Genealogy Do-Over - Month 2

The topics for Month 2 of the Genealogy Do-Over are:

• Establishing Base Practices and Guidelinnes
• Setting Research Goals

Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines

ThIs has been a weakness in the past, and lead to lots of rework and sloppily performed research, so I spent some time think about these.  While I don't yet have a documented process or flowchart to follow, I have come up with a number of new practices to follow

1. Work and research in dedicated blocks of time with defined goals and objectives. This has been a problem in the past, where I would generally work five minutes here and there, on whatever thought crossed my mind.  No more of this - time to work smarter.
2. Evaluate each source using Evidentia to extract all data from the source.  I'm excited about this - Evidentia looks like an incredibly useful tool and I hope it helps me with my research.
3. Cite each source fully and in accordance with Evidence Explained 3rd Edition by Elizabeth Shown Mills.  This means when I research I have my laminated quick sheet at my side and my copy of EE nearby for more complicated citations.  It also means collecting more information at repositories on sources so the citations can be made.
4. Making sure to keep a log of all research performed, including and especially that research that yields no results.  I hate when I realize I'm retracing my steps unnecessarily.
5. Document filing - I've been using hanging folders, and I haven't been happy with the results, so I am switching to binders.  I'm planning to need to actually file less paper by keeping more data in digital form.  Electronic files will be filed in a file system that mirrors the binder to make finding documents easier.

These are my base practices as I have them right now.  Ideally, I want to develop process flows for research and document handling, but I need to do some more work researching to get a better idea of the flow.

Setting Research Goals

Right now, I don't have a lot of known research goals - I think that they will reveal themselves in due course. The goals I do have are:

1. Determine the parents of Christopher McNally.  I don't really have a plan for this goal yet.  I do know that a lot of Irish resources have come on line over the past year, so those might help.  I also need to reach out to my one match on my Y-DNA test to see what he knoews.
2. Obtain a copy of a court record in which Christopher McNally was a defendant.  On my last trip to Bedford and Blair Counties, I found an odd deed for a sheriff's sale of Christopher McNally's property in order to satisfy a judgement.  I'm planning a trip there later this year,and one thing high on my agenda is finding the related court case. 

The important thing here is that I understand how I'm going to make research goals going forward. Goals need to be well defined and achievabl. Also, a proper goal needs to be able to have a research plan developed for it, listing potential sources that might recall relavent information. 

That pretty much covers month 2 of the Do-Over. I've fallen behind on the 52 Ancestors/52 Weeks project. I'll work on getting caught up over the next month or two. Until then, keep up the search. 

Genealogy Do-Over : Month 1

For 2016, I decided to participate in the revamped twelve month Genealogy Do-Over as presented in the "Genealogy Do-Over Workbook" by Thomas MacEntee (link opens to Amazon.com, provided for convenience, I am not an Amazon affiliate nor do I receive any consideration or compensation for providing the link).   My genealogy was (still is) in a bad state and starting from scratch seemed as good a way to proceed as any.  Thus, my personal excursion into the Genealogy Do-Over.

Month 1 of the Genealogy Do-Over has a two point to-do list:

• Setting Previous Research Aside
• Preparing to Research

I'll address each of  these in turn.

Setting Previous Research Aside 

My research is a mess.  I've been researching my family history for nearly 20 years, not always with the best practices.  Add in a half dozen or so moves (including 2 in the last 5 years), and inconsistent office space to work in a few locations (and 2 kids) and you end up with chaos. At one time, my research was carefully stored in well sorted and organized hanging folders, but no longer.  Before I started this is what my research looked like:

File boxes and paper boxes, mostly unsorted and completely chaotic shoved into the closet, out of sight.

So, I sorted through the boxes, making eight piles, two per grandparent of my children, one pile for papers to be stored away and one pile for those documents that were either obtained as the result of requests for documents or obtained on trips (those documents in which either significant time and/or money have been expended upon).  The stored away boxes went back into the closet and the retained documents have been neatly stored under my genealogy desk.

Preparing to Research

The second item on the to-do list is to create a list of current research habits, the processes that you use and so forth, then determine what from that list works and doesn't and what changes you might make.  The biggest issue I've had for the last few years is that I really haven't had any processes or research habits that I consistent apply.  Rather, I'd steal the odd 15 minutes here and there to research when the opportunity presented it, not really with any plan or organization.  This lead to poorly documented work, unnecessary rework and general chaos.  This doesn't work and needs to change, and will be dealt with in Month 2.

A good start to the program, I think.  More on this in late February or early March.

52 Weeks/52 Ancestors, Week 3 - Anna Martha Myers

This week, I'm taking a little bit of a shortcut by featuring the wife of Week 2's subject. Also, I've realized that I tend to write predominantly about male ancestors, and that needs to change to provide a more complete story.

Anna Martha Myers was born 17 August 1855 in Blair County, Pennsylvania to Harry Bender Myers and Maria Mock, the 5th of 8 children, although it is likely that there were additional children that I have not identified based on the five year gap between Anna and her next older sibling. 

