Expanding my Sterling line

My Sterling relations are mostly cousins, because my great grandfather, Mike O'Dea's sister Mary, married John Sterling.  So Mary O'Dea is actually the start of my Sterling cousins.  Now I would love to take credit for investigating and finding all of these relatives, but I can't do it with a clear conscience.  A few years back, when I first realized that Mary O'Dea married John Sterling, I found a woman on line who was checking the same Sterling-O'Dea marriage.  The difference was that her great grandfather is John Sterling's brother.  So we wound up investigating the same areas, and people.  Sometimes I would email her with stuff I found, and sometimes she would email me with stuff.  Lately it has been a little one sided, with her sending me stuff.  Such as:

Yes, this little beauty.  Katherine Sterling is the daughter of John and Mary Sterling, born in Gulf Summit, NY 27 Jul 1880, and this is her obit.  She died 1 Oct 1964 in Jersey City, at the age of 84. But this obit gives me info that I did not know.  I knew that Katherine had a sister Susan, but I did not know that she had married or to whom.  Now I know that she married a man named Dauth.

She is also the Aunt to Mrs. Leona Pallander - sound familiar?  Well, it took me a minute, until I saw the next article she sent me:

Do you see that last name? Helen Willard - that one really helped.  The only thing that took me a few minutes was this.  I couldn't think of who had a daughter named Leona.  So I went to my family tree and that's when it hit me.  Katherine and Susan had another sister named Mary (but they called her Minnie)  I'm not sure, but it seems to me that "Minnie" is a nickname for a daughter who was named after her mother - the same as calling a son with his father's name "Junior".   Anyway Mary married Michael Sheehan, a Jersey City Police Officer, and they had a daughter Leona. - So that's how they're related, and that would make Leona a niece to Katherine.

Now, it is all becoming clear.  Through all of my investigating, I have come across Leona Pallander's name several times.  Usually as an informant on death certificates for my Sterling relatives, and (if you remember), she was the witness for Helen Keogh's marriage. I know from some of the death certificates that I got from the Archives, that she had listed her address as 162 Carteret Ave in Jersey City (the same address given in Katherine Sterlings obit above).  So I checked the RCAN website to see if Leona Pallander is buried in any of their cemeteries.  The only burial I found is for Michael F Pallander, who was buried on 13 Feb 1991 in Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.  So I checked for Michael F Pallander in ancestry and I found an entry from the Social Security Applications and Claims Index:

This gives his full name as Michael Francis Pallander, and date of birth is 3 Aug 1936 and date of death if 10 Feb 1991.  But the best part is, once again Father: Francis Pallander and Mother: Marie Shennan.  Okay, so I can see that Shennan could be a confused spelling of Sheehan, but Marie is no where close to Leona.  Up to this point, I could not find a Leona Pallander in Ancestry.com, mostly looking in census records and knowing that at some point she lived on Carteret Ave.  So I gave Marie Pallander a shot and BINGO.

I found her in the 1940 census, living at 164 Carteret Ave with her husband, Frank, age 40, born in Finland, Marie is listed as 37 years old, born in NJ, and there are three children: Mary age 6, Michael age 3, and Frances age 1.  By the way, Frances is a girl. (in case you couldn't tell by the spelling).

Just so you know, on the next page of the census are more Sterlings. Mary, Catherine and John living at 162 Carteret Ave, and Susan and Frederick Dauth, also at 162 Carteret Ave.  It always pays to check the next page of the Census.

Last, but not least, I also found that Marie L. (Leona?) Pallander died in Rochelle Park, Bergen County, NJ.  The Social Security Death Index lists her birth date as 18 Aug 1902 and death as 1 Aug 1995.  Two and a half weeks shy of 93.  Not too shabby.

The Jersey Journal and my Sterling relatives

So, in my last post about Helen Keogh, I told you about how I found out that she married and had children.  Well, since that post, I have found out a whole bunch of stuff.  Enough to keep me posting for awhile, which is good because I haven't posted anything for over a month.

So I went to the NJ State Archives and I found a marriage license for Helen Keogh and William Willard. They were married on 16 Sep 1930 at 4:00 PM. This took place at St. Patricks Church  at 492 Bramhall Ave, Jersey City, and the witnesses were William Gilane and Leona Pallander, who we will learn more about in my next post.  The Certificate of Marriage also lists Helen's parents as Margaret Sterling and Thomas Keogh, her age as 30, and her address as 161 Carteret Ave.  William is 28 years old, employed as a clerk and his parents are listed as William Willard and Carrie Tyler. William lives at 125 Audubon Ave, both in Jersey City.  You can really learn alot from a Certificate of Marriage.

