not so good photo of George's Great Grandfather's headstone, I inadvertently cut out the remnants of the cross on top.  If you look real  close you can see that someone took the time to scratch in a cross and the letters "S" and "P" on either side of the cross.  This has some meaning, but I don't know what it is.  Then they scratched in his name, and death date (written in Polish) along with two Polish words, which are probably religious, but again, I'm not sure.  But it is unique.  I wish I had gotten a photo of the grave to the left, it is also a poured form with small stones stuck in the front for decoration.

After that I realized that nothing could top that find, but we moved on to Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, NJ because I wanted to see the grave of the aforementioned Sterlings - John and Mary, and their daughter Mary Sheehan and her husband Michael Sheehan, John and Mary's other daughter Catherine and I think their son, John (Augustus).  Well it was only about 15 minutes to a half hour away from East Orange and this cemetery is also huge and Catholic.  Holy Cross is very active, we saw about six burials were taking place that day and there was actually a lot of traffic in there, by contrast Holy Sepulcher was bigger, but we only saw a few cars there.

We went to the Office and they give you a little map to the plot you are looking for.  So off we go to see the headstone for all of these ancestors buried together.  We are walking through the section looking for the headstone, and what I found was not surprising.  All it said was "STERLING", nothing more, nothing less.I was kind of expecting to see a list of names, maybe birth or death dates, but no, that was it.  No home made headstone with a cross made of pipe, no name and date and foreign sayings that need translation.  No not for me today - just "STERLING".  It was really kind of a let down, although I wasn't surprised.  Every BRADY headstone I tracked down in cemeteries across Pennsylvania had the same prize after all of my searching - "BRADY".  Oh well.

Black Friday

I know this is gonna sound nuts, but do you know what Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving) means to a genealogist?  Well, I'll tell you.  I am employed by the county and we traded having the day off on Lincoln's Birthday and working on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  So now we have a four day weekend for Thanksgiving, and I have to work on Lincoln's Birthday.  As a patriotic American, I would rather have traded a different holiday and celebrated Lincoln, but it is nice to have the four day weekend.  In New Jersey with the latest budget problems, State employees are now required to work on black Friday, in the past they got the day off as an extra perk from the state.   So this means that the State Archives is open on that day and I am off,  YAHOO.

So I spent Friday at the Archives in Trenton and looked into Mary and John Sterling and Maggie Keogh, their daughter.  I found Maggie's death certificate and found that she died of "Acute Miliary Tuberculosis" on 17 June 1900.  I don't know if that has anything to do with childbirth but I know it has nothing to do with the military.  I still don't know what happened to Thomas, but I still think he just allowed his in-laws to raise his daughter.

Now Mary and John had another daughter named Minnie, I think.  I find her listed as Minnie when she is Godmother to William Martin O'Dea (Big Mike and Mary O'Dea's son) and when I found Minnie's wedding to Michael Sheehan, who was a Jersey City Police Officer, retired as a Sergeant.  Minnie's death certificate lists her name as Mary Sheehan, born 10 Nov 1874, and she died 5 June 1936.  So her given name is Mary, but they call her Minnie.  Sounds like she was her mother's Mini Me (like Austin Powers).  Michael Sheehan was born 30 May 1868, his father is listed as Thomas Sheehan, mother is unknown.  He was born in Vermont, his father was born in the US and his mother was born in Ireland.  Michael was a Jersey City Police Officer, retired and died at  of 70 heart disease, contributory  condition was pulmonary edema.  Minnie died of carcinoma of the bladder, she suffered from this condition for six months and was 61 years old when she died.

I am still working on the other children, Katherine, who apparently never married.  I think that Katherine is the one that my cousin Linda says that they called Aunt Kit.  There was also a son, Augustus, however, I think  his name was John A(ugustus) Sterling and they called him Gus (so he is not confused with John, his father).

Now back to Mary O'Dea Sterling and John Sterling.  Mary O'Dea's death certificate says that she was born 23 Dec 1854 in New York State to James O'Dea and Honora McGuan O'Dea.  She died on 19 Jan 1942 of  generalized arterial sclerosis and she was diabetic.  John Sterling's death certificate says that he was born 6 Jun 1849 (this would make him considerably younger and closer in age to his wife than the census records say).  He was born in Ireland to John Sterling and Susan Cunningham.  He died of arterial sclerosis on 2 Apr 1931 at age 81.  His wife's name is listed as Margaret O'Dea.  At the bottom of the form there is a line for the informant's signature and it is sign Mrs. Margaret O'Dea, and they live at 162 Carteret Ave Jersey City, NJ. This is the same address listed on the death certificates for Michael and Mary Sheehan.  QUESTION:  Is Mrs. Margaret O'Dea the same person as Mary Sterling using her maiden name or is there another Margaret O'Dea - which would not surprise me.

One more thing: The informant on the death certificates for Michael and Mary Sheehan is listed as Mrs. L Pallander, who is also listed as living at 162 Carteret Ave. Jersey City, NJ.  Who is she?  It seems that the more I learn, the more I learn that I know very little.  Judging by names on census records and death certificates, I'm not real sure what anyone's real name is and which is a middle name or nickname that they are called by family.  I am slowly becoming more confused than when I started.

