Black Friday 2014 = Fun at the State Archives

Whoever wrote this must be a real exiting guy. This is one happenin' dude.  The easy answer is that I was off and they were not, and I am not big on real crowded malls - or empty malls for that matter.  So off I went to the archives, under the guise of getting my own birth certificate at the nearby Dept. Of Vital Statistics, not the archives, thank you very much.  However, after trying to park near vital statistics, I decided to do it on line, and stay at the archives.

My goal at the archives was to find a death certificate for Daniel O'Dea, brother of my great grandfather Michael O'Dea.  I know he was in Jersey City in the 1900 census, and I found him in city directories in 1901, 1902, and 1903.  In the 1910 census, his wife Mary is listed as a widow.  So I was able to quickly ind his death certificate on the second roll of microfilm that I checked.  Turns out he died on 26 Feb 1905, at his home at 244 Suydam Ave, Jersey City.  Cause of death - cancer of the neck, perhaps it is throat cancer and he was a smoker? Or chewed tobacco? I don't know, but it says he was sick for two years.  Doesn't sound like a fun two years though.  You will never guess where he is buried - Holy Name Cemetery, Jersey City, another shocker.  The other thing that I wanted to see is his mother's name, and it is listed as Catherine O'Dea (not Honora) but did not give her maiden name, DANG.  But now I know that Michael and Daniel had the same mother, Catherine and the rest of the siblings were born to Honora McGuan O'Dea.

Here is the death certificate that I found:

The one thing I didn't mention was how I found the death certificate so easily.  I checked the spelling O'Day first, it's pretty much a crap shoot on how they spelled it.  The microfilm has them in alphabetical order, so I just checked O'Day first before scrolling to O'Dea - saves me some time.  Next I tried Jersey City newspapers for an obit, but I came up empty.  The I tried to see if there was a will - again no dice. So my goal was reached, so it was time to leave.  But I just couldn't do it.

So I decided to look for wills from other ancestors, namely the Sterlings.  I couldn't remember looking up their names in the card file.  No Sterlings, and I then I thought a moment and remembered Margaret Sterling, she had married Thomas Keogh, had a baby girl, Helen, and soon thereafter she died.  I found Helen living with her grandparents, John and Mary Sterling, but I could never find Margaret's husband Thomas Keogh again.  So I checked for Thomas A. Keogh, and I found a will.  In the Will, he bequeaths $250.00 to his daughter Helen, BINGO!!!

The executrix is his wife Annie Keogh, and the will was signed on 8 Mar 1935.  After finding the will, I checked for a death certificate.  I found it, Thomas died 5 April 1935, less than a month after making his will.  The death certificate says that he lived at 299 Halliday Ave, Jersey City, and was married to the former Annie Kennedy - another Kennedy branch in the family.  He was born in Jersey City on on 22 Feb 1875 to John Keogh and Kate Glynn.  These are the same parents that appear on his marriage return from his marriage to Margaret Sterling.  This confirms that I have found the elusive Thomas Keogh, who is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington.  He died of a carcinoma of the liver, so I guess he knew he was dying when he wrote out his will.  One last detail is occupation - he was a retired Jersey City Fireman at the time of his death.  If you remember, Mary Sterling married Michael Sheehan, a Jersey City Policeman.  That whole public service thing must be in the blood, it seems to have reached my brothers and I, and now my brother's son just got hired as a Policeman.

That's why I like finding cops and firemen in my research, it makes me feel more connected to them.

Cathedral Cemetery, Scranton, PA

   I know that I just told you about Calvary and Mt. Olivet Cemeteries in New York, so now the plan is to tell you about my Bradys, who are buried in the other big city - Scranton, PA, and my Bradley's from Schuylkill County.  Last weekend was Halloween, and I decided to get out of Dodge, and travel to Scranton via Pottsville (the county seat for Schuylkill County) and check for property records for my Bradley ancestors.  Turns out they must not have owned property, cause I could not find any.  

I did, however, find a will for my Great grandmother (Madge Bradley's) brother James.  The executor was his brother Joseph.  The estate consisted of money deposited in the bank and no property.  I thought he had a tidy sum put away, but by the time the bills were paid, the funeral was paid for, and the headstone, there was only a couple of hundred dollars left.  

Then I drove to Ashland to check out St. Joseph's cemetery where I think my Great grandfather James is buried.  But I found nothing of interest.  So I drove to the Ashland Area Historical Society, but it was closed.  There was a sign in the window that said they are open by appointment only, with a phone number.  I called the number, but no one answered.  So much for Ashland.

Then I was off to my sister's house for the night, and a gourmet meal prepared by my brother-in-law.  On my way out in the morning, my sister offered to go to Cathedral Cemetery in Scranton to look up two Brady plots that I recently found thanks to the Pennsylvania Death Certificates database on ancestry.com.  That's all I needed.  We called and a man was in the office and said he would be there until we got there.  When we got there, he gave us a map ,and direction to two plots.  He even copied the file card for us that lists who is buried there and the dates.  I have to say that the folks at Cathedral Cemetery have been consistently the most helpful people - as cemeteries go.