My next stop was the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark website to see if Helen is buried in one of their cemeteries, with everybody else.  I found that she was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington on 27 Aug 1964. Then I decided to look for William, her husband, and found his burial in the same plot on 8 May 1965.

With this information in hand, I checked genealogybank.com, which is a collection of digital newspapers, that I have used in the past.  I searched their database, narrowing the search to 1961 through 1965, and Jersey City.  I found this item first:

This is the obit for William Willard living on Seventh St in Secaucus, NJ.  You can see that it mentions his wife Helen Willard, who passed away the year before, and two children: Joan Zaremba, who's death sent me down this road, and a son: William Willard.  There are also two grandchildren, who are not named, so I don't know if they are Zarembas or Willards.

The next article I found was this one:

Yes, this is Helen's obit from the previous year.  This gives basically the same information, but includes "interment Holy Cross Cemetery, North Arlington.  So I learned that there are at least two grandchildren here, that I may have to try to find.

I checked Helen's granddaughter, Joan Zaremba in the search engine, and I came across this article, which threw me for a loop:

WHAT? Friedenenberger - where did this come from?  After reading this one a couple of times, I realized who this was.  If you read it closely, it says Carrie (nee Tyler).  Remember the Certificate of Marriage for Helen and William?  It gives William's mother's maiden name as Carrie Tyler.  So this is William Willard's mother, who must have remarried to Frank Friedenberger.  I don't know what happened to William's father.  He either passed away or they divorced, either way Carrie remarried.

So I learned alot from these articles and the Certificate of Marriage, and I've added some new names to my family tree.  But it all started in Holy Name Cemetery, when I checked to see if there was a headstone for Margaret Keogh, after being told that there probably was not.

Still working on Maggie Sterling's daughter - Helen Keogh

It has been awhile since I posted anything about Maggie Sterling, who is the daughter of my great grandfather's sister ( or my first cousin 2X removed).  If you recall, she married a man named Thomas Keogh in 1898, and they had a daughter Helen in March of 1900.  Margaret then passed away suddenly on 17 Jun 1900 - Helen was three months old.  They are all listed in the 1900 census living in Jersey City with Maggie's parents: John and Mary O'Dea Sterling.  In 1910, Helen is living with her grandparents and Maggie and Thomas are both no where to be found.

Later I found that Maggie had died, and even later than that, I found that Thomas had remarried and become a Jersey City Fireman - rising to the rank of Captain.  Then in my post of June 16, 2014, I had found Maggie's grave with this marker:

Ah yes, I can see it's all coming back to you now.  At the time I was wondering who Joan M Zaremba was and why she is buried with Margaret Keogh?  Well, just the other day I found my answer in ancestry.com. Where else?

When I found this headstone, I ran Joan M Zaremba in ancestry.com and could only find her in the Social Security Death Index, which gave a date of birth and death. DUH, well I knew that.  Well the other day, I tried again, and found her in the US Social Security Applications and Claims Index 1936 - 2007, which is exactly what is says, it is an index.  But it gives information that the person applying for a social security account would have to submit.  Here it is:

See the part where it lists Father's Name: William Willard, the next one is Mother's Name: Helen Keogh.  Holy Mackerel, Helen Keogh - This could explain why Joan Zaremba (if you look up top it gives an alternate name of Joan Mar Zaremba - she was not married when she signed up for Social Security), is buried in the same plot with Maggie Keogh.  Apparently at some point, Helen married William Willard, and had at least one child, who recently passed away.

So now I have some more research to do at the State Archives.  Marriage records, wills, etc...  I also found a tree on line with Helen Willard and her husband, and I sent a message to the owner of the tree.  Hopefully, he will e mail me back with some info.  But for now, as usual, I am waiting for a response.

Ancestry DNA is finding me cousins

So a couple of days ago I went on ancestry.com and clicked on my DNA.  When I checked my matches, I see that there is a new match and it is right at the top of the list.  The match also gives a possible range of 1st -2nd cousins, which is the closest relation I have seen so far.  I think it is at the top of the list, because it appears that the closer the relationship, the higher the hit is on the list.  When I tried to view the match, there is no family tree connected to this account.  So I was able to contact this person through ancestry.com, and I requested that he either contact me or put his tree on line so that I can figure out how we are related.  The match also tells you when this person last logged on to his ancestry account, which was June 21, 2015.  So far, I have not received a response.