Be sure to tune into the next episode when I find out my real name.

Mary O'Dea Sterling

I just want to finish what I have found about my Great Grand Father's sister, Mary, who married John Sterling at the tender age of 15 or 16.  Mary and John have five children: Margaret, Minnie, Katie, Susan, and Augustus (Gus) and they all live in Jersey City, NJ on Whiton St.  They are listed in the 1900 US Census right below Michael and Mary O'Dea (our great grandparents) and their children, which makes them neighbors.  Michael is an electrician and John is a day laborer, both for the railroad I think.  In 1900 John and Mary Sterling's oldest daughter, Margaret is married to Thomas Keough and they have a daughter Ellen born in May of 1900, all living with John and Mary Sterling.  (I have to keep adding the last name because there are so many John and Marys that it gets confusing).

Now here is the mystery that I am trying to solve.  John and Mary had a daughter, Margaret (Maggie) in May of 1872, according to the 1900 US Census.  On 8 Feb 1899 she married a man named Thomas Keogh (also spelled Kehoe and Keough depending on who is writing it) in Jersey City.  In the 1900 US Census for Jersey City Thomas and Maggie are listed as living with John and Mary Sterling 220 Whiton St, and Thomas and Maggie have a daughter, Ellen, born in March of 1900.  In the next two census records (1920 and 1930) Thomas and Maggie are missing, but Ellen is living with John and Mary Sterling.  Where were Margaret and Thomas and why would they leave their child?  I have checked for death certificates at the State Archives for Maggie and Thomas and find none (I thought they were killed in some type of accident).

Well, I have an update,  between the time I started this post on Friday and now, I have solved part of the mystery.  I started calling cemeteries in Jersey City to see if Maggie and Thomas were buried there between 1900 and 1910 (Because 1910 is the next census, and they are not in it)  I called Holy Name in Jersey City, Holy Cross in N Arlington, because those are the two Catholic favorites and gave them two spellings of K-E-O-U-G-H and K-E-H-O-E, and they did not have any listed.  Later I saw the spelling of K-E-O-G-H, and called back to Holy Name in Jersey City.  The guy told me that they had a Margaret Keogh, buried 19 Jun 1900 and and she was 28 years old, which fits.  I asked about Thomas and he checked and said that Thomas owns the plot, but is not buried there.  She is the only one buried there and there is no stone (sound like grandpa Brady).  Just in case you are interested, she is buried in Block P, Section La, Grave 29.  So my guess is that she died from a complication of child birth after a few months, and Thomas just let the child stay with his in-laws to be raised.  I can't confirm this until I get to the State Archives and find her death certificate, which I can probably find with the correct spelling.

So John and Mary Sterling raised not only their own children, but a grand daughter as well.  Maybe they were meant for each other, but realized it unusually early.

The O'Deas

I know that I said that I was going to return to Aunt Florence and the McConvilles (sounds like a musical group), but I felt like changing gears back to my father's side of the family.  I knew little about his family and most of what I knew about his mother was that her name was Marguerite O'Dea.  Every time somebody said the name Monica, Dad would say " Monica, that was my mother's name - Monica Marguerite".  Nobody ever said that his mother's name was Monica before, but later on I found her Baptism record and - you guessed it - she was baptised "Monica May O'Dea", so now I wonder where the heck Marguerite came from.  I also remember Dad saying that in his youth, they would visit a relative in Susquahana near Binghamton NY and stay on a farm.  I thought he said that his Grandfather had the farm and it was close to Scranton PA also.

Now I knew that his father was an alcoholic and he was in and out of the picture, so I think that his mother kept the house going and kept the family together.  But I never knew much about her and her family, so I started digging and this is what I found out.

My Grandmother was the fifth child born to Michael Thomas O'Dea and his wife Mary Jane Reilly O'Dea, she was born 5 Nov 1893 in Jersey City, NJ, baptized on 16 Nov 1893 in St Patricks Church in Jersey City, her Godparents are listed as William O'Dea and Mary Sterling (they are her father's siblings).  Marguerite or Monica or whatever her name really is had five siblings: Catherine, Mary, Gertrude, Leo, and William, all born in Jersey City.

I know almost nothing about her mother, Mary Jane Reilly O'Dea, except what I learned from her death certificate.  She was born 3 April 1857 in Pennsylvania to Michael Reilly and Bridget Kelly, she married Michael O'Dea in about 1879 in Pennsylvania, and she died 16 April 1938 in Jersey City, NJ.  That's about it in a nutshell.

