One speaker was Crista Cowan. She was very good and gave plenty of tips for using Ancestry, which I could really use. They also talked about what new records are available on the website and it just so happens that they now have some indices of Births, Deaths and Marriages in New York City. These include:
- An index of New York marriages 1866 to 1937
- An Index of Deaths in New York City 1862 to 1948
- An Index of New York births 1891 to 1902
Today I started a more informed foray into ancestry.com with good results. So In the search mode on ancestry, I first chose the set of records that I wanted to search. This will make it a more productive search. If I search all of the records, I will get literally hundreds of thousands of hits, but by narrowing the record set, I get results from that record set only. I decided to do an easier search first so I searched the marriage records for my mother's grandfather McConville. Edward S McConville and Hannah Sullivan were married in Brooklyn in the 1880's. I entered Edward S McConville in the search box and my first result was his marriage to Hannah on 24 Jun 1888 in Kings County (Brooklyn). Certificate number 2398.
When the list of results appears, it has a link to order a copy of the certificate. It will cost $15.00. The site say to order a "certified" copy, but when I go to the order form it asks your relationship and what purpose you want the certificate for. I chose "historical or genealogical", and the cost of $15.00 was in my shopping cart. I am going to have to check into this before ordering.
One more thing, at the bottom of my results list for my query of Edward S McConville was another McConville - Mary E. McConville and Robert J Milford. Sound familiar? You remember! Yes, Mary Emma is Edward's sister and Aunt Florence told me about her marriage to a Milford. Well, they were married 3 Sep 1885, certificate number 3003. I definitely have to check before ordering this one.
Then, I decided to go for the gusto. I know that Edward McConville's parents lived in Brooklyn - and died there, as best I can tell. So I entered his father's name - Peter McConville. I used him because I have an old "family tree" that one of mom's cousins did, and it does not give a date of death or a place of burial If you remember one of my previous posts, I found Peter in the 1870 Census in Brooklyn, occupation was Boat Builder. In 1880 Catherine is listed as a widow - so Peter must have died in the 1870's. When I entered Peter McConville this is what popped up:
Not only does it give me a date of death for Peter McConville as 18 Jul 1874, but it also gives Catherine's death (third result below Peter) as 22 Nov 1913. I knew she died in 1913 from a "family tree" that my mom had given to me that one of her cousins had sent her and it says she is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Brooklyn. So why stop here.
Just for laughs, I searched Peter McConville (son of Peter and Catherine and brother to my great grandfather Edward McConville) in the marriage index and I was suprised to see this pop up:
I was surprised because as far as I know, Peter never married. This record says that Peter McConville married Ann Beaumont on 18 Oct 1898 in Manhattan, NY. This calls for another telephone call to my mom's cousin Florence Armstrong. I hope she can shed some light on this. If that doesn't work, I may have to spend fifteen bucks to unlock the answer to my latest burning question: Who is Ann Beaumont???
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