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.