I knew even less about my Great Grandfather, Michael Thomas O'Dea until I finally figured out where he lived as a young man.  I learned that he was born in New York and died in 1904 and he is buried in Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.  My cousin Linda told me that he was out of state when he died and was transported back to Jersey City for burial.  She also said that he was a big man, so big that when he died they had to build an over sized coffin to bury him in and, oddly enough, they called him "Big Mike".  I also knew that he was only about 54 when he died.  So I checked on Ancestry.com and found found a Michael O'Dea in the 1870 US Census in Sanford NY, which is in Broome County near Binghamton.  This Michael was 19 years old born in August 1851, and he had several siblings: Daniel, Mary, William, Catherine, and James.  They are living with James O'Dea and Honora O'Dea.  I had been talking to cousin Linda and knew that Mike had siblings including a Mary and William, maybe more.  I also knew from Linda that Mary married John Sterling and lived in Jersey City also.  But I did not have anything that made me certain that the O'Deas in Sanford NY in 1870 were my O'Deas. At least not for about four years until I did what they tell you to do in every genealogy class.  When you have a record "READ THE WHOLE THING".  I finally read the whole census record and the O'Dea family has two boarders listed as living with them - Patrick McGuan(e) and John Sterling, both working on the Railroad.  Then it hit me, JOHN STERLING, the same man that Mary would marry is a boarder in their house.  Mary is 15 years old and John's age is hard to read, but it is either 25 or 35, either way, within a few years they are married.  In the 1900 census in Jersey City, they have been married for 29 years and have five children, she is listed as 43 years old and he is 53.  So lets do some math, according to the census Mary would have been about 14 or 15 when she married a 24 or 25 year old man.  Can you imagine if that happened today?  A 25 year old man marrying a 15 years old girl, can you say Registered Sex Offender?  I knew that you could.  But the marriage lasted from about 1871 until at least 1930, so that's about 59 years, not too bad.

Just today, (the 118th anniversary of my grandmother's baptism) I found out when Mary and John Sterling were buried and where.  John was buried 4 April 1931, and Mary was buried 22 Jan 1942 in Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, NJ.  Now I have more death certificates to research at the State Archives.

I have found much more info on the elusive O'Deas, but that's enough for now.  I was told that I should leave 'em wantin' more.

A Trip to the Archives (NJ)

Yesterday I took the day off from work and drove out to Trenton, NJ to the State Archives to see what I could find.  I got my newsletter from the Monmouth County Genealogy Society the other day and there was a small article in there saying that the NJ State Archives now has death certificates up until 1955.  Be still my heart!!!!  They used to have death certificates up to 1930 and anything later than that you had to order from the Dept of Health and pay a fee.  At the archives, I can drive there, look it up myself on microfilm and pay fifty cents a page for copies.  It still cost me $7.00 in copies, but I like doing the research myself.

I went there with the intent of ge.tting death certificates for Hanna McConville, Edward S McConville (Momma and Poppa Mac), William "Pop" Bergen, Edward L Bergen Sr and then I thought that I may as well get birth certificates for my Bergen uncles: Ed Bergen and Bill Bergen.  Well I found Uncle Ed's birth certificate without a hitch, but I could not find one for Uncle Bill.  Maybe his birth was not registered, I don't know.  I did get death certificates for Hanna McConville, Pop Bergen and my grandfather Ed Bergen, and my mother's uncle Edward S McConville, Jr, who died when he was 23 years old on Christmas Eve 1925.

But I found a couple of bonuses.  While looking through files, one of the ladies who works there said they had birth certificates back to the 1860's.  I tried to find a birth certificate for Annie Sullivan Bergen, who was born in Jersey City NJ 1867, but I couldn't find it (she married Pop Bergen and is my great grandmother).  So  I decided to look for our grandfather, Edward Bergen Sr and lo and behold, I found it.  He was born 6 Sep 1893 in Jersey City to William Bergen and Annie O'Sullivan (I don't know who put the "O" in O'Sullivan), it lists an occupation for William but I can't read it, and it gives an address of 475 Henderson St Jersey City.

I have tried on several occasions to find a death certificate for Annie Bergen, and have never been able to find it.  Yesterday, I decided to check again and I found it almost by mistake.  I had gone past the Bergens (they are arranged in alphabetical order for the year on microfilm) and while going back through B-E-R-G-I, I found it.  She spelled it Bergin, so it was filmed later on that roll.  The certificate is hand written and I cannot read the cause of death, but when I looked at the date, I did a double take.  She died 29 Oct 1909 (102 years ago today), but I found it yesterday.  I also went to the Jersey Journal to check for an obit and the obit gives her name as Anna L. Bergen and says beloved wife of William and sister of Mary, Thomas, Edward and John Keaveney.  No mention of her son/our grandfather, Edward, which I thought was kind of odd.

The last thing I found, that was sort of odd, was a death certificate that I was not looking for.  While looking through the Bergens in 1943, for Edward and Willliam, I first found Edward (they are alphabetical), but then I found a Mary Bergen, age 70 of Jersey City, but it says that she is the widow of Patrick Bergen (this is William "Pop" Bergen's brother)  Her death certificate says that she is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, NJ, it also says that her maiden name was Fitzgerald.  I had found a marriage for Patrick Bergen and Mary Fitzgerald on Familysearch.org, so I know that  this is William's sister-in-law.  I called Holy Cross and found that Mary is buried there and the plot belongs to Thomas Bergen ("Pop's" other brother).  Thomas was buried there in 1931 and Patrick was buried there in 1933. "Pop" also had two sisters Kate and Mary, You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Kate or a Mary in Irish families, that is what make them so hard to track.  Below is a picture of "Pop" Bergen with my uncle Ed.  Florence Armstrong said "He was the biggest man I ever saw."