So tonight, I went on ancestry.com to  see if there is a response from my first e mail and I found that there is none.  That's when I noticed that one of the matches, that I have seen before, has a shared ancestor hint, which I did not know the meaning of before.  I had some time and decided to click on this match, then I saw the shaky leaf next to the match.  When I clicked on the match, our shared ancestor is revealed.  Her name is Bridget Kelly - Who?  Then it shows how Bridget is related to each of us.  Bridget had two daughters Mary Jane Reilly and Anna Forkin.  Mary Jane is my great grandmother on my dad's side, and I recall seeing the name Bridget Kelly on her death certificate, listed as mother.  So Bridget is my 2nd great grandmother.  I am not quite sure, but it looks like Anna Forkin is the grandmother of the person whose DNA had certain matches to mine.  The match says that this person last logged onto ancestry.com today.  So I sent him a message through ancestry and I will be awaiting a response and hopefully some more info on my dad's side, which I could always use.

You know, the more I look at the tree attached to this match, the more questions I have.  This does not look like a match to me, at least not through Bridget Kelly.  Maybe there is someone else in the tree who is a distant common relative.  If the match is through Bridget Kelly, I think we are 2nd cousins, but the initial match says we are distant cousins, like 6th to 8th cousins.  So we shall see what we shall see, but I am starting to think that Bridget Kelly is more of a common name than a common relative - but I have been wrong before.  So let's hope I am wrong again.

Waiting for an answer, as usual.

John McConville 1895-1963

I told you I would find something interesting right here in my own little "Archives", and it didn't really take that long.  I was checking through my old blog posts starting with my great great grandmother Bridget Crimmens Sullivan Keaveney.  Then I moved on to a post about the McConvilles, and I located them in the 1940 census.  The census record is attached to John McConville, who will be my main subject.  Here is the 1940 census in Jersey City:

    

As you can see, it lists Edward McConville (Poppa Mac) and his occupation is roadman, employed by the city.  This is what Aunt Florence had told me a few years ago. Next is Hanna (Momma Mac), then comes John, born  14 Jan 1895, in New York, he is listed as iron worker and the employer is WPA.  Next is Peter, born in 1898, and he is employed as a barrel maker,  (his father was a cooper, before this census, and he would make the bands that went around the barrel), and last is Alice, born in 1909, she is a typist for a packaging company.  The interesting part is that I know she was divorced by this time, and is listed as single - not divorced.  Being divorced was frowned upon in those times.

Anyway, let me get back to John the iron worker.  I found a few things about him.  First I talked to Aunt Florence, and asked if he had served in WWI, because I remember that from somewhere.  She said that he served in the Navy during WWI, and actually stayed in the Navy for awhile after the war. This could explain why I couldn't find him in the 1920 census.  But it was actually his name in the 1940 census which sparked a memory for me. First off, I kinda remember Uncle John, although he died on 15 Jul 1963 and I was only 7 years old,  but I do remember his wife, aunt Gertie.  I remember her living in Ocean Grove, which was owned by the Camp Meeting Association, which was affiliated with the Methodist Church.  I remember that there was a problem with John marrying Gertie, because she wasn't Catholic.  He could not marry her in the church, but they married shortly before he died.  I think this is why they are buried in Jersey City Harsimis Cemetery - because the church would not allow him to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.  Aunt Florence concurs that I am correct in my assumption. 

Then he had to register for the draft for WWII:

This is in the 1940s and he is living with his parents on Ege Ave in Jersey City.  If you look at the employer, I think it says Vander Heide Contracting Co. in Union City.  I looked it up in Google and the only one I find is a G. Peter Vander Heide, who is an AIA Architect and Testifying Expert, I don't know if he is related to the company that Uncle John worked for, but I thought it was interesting.

Last, but not least, I contacted Jersey City Harsimis Cemetery and found that the cemetery was abandoned for many years, after the board of directors either died or moved away.  But a new group has since taken it over and have cleaned it up considerably.  I e mailed them about locating John's records and plot.  I have been awaiting a reply, but we have had a considerable amount of snow over the past few weeks, so I don't think much work has been done.  I did drive up there two weeks ago with my son, to see if I could find the headstone, but there was a good amount of snow, and one of the workers on the site advised against walking any where that was not shoveled.  He said there are gopher holes all over and you could get hurt.

So in the meantime, I will wait for a reply from the cemetery and continue combing my home archives for more stuff.

And now - The rest of the Story

OThat's right, I don't need no DNA - I can find relatives with my blog.  Here's what happened.  About a month ago, I got an email from my blog - which I have gotten before.  Every time someone leaves a comment on one of my posts, Blogger sends me an email and a link to read the post and the comment.  This one was from my post about Susan Metzger Baldwin, and was posted in January 2013.  The comment encouraged me not to give up on this line of the family, because Susan Metzger Baldwin was also her 2nd cousin.  As it turns out, her dad is Arthur J Valleau, who I also did a post about.  I had done several posts about the Valleaus about two years ago, and they finally bore fruit.