Anyway, we found this headstone first:

                              

This is for James Brady and his wife, Alberta Wenis, with DATES!!  Also buried here are Jacob and Elizabeth Wenis, parents of Alberta.  Alberta and James also had a son, Joseph, who died at 7 years old.  His death certificate says he is buried at Cathedral, but the cemetery has no record of him.  I bet he is also buried here with his parents.

The next plot we located had this headstone:

                               

How do you like this?  Names and dates, looks like these Bradys didn't get the memo either - you know, the one about secrecy and not giving up information so easily.  This is the grave of John Brady (my great grandfather James' brother) and his wife Annie Butler.  I posted their obits not too long ago.  Also here are their daughter Agnes Brady and her husband Edward Sipple.  If you look closely, there are two more names etched on the base beneath the headstone.  On the right is Mary Goetz, (daughter of Edward and Agnes) and on the left is her husband Darrel J. Goetz.  

I actually met Mary when I started this venture in about 2005.  I had written a letter to every Brady I could find in the Scranton phone book.  One day, I got a call from a woman named Peggy Brady, who lived in Scranton and had gotten my letter.  She said to me "I haven't figured out quite how, but I think we're cousins".  We arranged to meet in Long Branch, that August because she and her cousin Mary were going on a retreat with the church, and it was in Long Branch - about 15 minutes from my house.  We met and talked family, and took a picture.  They were both very nice and I have spoken to Peggy since then, but not too recently.  I did not know that Mary had passed away.  I enjoyed meeting my newly found cousins, and will talk with Peggy again.

So it turned into a productive trip, thanks to some relatives who were willing to break the code of silence and list names and dates on headstones - not to mention very helpful employees at Cathedral Cemetery.

Brooklyn & Queens Cemeteries

  So today I took a trip that I have been looking forward to for over two years.  Let me back up to a blog I posted in June of 2013.  I had information that I had not followed up on.  That a family tree written by my mom's cousin says that a good number of my mom's family is buried in Brooklyn/Queens.  Specifically Calvary Cemetery and Mt. Olivet Cemetery.  In other words, this is a trip I've been dying to make.

Today is Election Day and I am off from work, and a couple of days ago I suggested to my wife that we take a ride and get some lunch, then come home.  We could make a day of it. She readily agreed -and it was a beautiful, sunny day with temperatures in the high 60's. I prepared for the trip by making phone calls to the cemeteries to make sure I knew where the plots were located.  That done, with my iPad for pictures and iPhone for Siri and directions, we were off.

First stop - Calvary Cemetery and the grave of my Great great grandparents, Peter and Catherine McConville as well as their son, Peter.

According to Wikipedia:

Calvary Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery in Queens,New York City, New York, United States. With about 3 million burials,^[1] it has the largest number of interments of any cemetery in the United States; it is also one of the oldest cemeteries in the United States.^[2] It is owned by theRoman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and managed by the Trustees of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The first Calvary Cemetery burial in occurred on July 31, 1848. The name of the deceased was Esther Ennis, having reportedly “died of a broken heart.” By 1852 there were 50 burials a day, half of them poor Irish under seven years of age.

So here amongst the three million burials lie my McConville ancestors, and I found their headstone with relative ease: 

                                            

Yup, right there in section 4B, Range 30, Plot D, Grave 6.  Now Peter and Catherine had four children: Edward (my great grandfather), John, Peter (who was buried here in 1948), and Mary Emma.  According to a 1900 census record, Catherine had 11 children and only these 4 survived to adulthood.  Mary Emma married a man named Robert Milford and had several children.  The Milford's final resting place was Part II of today's trip.  

Next stop: Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Maspeth, Queens, NY.

In order to find my McConville ancestors, I had gotten a map of the cemetery two years ago showing where the section that they are buried in is located.  For Mt. Olivet, I received an email message telling me where to find the headstone.  I was able to find it in about 10 minutes!!!

Mt. Olivet was established in 1850, and covers 71 acres.  I did not find any Wikipedia entry for it, but I can tell you this.  We were driving through city streets on Grand Ave, when I saw a traffic light and on the left side of the street was a clump of trees.  When you get to the light, and turn left through the gates, and enter the cemetery, you almost immediately forget that you are in New York City.  This is 71 acres of prime real estate, with no buildings.  It is actually like walking in a park, very scenic.  Although we found the headstone quickly, we walked around for another half hour just looking at unique headstones.  This headstone was located in Lot 4161, Section F:

                                             

Here lies Mary Emma McConville Milford and her Husband Robert J Milford and some of their children: Mary Emma Barth and her husband Frederick W. Barth;  Olive Milford Shields, and her daughter Elaine Marie Shields ; and Elizabeth Dawson and her husband William J Dawson.  It appears that the last burial here is their son William M Dawson, who was buried 14 Feb 1981.  So I may find some living cousins from this trip.  I also think there is a story with Olive Shields and her daughter Elaine.  I notice that there is no husband buried here, and I found Elaine listed in an index of deaths in New York.  She was born in 1929, so she was only five years old when she died - less than a year after her mother, who was only 30 years old herself.  I am gonna have to call Aunt Florence again.