So all in all it was a good day, but even a bad day at the archives is better than a good day at work.  I will try to sort through the rest of the stuff I found and go back to the interview with Aunt Florence cause I think there is more stuff that I didn't mention yet.

An Interview with Aunt Florence Part II

I just read over my last post before writing the second part of my talk with Aunt Florence, and I found a mistake.  When Johanna and Mary Ann came to America after the death of their father, the people that they stayed with were Annie and Willie Wharton (spelled the last name wrong, and it may still be wrong, but I think it is at least closer).  Anyway, I was told that Mary Ann Sullivan married a man and it was not the perfect union.  Mary Ann died young in 1894 and was buried in a potter's field in Hoboken, she was only 26 years old.  I don't know how she died, or if it was because of the husband, but when she was buried in potters field it was like a stain on the family name.  Her sister Johanna and her (Johanna's) husband went deep into debt to have her removed from potters field and given a proper burial in a proper cemetery.  I think the potter's field was Snake Hill in Secaucus, which was also the Hudson Burial Grounds.  Potter's Field was a place for street people with no family to care about them to be buried.  They were filled with street urchins, drunks, prostitutes, and people with no money for a proper burial.  No one wanted a loved one buried there in the 1890's.  I think that Mary Ann was reburied in Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn.  I called the cemetery to confirm her burial, but they do not have a Mary Ann Sullivan buried there in 1894, but I'm not sure that was her last name when she was buried (she is probably buried under her married name, whatever that is).  This is the same reason that I cannot confirm that she was once buried in Snake Hill.

Another person that Florence talked about was my mother's aunt Alice (named after Lady Alice, and we called her EeeHee)    This is a portrait of her in 1939, well before we knew her.  Alice was born in 1909, and long before we came along, she married on 4 July 1930 at 3:30 PM in St Aloysius Church in Jersey City to Charles E. Maloney.  I found a record of this marriage in the NJ State Archives on one of my days off.  The witnesses were John Maloney and Florence Gallaher (Gallagher?).  Florence told me that  Maloney had been a student in St Peter's Prep, where he was a big football star.  One day while riding the trolley in Jersey City the trolley went up on a trestle between Journal Square and Union City.  The trolley left the track and crashed, he lost his leg in the crash and spent a long time recuperating in the hospital.  While he was there, his friend would visit and bring him liquor, and he became an alcoholic in the hospital.  Alice married him, against her father's wishes, and he was apparently a violent drunk.  Mom told me that he would put out lit cigarettes on her legs, and Florence told me that he actually cut her throat.  She did not tell anyone, but her sister's always wondered why she wore outfits with high collars.  She wound up getting a divorce, which was not easy back then, and she retained her maiden name.  Florence said that she met a man later, possibly a Dentist, who had a lot of money and she fell in love with him.  She didn't marry him because the Church would not allow her to remarry in the church.  Ya gotta love that Catholic guilt.

When her sister Catherine (my grandmother) died in 1939,  she and her parents had my mother moved in with them so as not to have her live in a house full of men, where she may end up cleaning and cooking for them like domestic help.  Mom lived with Alice until she married dad in 1948

One last thing I 'd like to talk about is my grandparents, Edward L Bergen and Catherine McConville.  I was still a Policeman at the time and had been researching for a few years, mostly on my father's side cause I had mom to tell me anything I wanted to know about her family and dad didn't talk about his father and his family at all.

So I took a day from work to go to the NJ State Archives and I intended to try to find some stuff about mom's family, cause I really didn't look into them cause I had mom.  So I asked her when her parents were married because I would try to find their marriage certificate.  Mom says " you know I never knew when their anniversary was".  So being a good son, I intended to find out for her.   I figured that their oldest child was my uncle Bill, born 31 Dec 1919, I knew the year because I knew he was older than my father, who was born in 1920.  So I figured I would check marriage licenses from late 1918 into early 1919.  That was my plan because I knew that the first child was usually born within a year of the wedding back then.  So I checked and late 1918 turned into early 1919, then early 1919 turned into mid-1919, then I found it.  They were married in Jersey City 27 Aug 1919, oops, stuff happens.  Now I'm no math whiz by any stretch of the imagination, but even I can figure out that 27 Aug to 31 Dec does not equal nine months.  Well, I quickly found some other stuff, I figured I might need it to soften the blow when I got back home and showed mom.  So I found Grandpa's World War I service record.  It is kind of an unofficial New Jersey document.  That's another thing, mom had recently told me that her father was in the Navy in WWI, I never knew that.

