The Wandering Keaveneys - Part I

Okay, get a cup of coffee before you start reading this, ‘cause it may get confusing.  I am going to write about a cousin or two that I had never heard of on my mom’s side:  William and Richard Keaveney.  They are both sons of Edward L. Keaveney, who is the half brother of my great grandmother, Johanna Sullivan Bergin.  You may remember from a post last year (yeah right) that Johanna’s mother was Bridget Cremmins, who married Dennis Sullivan.  After Johanna was born, Dennis died, and Bridget remarried to Thomas Keaveney.  That is the Keaveney Connection.

So just the other day, I went on my Ancestry App and was looking through some names.  I came across William Keaveney and he had a few shaky leafs next to his name.  This means that the app has searched through Ancestry.com and found records that fit the information entered for your ancestor pretty closely.  Sometimes the records refers to your ancestor, sometimes it doesn’t.  You have to check it out.  So I clicked on the shaky leaf and saw a few records, one of which was the 1940 Census.

I checked the census record and found William age 35 and his wife Helen living with their two daughters, Joan and Patricia (sound familiar?).  I checked the address, but it did not sound like an area of Jersey City, so I scrolled to the top to see if they were in Bayonne or Hoboken or something.  When I got to the top of the page, I got a surprise – they lived in Chicago, Ill at 500 East 102 St, he is a foreman in retail window shades.  How did that happen?  Do I have the right guy?  So I checked the 1930 Census and found William and his wife Helen living on Summit Ave in Jersey City with his parents and siblings.  He is a foreman in a paper mill.  So they must have moved, but why?  As I looked at the dates 1930 to 1940, it dawned on me – the Great Depression was in full swing.  Maybe, like so many others during this time, he moved to find work.

So now I continue the Shaky Leaf Shuffle and find a listing in the Social Security Death Index which give his date of birth as 1 Feb 1905 and death as Apr 1985 in Oswego, New York.  I start to question again if this is my Keaveney, and I found a City Directory listing for William and one for Helen in Oswego, NY.  I guess that answers that.

While I was still in Chicago, I checked for marriage records with Cook County IL to see if Joan or Patricia were married there.  It just so happens that Ancestry.com has an index of Cook County Illinois marriages between 1930 and 1960 - Lucky me.  I checked the index and this is what I found:

Patricia S. Keaveney married Edward W. Hedstrom on 17 Mar 1954.  Now I don't know if this is my Keaveney, and I will not know for sure, unless I order a copy from the Cook County Clerk, but I think it is a good possibility.  It would make her 21 years old.  But we will have to check and see what exorbitant fee Cook County wants for a 60 year old marriage license before I order it.

I was going to write about two brothers in this post, but I think I will save Richard F Keaveney for next time.

Where is William Brady Buried

I am certain that this burning question has been the topic of many heated debates, much like the Lincoln - Douglas debates of 1860, and Kennedy - Nixon of 1960.  Okay, so maybe I'm the only person on the planet who actually cares where he is buried.  It is a piece of the puzzle that I don't have yet, so I am compelled to find it.

With this in mind, I traveled to Scranton, Pa to investigate further, and visit living family members while I am at it.  This past Friday I drove to my sister and brother-in-laws home, and enjoyed their company for the night.  In the morning, I was off to the Scranton Public Library to research obituaries on microfilm.  I was able to find the one I was looking for:  John Casey.  WHO??  Yes, John Casey is the father of Hannah Casey Brady, wife of William F Brady.  If you remember, I had said that I thought that if I could find John Casey, I would find Hannah (his wife) and Hannah (his daughter) and her husband, William.  I have heard this called Sidestep Genealogy.  If you can't find someone, look for the people close to him/her and you may find him.

So here is the Obit that I found in the Scranton Times 7 Jan 1935:

Pretty cool, gives you alot of information: where he was born, when he emigrated to the USA, what he did for a living, where he lived, political affiliation, and the part that I was looking for: Where he is buried.  By the way, my sister Pat guessed that he would be buried in Dunmore and she was right.  It says that he is buried in St Mary's cemetery in Dunmore, PA (I think it may actually be a part of Scranton).  So I drove to St Mary's, and I found a Priest at the church, but he could not help me because he had a wedding party there.  Come on now, I can't believe he thought they were more important than a guy who has been buried for almost a hundred years.  Anyway, I walked through the cemetery for a while, but could not locate a headstone.  The Priest said if I called the church on Monday, his secretary may be able to help me.