Anyway, the comment came from Diane Tucker, and as best I can tell, she may not be related by blood.  I found her father, Arthur Valleau, living with my great aunt Mary O'Dea, who was married to Charles Valleau.  Arthur, as it turns out, is actually the son of Charles' brother George Percy Valleau.  Are you starting to remember this story?  In the 1920 census, Arthur is listed as "Nephew" in Charles and Mary's house.  In the 1930 census, he is listed as "adopted son".  Well not only did I talk to Diane, but she sent me pictures.  This is Charles Arthur Valleau, or Uncle Artie as they called him:

Next is Aunt Mary (or May as they called her).  Aunt May is my grandmother's sister - this is the family link:

And this one is their nephew/adopted son - Arthur J Valleau

Taken during WWII, where he served in the US Army Air Corps, like both of my dad's brothers.
The last I will share tonight is Arthur and his father, George Percy, when they reunited in early 1945, after being separated for 25 yrs.

Man, I love pictures, they really help.  Especially when you never knew any of these people, it's nice to put a face with the names.

Now for the rest of the story:

Diane tells me that George and his wife Bess lived in Omaha, NE and at some point George joined the Navy (I am just guessing - but maybe during WWI)  I assume he stayed in the Navy for some time because Bess moved with young Arthur to New Jersey.  While in New Jersey, she left Arthur with friends and asked them to care for him and she would be back.  She left them some money at this time, but she never returned and never sent more money.  Apparently one of George's sisters was willing to adopt Arthur, and that's when Charles and Mary stepped in.  Charles offered to adopt him, that way he would not have to change his name, and that's what happened.  Sometime between 1920 and 1930 Charles and Mary adopted Arthur.  Then somewhere around 1943, George (Arthur's father) returned after almost 26 years.  As you can see from the picture Arthur must have been on leave at the time.  George stayed with his son and daughter in law, for a few years before he died somewhere around 1950.  Next time I go to the archives, I am looking for a death certificate for George to see what more I can learn from it, and see if I can find where he is buried.

So it actually turns out to be a good story, father and son are reunited in the end.  But what ever became of Bess?  Did she meet someone else?  Did she die?  Well I'm pretty sure she has died by now, but I wonder if she died shortly after giving Arthur with her friends?  I'm going to have to work on that too.

One more thing.  I also found some evidence that maybe George remarried during his absence from Arthur.  There was a WWII Draft registration for a George Percy Valleau born in Jersey City, but living in Newport News VA and it lists a wife named "Sally".  Is this him?  Who is Sally?  In case you haven't figured it out yet, this is not the complete rest of the story.

The Suez Canal

Strange title for a post in a genealogy blog don't you think?  Well let me tell you what happened.  My wife bought me a book to read - a history book, which I love to read about.  It was written by one of my favorite authors, David McCullough.  He wrote John Adams, 1776, The Great Bridge (about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge) and the Johnstown Flood, just to name a few.  The book she got me is The Path between the Seas, which is about building the Panama Canal.  I almost bought the book myself a few years ago, but I was probably working on a different book at the time and put it off.  His new one is "The Wright Brothers", which I would like to read because my in-laws lived in the Outer Banks of North Carolina for many years and we visited Kitty Hawk quite a few times.

Anyway, we drove to Rhode Island this weekend to attend my niece's graduation from Johnson and Wales University.  My wife was driving up and I was reading my new book.  As I said the book is about the building of the Panama Canal.  The Canal was not just built in the early 1900s.  It had been talked about and studies had been done since at least 1870.  So I am only on page 25 (of 698 pages) and I came across a paragraph which is describing a celebration honoring the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, which opened 17 Nov 1869.  In the book, The time is summer 1870, and the place is London's Crystal Palace where a public receptions is taking place.  The passage describes different events honoring De Lesseps and one part says:  "two hundred boys from the Lambeth Industrial Schools would wave four hundred colored flares in an "Egyptian Salute" to honor the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal."  Good thing I wasn't driving when I saw this, cause we would have gone right off the road.  This was 1870 in Lambeth, where my Great Grandmother Johanna Sullivan was living.  She was four years old at the time.  I wonder if the family had any memories of this event occurring?  I wonder if they were invited?  This is the kind of stuff I like to find, and it connects your family some a big event in history.  We're talking the Suez Canal here.  I realize that the canal does not come up in everyday conversation, but this was a big event in its time.

I realize that my ancestors had nothing to do with the Suez Canal, but they may have taken part in this great celebration, and that's good enough for me.  If you remember a few posts back, my great great grandfather Thomas A Brady may have worked on the Erie Canal.  So I guess I may descend from a bunch of ditch diggers.