So I leave the archives and head home with a WWI service record and an unexploded bomb from 1919.  When I get to mom's house, my sister Teesh is there so I figured this was a good thing.  I show mom her father's service record and she is impressed.  Then I show her their marriage certificate and she really likes it, until I asked her "When was Uncle Bill born?"  Her answer is 1920, but then I remind her that he is older that dad and dad was born in 1920.  Then it dawns on her and Teesh realized it too.  Teesh says "Yeah, you go Catherine".   I think that softened the blow. Thanks Teesh, cause as soon as I reminded mom that Bill was born before dad, I immediately regretted it.  I always felt bad about breaking that news.  Sorry Mom.

An Interview with Aunt Florence

Last July, I drove to Atlantic City and talked to my Aunt Florence about my mom's family: who they were, where they came from, and where they went.  Growing up, we always called her Aunt Florence, but I know that she is my mother’s cousin, which technically makes her my first cousin, once removed.  I think that her children are my second cousins.

Anyway, here are some of the things that I learned from Aunt Florence.  First off, she said that our great grandmother, Johanna Sullivan McConville, was born in London, England in about 1866.  Her father was Michael Sullivan, who was a tailor to the Ladies of the Court at Buckingham Palace.  Johanna and her sister, Mary Ann, went to a private school near the palace, possibly St. Mary’s, because there is a St. Mary’s church on the palace grounds.  They were able to play on the lawn of Buckingham Palace, and were very well read and educated.  When their father died, they were sent to America to live with cousins, Willie and Annie Waters(?) who had a bunch of kids in Brooklyn, and they were going to be nannies to the children.  I am not real sure what happened to their mother, Mary Dunn Sullivan, but that’s a good question to Aunt Florence next time I see her.  Johanna came over when she was about 14 years old, which would make it about 1880.  Florence said that Johanna did not speak well of her American cousins, because she enjoyed her time in London.  While she was in London, she and Mary Ann were in the wedding of Lady Alice at Buckingham Palace and they were very fond of Lady Alice as she treated them very well.  They liked her so much that Johanna named her daughter, Alice, after her. When my mom's mother died in 1939, she went to live with Alice and Momma and Poppa Mac and they raised her from age 13. 

Here is a photo of Johanna Sullivan McConville (Momma Mac) and Edward Sylvester McConville (Poppa Mac).  The occasion is their 50th Wedding Anniversary and the picture is dated 1939.

Johanna lived in Brooklyn and married our great grandfather, Edward Sylvester McConville in 1888 (or more probable, 1889) in Brooklyn, possibly Red Hook.  They had eight children: Edna, John, Catherine (our grandmother), Florence (Aunt Florrie, who is Florence’s mother), Edward, James, and Alice (EeeHee). 

Edward Sylvester McConville, who everyone called Ted, worked at the Mathison Cooperage.  Mom said that he worked outside of the Holland Tunnel (in Jersey City I guess) and he was so loyal that he named his son James (Mathison) McConville after the company.  He said the company gave great Christmas bonuses.  They all called James by his middle name “Matt”.

“Ted” and the family lived near Holy Name Cemetery near West Side Ave and he used to walk around the corner to an Irish Pub and they would say to him “Sing us a song Ted” and he would usually sing “Paddy McGinty’s Goat”.  Florence said that he could play any stringed instrument ever made.

My Great-Great Grandmother Bridget Crimmins-Sullivan-Keaveney

Before I start, I have to tell a funny thing that happened.  I mentioned in my first post that I thought I was going crazy because I spent spare time walking through cemeteries looking for headstones of ancestors.  Well I have actually gotten worse.  I now walk through graveyards looking for headstones of perfect strangers, on behalf of perfect strangers.  Allow me to explain.  There is a website call findagrave.com, which contains photos of headstones in cemeteries throughout the country (maybe the world, I don't know), along with the photo is usually and short bio of the person buried there. - If you go to findagrave.com and do a name search for Thomas J and Claire Brady, you will find them there, along with uncle Ed Bergen and Aunt Kattie.  I did not put them there, nor did I take the photo.  Someone with more spare time than me did it.  Anyway, I signed up to be a volunteer photographer for the site (talk about spare time)  I will occasionally get an e-mail from the web site and they will ask me to go to a cemetery within 5 miles and take a photo for someone.  So I get an e-mail from findagrave.com asking me to take a picture of a headstone in Hamilton Cemetery in Neptune.  So I am trying to be green and not waste paper and ink, so I write down the name of the woman and the phone number for the cemetery, intending to call them and ask where the woman is buried.  I stick the slip of paper in my pocket and while in the kitchen, the slip of paper with a woman's name and a phone number falls out of my pocket onto the floor.  Katrina picks up the paper and starts reading the woman's name and phone number.  Now any other wife might become suspicious, but Katrina knows me better than that.  She looks at me and says "I don't think I have to worry about her, she's probably been dead for some time now".  Spoken like the perfect wife for a true genealogy nut.