Monday morning I called the church.  The woman I spoke with was very nice and took the information and my name and phone number, promising to call me back when she found the info.  Five minutes later she called me back with good news.  John Casey is buried there, he is listed as the owner of the plot.  The last person buried there was Hannah Casey Brady.  Hold onto your hat, she died 14 Sept 1958 at the age of 90.  Holy cow, that is some longevity in them genes.  Her father died at 92, and her daughter, Hannah, will die at age 94.  Unfortunately none of those genes crossed paths with me and my crew.  As I sit here thinking about, if Hannah died at 90 in 1958, that means she was born in about 1868.  That means she was born during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War, and died when I was two years old.  That's alot of livin'.

So it sounds like my next visit to Scranton will involve a visit to the library for Hannah's obit, and a very large cup of coffee to take for a walk through St. Mary's cemetery in search of William Brady.  Didn't find him this time, but I am  getting closer.  I am almost certain he is there, I just hope the grave is marked - 'cause as usual the cemetery records from that time are spotty at best.

International Correspondence School

Sorry it has been so long, almost a month and a half.  But I have been busy -  okay not that busy, but busy enough to keep me from doing much research and blogging.  If you remember back, I had talked about my great grand uncle Dr. William F Brady.  Well I forgot to mention one little detail that I had heard from my sister Pat and my cousin Linda.  Supposedly Dr Brady was one of the founders of the International School of Correspondence (ISC) in Scranton, Pa.  He allegedly wrote a textbook for the school on Electro Therapeutics.  No I don't know what that is, but apparently the good Doctor did.  It doesn't sound as interesting as my blog though.

So anyway I was looking up the school on google and it still exists and has been renamed Penn Foster Career School, but it still operates as ICS in the UK and Canada (according to wikipedia).  I called the University of Scranton Library because their website says that they have a collection of documents from the school.  I was told by a woman there that she would check through the collection and let me know if she finds anything about Dr. Brady.

Within a week, I received an email from one of the research librarians advising that there is no record of Dr. Brady being affiliated with the ICS, however, he was listed as a guest at the Fifteenth Anniversary of the ICS.  She also extended an invitation to make an appointment to examine a folder titled "The History of the ICS", and any other documents pertaining to the school.  I might take them up on it, because I have a copy of a document listing him at the Dean of the School of Electro Therapeutics.  So maybe no documents referring to him are still around, after all they are a hundred years old.  Just so you know there is a family connection to the ICS, William has an older brother John (who was the father of 11 children with his wife Anna, who all lived to adulthood).  In the 1930 Census, John is listed as 75 years old (as is Anna) and they were both 20 years old when they married.  That means that they were married 55 years at this point.  Sorry I went off on a tangent, John's occupation is listed as Repairman and his employer is listed as ICS.  I had heard that several family members were employed by the school.

My next email will be directed to Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA.  This is the Medical School that he graduated from in 1884.  I am really looking to locate a picture of him.  It would also be nice to find out anything else that I can about him.

Why I Blog

 Let me tell you how blogging has really helped me improve my research skills.  First, I have to pick a topic - a person or family group, or a cemetery, courthouse or archive.  Okay, you get the picture.  Next, I have to  check all of the stuff I have for the topic - this is the learning part.

When I check all of the documents that I have collected, I find that half of the time, I will find a name or a date that fits in with something else that I have been trying to figure out. I suddenly have a revelation or an "AHA!! moment".  It is usually something that I have been trying to figure out for awhile - and I had the answer all along, I just didn't know it.

I bring this up now because I have been working on Dr. William Brady - as you know, if you read my last post.  I said that he was the most documented Brady of that era.  While writing about him, I realized that I do know a few things about him - thanks to a lengthy article in the Scranton Times on the day of his death.  But there is one thing that I did not realize until I began to write this post.  I don't know if you remember, but when my great grandmother (Madge Bradley) died in Sep 1892, I wrote that my grandfather (Thomas) may have lived with his uncle William and his wife and children.  Now that I am writing this and looking at dates, I know that William did not marry Hannah Casey until 1 May 1893 and had no children until 1894 - he may not even have been back in the USA yet from his studies abroad.  So that "Family Lore" has been debunked- as they say on "Myth Busters".  Now that I think of it, that sounds like a good description of my family research - Myth Busters.  I have had his marriage license application and his will since November 2006.  So I have had this information for about 6 1/2 years and I never made the connection until I started blogging about William.