Now I want to talk about my Great Great Grandmother on my mother's side.  Most of the information that I have found, was through the Mormon Church web site: FamilySearch.org. and one of my now famous trips to a cemetery, this one was Holy Name Cemetery, 823 Westside Ave. Jersey City, with my friend and fellow ghoul, George Adams.  FamilySearch.org is a free web site put out by the Mormon Church, it has alot of Church Records, Federal Census Records and Military records, and the best part is that you don't have to  be a member of the Mormon Church to use it.  It is actually the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Some images are available on line, but most are on microfilm, that can be ordered from any Family History Center, the closest one to me is in Eatontown.

In the documents that I found, Crimmins is spelled in various ways: Crimmins, Crimmens, Cremons, just to name a few. Bridget Crimmons was born in County Kerry, Ireland in 1846 or 1847 to Pat Crimmins and Johanna Lanahan, she has a brother William and a sister Ellen that I know of.  She immigrates to the US in about 1864 (during the American Civil War), maybe with William and Ellen and I do not know if her parents came over or not. 

The first record I found is her marriage on 10/05/1865 to Dennis Sullivan, and they have a daughter, Annie, in 1867. (She is my Great Grandmother - she marries William Joseph "Pop" Bergen in 1887)  My mother always said her name was Johanna, but every record I find (including her headstone) says Annie.  Anyway on 10/08/1867, Dennis Sullivan dies in Jersey City.  The record says that he was a butcher by trade and died of Heart disease (perhaps this is why I have high cholesterol).  So now Bridget is a widow with an infant daughter - what to do?

Well, somewhere between Oct 1867 and 1871, apparently she married Thomas Keaveney (Keaveney is also found spelled in many different ways: Kaveny, Kaveney, Keavensy, Kevany, etc...)  Now I remember mom showing me a cemetery plot record from Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City, and there were Keaveneys listed in the plot.  When I asked who the Keavenys were, she told me that "they are cousins".  I never knew how, and didn't ask, she never explained it either.  The plot she showed me was owned by Bridget Sullivan and Dennis Sullivan was buried there along with Annie Bergen, William Bergen, two Bergen infants, and a Keaveney infant.  Funny thing is that Bridget Sullivan owns the plot but is not buried there.  I did not find her grave until I visited the cemetery with my friend George on August 19, 2011.

Bridget and Thomas Keaveney had seven children during their marriage. Mary was born 12 Mar 1871 and lived to be 80, well beyond most of the Keaveneys, and she is buried with her husband Richard Powley in Holy Name Cemetery.  Bridget, Thomas and two of their children are buried in that same plot.  Next was Catherine Bridget, born 31 Jan 1873, she dies in 1884 at age 11.  Next child is John J, born 8 Nov 1875 and he is alive in the 1900 US Census in Jersey City, but that is all I know of him.  On 2 Mar 1877 Thomas Francis is born.  He marries in Lansing MI in 1913 and dies in the 1930's.  He is buried in MI somewhere.  Edward L. is born 10 Feb 1882, is listed in the 1900 US Census in Jersey City, and marries Elizabeth Mayhew and has several children.  In the 1910 US Census, he is listed in Jersey City and along with his wife and children is "Pop" Bergen, listed as 'brother-in-law" and our grandfather Edward L Bergen.  Agnes is born 16 Mar 1883 and dies three months later (She and Kate are buried with their parents in the cemetery plot for Powley and Keaveney).  The last child born is George on 29 Jun 1884.  Bridget dies on 7 Jul 1884 (I just noticed that this is the same year as 11 year old Kate).  Her cause of death is listed as puerfevral (?) peritonitis.  Teesh and Joan told me that it is a Latin term "puer" meaning child and peritonitis is some type of infection, so I guess she got some type of infection from childbirth and died from it.  Her son George dies on 17 Jul 1884.  I found his baptismal record that says he was baptized on 6 July 1884, the day before his mother died.

So when all is said and done, Bridget dies at age 38, during that short time she married twice and had a total of 8 children, only 5 of them survive her.  A pretty short, fertile life that had more than its share of heartache.

How I got started looking up the family kilt

     I have been researching the family tree for about seven or eight years now, and if you asked me what made me start, I would be hard pressed to tell you the single thing that turned me into an obsessive nut who thinks about genealogy all of the time.  It's like reading your favorite book that you just can't put down, but it never ends.  There is always one more person to look for.  I spend my spare time walking in cemeteries looking for headstones of dead relatives.  I get excited about a day off during the week that is not a holiday because the State Archives will be open and I can spend the day looking on microfilm for old records  for even older, deader relatives.  I'm really starting to scare myself.  God help anyone who happens to mention a person with a last name that I have happened upon somewhere in my research, they may find themselves in the middle of a story of an ancient relation and wonder what the heck he or she has to do with anything.  On the bright side, if any of my children or my siblings' children need to do a project on the Family Tree, I'm the Man.
     So, let me get back to how I started.  If I had to pick the thing that got me started, I would have to say that it was the fact that I knew very little about my grandfather Brady.  Dad never really spoke about him and fended off any questions about him by saying "He died when we were kids".  This started me looking for my grandfather and after finding him, it kind of inspired me to write an article (blog without a computer) about the story of my search.  In order to save time and get started, cause it is getting late, I will just copy and paste it here for all to read.