So as I said, William marries Hannah M. Casey, daughter of John Casey and Hannah Gorman, in May of 1893.  The Caseys are a prominent family in Scranton, John is a grocer in Scranton, and the newlyweds live with her parents at 613 Adams St in Scranton. William practiced medicine on Wyoming Ave, and he and his wife had three children:  Hannah Brady on 20 March 1894, Regina on 20 Sept 1895, and John on 18 Oct 1897.  Like I said, the family lives with John and Hannah Casey at 613 Adams Ave, apparently it is more lucrative to be a grocer that a Doctor in the early 1900s.  According to the 1920 Federal Census, Hannah and Regina both become school teachers in Scranton and John is in school for Civil engineering.  I believe that both Hannah and Regina go on to become principals in the Scranton School District.  Neither of them marries and both retire to Miami, Florida where both die, Hannah on 3 May 1990 (at age 94!!!) and Regina on 14 Dec 1971.  John marries Irene O'Hara and they have at least two children: Noreen and John Casey Brady.  John is widowed in 1963 when Irene dies, and he dies in Scranton in 1967.  According to the 1940 Census, Hannah, Regina, John and his family all reside with their mother, Hannah Brady at 613 Adams St, in Scranton.  John's education says that he is a high school graduate, and is employed as an insurance adjuster.  Apparently the whole college thing did not work out.  But you never know -  we all know it took me much longer than that to graduate college.

A lot of  this information I picked up as I prepared for this blog post.  The last thing I found was by accident.  I started with my Ancestry App, and started looking up stuff about William's children: Hannah, Regina, and John.  The one thing I did find was Hannah, on 'Find A Grave'.  She is buried in St. Catherine's Cemetery in Moscow PA (thank God it's in PA, cause I would have had the big one if it was Russia)  As if turns out, all three of them are buried in a plot there, as well as John's wife Irene, children and some of his grandchildren.  I never expected to find them all in Moscow, PA, After all Hannah and Regina died in Miami, so they had to be transported from sunny Florida back to Lackawanna County PA to spend eternity.

I know that William died of a heart attack 18 Sep 1917 in Scranton, but I don't know where he is buried.  I can't find his wife Hannah or her parents either. I thought they would be in St. Catherine's in Moscow or in Cathedral in Scranton - but so far, no luck.   I think if I find one of them, I will  find them all.  That's the other thing that I learned by looking through my stuff.  The long article I found in the Scranton Times about Dr Brady and I thought was an obit, is not.  It looks like a long article about him on the day of his death (still no picture), and I will have to return to the paper to find the obit, that should tell me about his burial place.

Here is a photo of the grave marker from 'Find A Grave' for the Brady's in St Catherine's Cemetery in Moscow, PA:

Dr. William F. Brady M.D.

This is my Great Grand Uncle, brother of my Great Grandfather - James Brady.  William is one of my better documented Brady family members from this era.  I actually have a date of birth from a Passport Application and a physical description - but no photograph.  These Bradys were very good at avoiding cameras - come to think of it my father never liked having his picture taken either - maybe there is something in the DNA.  Anyway, William was born 6 Sep 1862 in Gordon, Pa.  I know all you Civil War buffs out there are saying "Wow that's eleven days before the Battle of Antietam"  That's right, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War and happened in Sharpsburg, MD, about 600 miles away.  In another ten months (July 1863), the Civil War will be knocking on their back door at the Battle of Gettysburg- only 80 miles away.  Good thing Billy Yank turned them away or I'd be eating corn pone and hominy grits today - actually I kinda like grits sometimes.  With the war that close, you would think that I would find a Brady fighting in the war somewhere.  Actually I think I can hear my great great grandmother saying something sweet to my great great grandfather - "where the hell do you think you're going?  You want a war, I'll give you your bloodiest day if you try to leave me here alone with these kids."  (Okay, that conversation is fictional, but I never realized how close the war came to their home until now).

Sorry, I digress.  Let's get back to the story.  William was the fifth of the eight children born to Thomas and Bridget Brady in Gordon.  According to a biography in an old book I found on line (and never bookmarked - so I can't find it) he attended school in Gordon and Ashland, graduating from high school in Ashland at age fifteen (showoff).  He received a B.A. from LaSalle College in Philadelphia in 1882 (BIG showoff).  Then he took a course in Villenova Seminary, stayed for a year and decided, at that time, to study medicine - I guess a year in the seminary will do that to a guy.  So then he entered Jefferson Medical College in 1882 and two years later, he graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine.  Unless my math is off - which happens with guys like me who don't like showoffs and take 27 years to graduate from college - he became a Doctor at age 22.  I told my brother-in-law, who is a doctor, about this accomplishment and his reply was that there was not as much to learn then. Excellent point.