                                                              Finding my Grandfather

                                                             By

                                                   Thomas J. Brady

        Yes, you read it right, my grandfather.  Not second, third or fourth great grandfather back in colonial times or across the pond in Ireland before immigrating here. It took me two years to find my grandfather, right here in the U S of A, (in the twentieth century). 

            Growing up, I have no memory of any grandparents.  My maternal grandparents died when my mother was about sixteen years old, and her Aunt Alice raised her.  My father’s mother died was I was about four years old, and I have no memory of her.  I recall asking my father about his father and his reply was “Oh, he died when we were kids.” The only other information that I had from my father about his father was that he was an alcoholic.  This is what I had to start with years later.

            In 2004, I was a Police Detective with a love for American history and a yearning to know if my ancestors played any significant role in it.  By this time, my father was eighty-four years old and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. He was unable to assist me.  The first thing I did was to begin to collect information from other family members, namely my sister Pat and my cousin Linda.  They had attempted to find grandpa in the early nineties with no success.  Pat and Linda gave me the information that they had, which amounted to my grandfather’s name, Thomas J Brady, born Sep 1893 in Scranton PA, to James E Brady and Madge Bradley, and that Madge had died in childbirth. Thomas was sent to live with his uncle, who was a doctor, and his wife in Scranton.  None of this information had been verified, it was all “family legend”.  The one concrete item that I was given was a letter from All Saints Catholic Church in Jersey City, NJ, which said that Thomas Brady, age 23, son of James E Brady and Madge Bradley married Marguerite O’Dea, age 21, daughter of Michael O’Dea and Mary Reilly on 18 Nov 1914.

            Other information that I had learned included that my father was born in 1920 in New York City, he had three brothers and one sister (all of whom had passed away by this time), and they had lived in Jersey City, NJ and Brooklyn, NY.  I did not have an exact birth date for either grandparent and I knew that my grandfather had not served in the military.  So I started searching on the Internet and got nowhere very quickly.  Next I went to the Family History Center in Eatontown, NJ and after several trips and checking through census records on Ancestry.com, I located the family living in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, NY in 1930.  I was amazed at how good I was at this.  I found Thomas, age 38, Marguerite, age 32, living with their children: James, Marguerite, Thomas, Francis, and Paul, plus Mary O’Dea age 72, (my great grandmother) and James Reilly age 72 (Mary’s widowed brother), all living on 19^th Ave. in Bensonhurst.   I immediately went home and told my wife and then my children, which actually turned out to be a great way to put them to sleep.  Next I called my sister and cousin to relay my good fortune.           

         Shortly after this find, my wife - knowing this wasn’t going to end anytime soon - bought me a software program to help me keep track of the mountain of information I had just received; as well as, my own personal subscription to Ancestry.com.  After several more months of searching this line, and other more successful lines of ancestry, I still had gotten no farther with finding my grandfather.  (I did, however, locate my wife’s third great grandfather, who was killed in the Mexican War and had a fort, and subsequently a city, named after him.)  It was at this point, that I decided that maybe I needed to do more than Internet research. I decided to take the one-hour drive to Jersey City, NJ from my home on the Jersey Shore.  I needed to take this show on the road.

            This turned out to be the best move I would make.  First I telephoned city hall and was told that they had marriage certificates dating back to 1913.  I got directions and began my journey back to my roots (I was actually born in Jersey City four years before my family immigrated to the shore).  Naturally, being a Police Officer, I got lost and had to call City Hall for directions, again making sure that the marriage license from 1914 was stored there, and was assured that it was.  I arrived at City Hall and filled out the requested form, indicating my relationship to the married parties, only to be informed by a rather hostile clerk that marriage records from 1914 were not stored there.  After several minutes of explaining to her that I had called twice before making this journey, and was told that they were stored here, she walked through the office asking who had told me that the records were in the building.  A nice gentleman informed her that he was the culprit and the records were in the basement.  In less than ten minutes he handed me a copy of the marriage license and the application filled out by the applicants.  So, nine dollars later, I stood in the lobby holding a marriage license that did not reveal a whole lot, but the application was a gold mine.  It told me that my grandfather’s birth date was 27 Aug 1891, and he resided on Whiton St in Jersey City.  Marguerite O’Dea was born 5 Nov 1893, and she lived on Pacific Ave in Jersey City.  I didn’t know it yet, but I was on the verge of a breakthrough.

            Once again, I went home and told my wife about my good fortune. I then relayed my discovery to my sister and cousin, who were very impressed with my investigative skills.  (I think that this was the most difficult case I had ever worked.)  Later that night, I thrilled my children to sleep once again, and then I sat at my computer. 