So, now he is a doctor.  He spends a year working at the State Miners Hospital at Fountain Springs near Ashland, Schuylkill County.  When he finished his time there, he traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to continue to study abroad (no, I don't know her name - HA, just kidding).  First he goes to Dublin, Ireland and graduates from the Maternity Hospital.  I guess if you want to learn about maternity, Ireland is the place to go.  Then it is on to Paris, France for two and a half years, and Berlin, Germany, and Vienna, Austria for a year each.  He spent five years studying abroad and meeting the leading medical men of "the old country",   while becoming fluent in French and German during his visit. Germany is where this document comes from (okay so it was on Ancestry.com):

This is one of my favorite finds, it gives dates, a physical description, and his signature.  So this document says that he is in Berlin 25 Jul 1888, applying for a passport  for Identification purposes - probably so he could go back home.  It gives his date of birth as 6 Sep 1862, and that he left the US on 7 Sep 1888 (it also disputes the biography I found that says he went to Ireland for a year first - oops).  But it gives a physical description saying that he is 25 years 10 months old, 5' 8" tall, high forehead, grey eyes and a medium nose. (what is a medium nose?)  He has an oval face, fair complexion, brown hair, and a beard and moustache.
Well, I think that is enough for now.  Stay tuned for part two.

By the way, I just realized that the biographical sketch that I found is actually all in his obituary in the Scranton Times 18 Sep 1917.

Another trip to Schuylkill County

As promised, I went to Ashland, Pa on Friday and searched for my great grandfather's final resting place, which I thought would be St. Joseph's cemetery.  Once again, I came up empty.  But the good news is that at least this time I found the right cemetery.  Apparently the first time I went there with my sister we were actually in the wrong cemetery.  This time - after searching for a while - I actually had the sense to ask someone.  I recently heard a talk and the speaker was talking about searching cemeteries and how she found the grave she was looking for.  Checking at the office was not the answer - her secret was to look for the guy with the shovel.  In this case there was no office, and no guy with a shovel - so I had to rely on a lady walking her dog - and she pointed me in the right direction.  She told me "there are a lot of Catholics buried beyond those trees.  We drove over and found a cemetery.  Then I found an older man walking a dog (apparently cemeteries are like dog parks in PA), who said that there were two different cemeteries.  There was St Josephs, which was for the Irish Catholics and there was St Mauritius to the far west, which was for German Catholics.  There was no physical separation like a fence, just a dirt path.  He told me that back in the day, the churches were very ethnic, so you had German Catholics, Irish Catholics, Italian Catholics,etc... So after searching for a while and not finding what I was looking for, the man saw me again and told me to check with the Ashland Public Library, because they had some funeral home records.

Next stop, Ashland Public Library.  I checked in the library and found that they did not have the year I was looking for, but they suggested that I call Mt Carmel Public Library and the Schuylkill County Historical Society, whom I have called before for this and other reasons, without much success.  Just in case you're curious - here is James E Brady's death certificate from the PA Dept of Health

Even the folks who buried him were secretive, all it says for place of removal or burial is Ashland, PA.  I called Mt Carmel and Schuylkill County Historical Society for Funeral Home records, with no success, but Mt Carmel Library called me back and said that they will mail me a list of burials for Bradys and Bradleys in the time frame I am looking for.  They were very helpful and sent me a large manila envelope of burials in the Tri-County area, but so far I have been unable to locate James.

I know that I did a whole post on my Great Grandfather James E Brady with a wanted poster and everything, but I never included his death certificate.  If you read it, you can see that the informant is Mary G Brady of Scranton - his sister.  She is the one who let the secret birth place of her parents out of the bag - Swinford, Ireland.  It also says that he was 54 years, 9 months, and 19 days of age - YIKES - that's younger than me.  He died of Cardiac Failure and myocardial degeneration.  All the papers I have seen for him list his occupation as Fireman on the railroad, but this just says laborer.  Maybe that was just a generic term for railroad worker.

The thing that I always wondered about (and I know I have mentioned it before) is the name of the doctor who signed the death certificate: Thomas McCutcheon of Gordon, PA.  Not his brother William, who was a doctor in Scranton.  Now that I am thinking about it, and after driving from Gordon to Scranton last week it took me an hour and change.  So back in 1914 it must have been a long trip - even if you had a car.  So anyway I looked up Dr. McCutcheon in the 1910 census, and I couldn't find him - until I used a wildcard search in Ancestry.com.  I searched McCu* for a last name and found his name spelled McCutecheon, living on Biddle St in Gordon, he was 31 years old, born in Canada (Eng), single and came to the US in 1902, and was still a Canadian citizen at the time.  Funny thing is that the next family in the census is Guy Hubler, his occupation is listed as Druggist.  Just thought that was interesting - Birds of a Feather and all that.