Now, armed with my grandfather’s birth date, I entered the data in my program and fired up ancestry.com.  It was like magic.  Within a short time, I located a World War I draft registration card in the name of Thomas J Brady, 9 ½ Grant Ave, Jersey City, NJ, date of birth 27 Aug 1891, he was a brakeman on the Central RR of NJ, married with one child, (my uncle Jim), and born in Gordon, PA.  You may be thinking: What happened to Scranton?  Let me tell you what I was thinking: Where the hell is Gordon, PA? 

According to epodunk.com:  Gordon in a borough in Schuylkill County, in the Pottsville metro area.  The borough is named for Judge David F Gordon, and the estimated population in 2003 was 759.  Sounds pretty swanky doesn’t it, named after a judge, probably has one of those population signs that can be changed as one family moves out and (hopefully) another family moves in. Better yet, it is located in the much sought after Pottsville metro area, and I think I know why.  Pottsville is the county seat, but the best part, it is the home of the Yuengling Brewery.  The oldest brewery in the USA, and guess whose family settled next to a brewery when they came to this country.  This could explain a lot.

            ROAD TRIP!!!  Next, I called my sister, Pat, who happens to lives just outside of Scranton, PA and I enlisted her to take the hour drive from her home to the “Pottsville metro area” to search for whatever Brady fossils and relics we could find.  But first, more Internet research.  My sister and cousin had told me that my grandfather’s parents were James E Brady and Madge Bradley, so I figured that they must have lived in Gordon at some point in time, in order to have my grandfather.  (All of that detective training came in handy) I found the website for Schuylkill County and they have a searchable database for marriage dockets from 1885 to May 1969.  I searched the database for James Brady and Madge Bradley and incredibly I found their license listed in book 4, page 5755.  I called the Schuylkill County courthouse and asked how to get a copy.  The man said, “Send me five bucks”.  I got the address, and before I hung up I asked him about the brewery.  He said “I’m looking out my window at it right now.”  WOW, God’s country.  Well, literally two days later, I had in my hand, a marriage license for my great grand parents, and all this without ever finding their son.

            The marriage license told me that James E Brady was born in Gordon PA, 15 Oct 1859 (exactly one hundred years to the day before my wife), and that he was a Fireman (I always assumed on the Railroad) married Madge E Bradley 10 Nov 1890 in Ashland PA in a ceremony by Francis P Coyle.  Madge was born 15 Nov 1867 in Schuylkill County.  This was all very interesting to me, but I had to get back to my original search for grandpa, so I started digging again. 

            The more cousins that I spoke to, the more the mystery of my grandfather deepened.  Even my mother knew nothing about him, but heard rumors that he did not die when my father was a kid.  It was rumored that he ran off with another woman and the family just wrote him off.  I guess it was easier to explain his absence by saying he was dead, that pretty much heads off any more bothersome questions from nosy neighbors, it worked on me pretty good.   I found old newspaper clippings from when my father and his brothers returned home from WWII and Korea.  Every article describes them as sons of Mrs. Marguerite Brady and “the late” Thomas Brady. 

I had never checked the Social Security Death Index, because I thought my grandfather died before he could have applied for Social Security.  While on Ancestry.com, I had an amazing revelation.  Right there before my very eyes was a Thomas J Brady with my grandfather’s date of birth, listed in the SSDI (that’s genealogy talk for Social Security Death Index, I’m really getting into this now).  He died in Carbondale, PA in Aug 1974.  YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!  In August 1974, I had graduated high school and was preparing to go away to Seton Hall University in September.  This dude owes me some serious retro for birthdays (18 of them), Christmases, and high school graduation.

            But seriously, I had a living grandfather until I was eighteen years old and never knew it.  Well it was time for another phone call to my sister and cousin.  That night my kids were asleep in record time; I almost broke the five-minute mark.  Next were phone calls to my other brothers and sisters, my mother, and whatever cousins I could think of. (Whether they wanted to know or not).  Fellow employees, neighbors, my children’s friends, and complete strangers were regaled with my brilliance and investigative abilities.

            When I received his death certificate from the Pennsylvania State Department of Health, I found out that he is buried in Mother of Sorrows cemetery outside of Carbondale, PA.  As it turns out, my grandfather is buried ten minutes from my sister’s home.  Pat’s husband, Gary, knows the funeral director who buried him, so we later found out that my grandfather died in the Carbondale Nursing Home, and no one ever claimed the body.  He was buried in a plot owned by St. Patrick’s church, which they donated to him, and no one ever paid the funeral bill.  My sister and I visited the cemetery, and found that he is buried in an unmarked grave.

            Just to be sure I have the right Thomas J Brady (I found out that it is a pretty common name), I sent away to Social Security and requested a copy of the original application for a social security number.  It came back with one last surprise for me.  All my life I always thought that my name was Thomas John Brady III, because that was my father’s name and his father’s name, or so I thought.  He was Thomas J Brady, but the “J” on the application stands for James.  The more I think about it, my father was never very specific about his middle name either, there were times when he said that it may have been Michael.  Go figure.  So in the end, I found my grandfather, but I’m not so sure about my own name anymore.  You can’t make this stuff up.

 Well that's my first post, hope you enjoyed it.