So after my trip, I still don't know any more about the Bradys in Schuylkill County, but not because of a lack of trying or helpful librarians and historians.  I just think that they don't want to give up any secrets yet.
                                                                                                    

Thomas A. Brady - My Great Great Grandfather

Okay, it's time to return to the elusive Bradys in the tree.  So I figured I would write about the oldest Brady I have found information on - my great great grandfather: Thomas A. Brady.  No, I don't know what the "A" stands for, but I know he had a son named Andrew - so that's where my money is.  I know a few things about him, but his date of birth and/or age seems to change from record to record, and I can't seem to find him on any passenger ship manifests to tell me when he came here, where he landed, and who he came with.  His death certificate doesn't even tell his parents names and lists his place of birth as - you guessed it - Ireland.  No town, not even a county.  But the best part of it is that his son William is the doctor who filled out and signed the death certificate.  William does list a date of birth as 11 Apr 1832 and he died of pneumonia on 5 Oct 1904 and is buried in Cathedral Cemetery in Scranton, PA.  You would think that his son would be able to fill out a death certificate with a plethora of information - NOT.  So I was on my own to piece together as much as I could.

The earliest census record that I found with Thomas and his family was 1860.  The family was enumerated on 13 Jul 1860 in Butler Township, Schuylkill County. The census lists the Post Office as Gordon.  The record says that he is 30 years old and a laborer born in Ireland.  He is married to Bridget, age 28, and they have three sons: John age 6, Michael age 3 and James age 9/12 ( he is nine months old - and he is my great grandfather).  This enumeration took place a year before the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln would be elected President for his first term in four months.

 Thomas applied for and was granted citizenship in the Schuylkill County Court of Common Pleas on 5 Sep 1864.  The application says that he is 32 years old or there abouts.  Yea right, Homeland Security would be all over him today.  I wonder who he voted for, when he was able to. 

1870 finds him still living in Butler Township, but the post office is Ashland, and we have added some children.  The first thing I notice is that there is a Patrick Brady, listed as 17 years old and born in Ireland, John is 16, Michael is 14, James is 11, William (the doctor) is 9, Mary is 4, and Bridget is 11/12, off to the right it says that she was born in June.  The funny part is that Thomas is listed as 45 years old, and Bridget, his wife, is 40.  Somehow in the ten years between federal censuses, he aged 15 years and she aged 12 years - go figure.

1880 finds him living in South Butler Township (it also says Village of Gordon).  The family listed right before him is that of his son John, who is married to Annie and two sons, Thomas and John Jr.  Our hero is listed in the next family as being 56 years old - man it must be a tough life in coal country - he has aged 26 years in 20 years.  Bridget is listed as 49, so the aging process is slowing for her.  We also have a new child - Andrew, who is 10, but was not listed in the census 10 years ago.  The interesting thing about this census is that there is a catagory that says:  if a person is sick or temporarily disabled and unable to attend to his/her business on the day of the enumerator's visit - what is the disease or disability.  Bridget (his wife) is listed as "decaying".  Quite honestly I don't want to know what is going on with her that day, but I thought it was interesting.

At some point he moves to Scranton - to the big city, where they are listed in the 1900 census.  John and his family have also moved to Scranton.  William (the doctor) is also married and living in Scranton, married to Hannah Casey.  Living with Thomas and Bridget are two of their children: Mary aged 24, and Andrew aged 22 (Andrew has just returned home from the Spanish-American War - where he fought in Porto Rico - that's how it is spelled in his service record), and their grandson, Thomas aged 8.  As you all know Thomas is my elusive grandfather, who continued in the family tradition of leaving behind very little evidence of his life.

Just to keep you on the edge of your seat (where I am sure you have been for the past three and a half weeks just waiting for my next post) I will tell you that tomorrow I am going to my sister and brother-in-law's house in Penn.  On my way, I am stopping in Ashland, Penn to look in St Joseph's cemetery to see if I can find my great grandfather James's final resting place.  (My sons will be beside themselves with excitement - it's not every day that you drive three hours to look for a grave that may or may not be marked - if he is even there.) James, as it turns out, is even more elusive than his son, leaving even less evidence of his existence.  So I will let you know how I make out.