The facts of her marriage and children are covered in the blog post on Thomas Christopher McNally. She survived Thomas by a few years, passing away on 11 April 1915 in Potetown, Blair County 

There are obituaries for her death which support this date, but I have yet to find a death certificate for her, even browsing through the digitized images on Ancestry. I haven't done a comprehensive browse of all death certificates from 1915 in Pennsylvania, but that would be next. 

Like Thomas, she is buried in an unmarked grave, most likely at the cemetery at the Albright Church of the Bretheren in Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania. Neither obituary lists the place of burial, but I have been told she was buried there but the grave was never marked. On multiple occasions, I have contacted the church to ask about burial records for the cemetery, but I have never received a response of any kind. I have not contacted the local funeral director yet, something I probably should do.

One of my long term goals is to verify where she is buried, and maybe at some point arrange to have a marker placed for both her and Thomas. They deserve that at the very least.


Note:  I'm a little behind schedule due to going on vacation last week.  I'll get caught back up in a few weeks.  Thanks.

52 Weeks/52 Ancestors, Week 2 - Thomas Christopher McNally

Thomas Christopher McNally is my 2x Great Grandfather on my paternal name line. He was the son of Christopher McNally and Rosanna Pearson. He was born 6 January 1852 in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, the oldest of Christopher and Rosanna's children.

He married Anna Martha Myers on 28 July 1875 at St Patrick's Catholic Church in Newry, Blair County Pennsylvania. This apparently was not a full Catholic ceremony, as the Church record indicate that Anna was a Protestant and I know from other records she was a life long member of the Brethren Church. They had three children - Richard (my great-grandfather), Thomas Jr., and Augustus.

Besides their three natural children , Thomas and Anna "adopted" a young man named Harry Malone some time before 1900, as he is enumerated with them in 1900 and 1910. I have e-mail correspondence where I was working with another family researcher to untangle Harry's details - maybe I'll do a separate post about Harry to try to sort him out. 

The point of this story is that I think it demonstrates one aspect of Thomas's character - his generosity, which he learned from his parents. It is no small act of generosity to take in a child. 

According to a report in the Altoona Tribune from 1906, a Thomas McNally from Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania was injured by a railroad car, causing the loss of his foot. I have not been able to determine if Thomas Christopher or his son Thomas was the one injured, as they both lived in Roaring Spring and both worked for the railroad doing manual labor at different times.  Thomas Christoper would have been 54 and his son Thomas would have been 26 at the time of the accident, so both are possibilities.  If anyone has ideas about how to sort this out, I'm listening.

Thomas died 16 September 1912 in Taylor Township, Blair County, Pennsylvania.  His death certificate lists asthma as the primary cause of death.  He was buried at the St. Patrick's Cemetery in Newry, Blair County, Pennsylvania in an unmarked grave. Extracts from church records indicate that his brother Richard and his sister Lavina are buried in the same grave.  At the least, there are stones marking those graves, so the location of his burial is not lost.   

52 Ancestors/52 Weeks, Week 1 - Wallace Kinder

For my first "52 Ancestors/52 Weeks" entry, I'm going to discuss one of my wife's ancestors - her grandfather (my children's great-grandfather), Wallace Kinder.

I never had the opportunity to meet Wally, as he passed away long before I ever knew my wife, when she was a child, but I have many stories about him from my extended in-law family, and he seems like he was quite a character.

Wallace Kinder was born 9 July 1918 to Otis Harry Kinder and Lillian Mae Eisnaugle. He had one sibling, an older brother Donald, who died 20 February 1926 at the age of 10, when Wally was only 7.  I'm told that fact and the death of his father were the formative events of his youth.

His father died 27 November 1934, when Wally was 16. Family lore says that Otis died of a heart attack after going out on a cold day to kill a chicken for dinner after Wally refused to do the deed. I was told that Wally carried guilt from this event for many years.

He married Janet Louise Reeg on 8 August 1936, and like so many men of his generation, he served in the Army during World War II.  After the war he worked for Rockwell International building "clean rooms".  In a story told by one of his daughters, in the late 1950's he traveled to Roswell, New Mexico for work.  He would never discuss the particulars of this trip, which was out of character for Wally, who loved to tell stories - he occasionally asked why someone would need television or radio if he was around to tell stories.

He died 28 January 1989, after a battle with cancer.

At the beginning of this post, I stated I never met him.  This might not be entirely true.  The house I grew up in until the age of 10 had a small path behind it for utility access.  This path also got used by residents for quick trips to the convenience store and local pizza place.  On the other side of the path, directly behind my house, was the house where Wally and Janet lived - effectively, he was my back fence neighbor. It is more than likely that at some point in the years I lived there that I saw or spoke with Wally and Janet, at least in passing.  I just had no way of knowing at the time that he would be the grandfather of my future wife.


A note on this entry - I acknowledge that this post is lean on source citations.  Hopefully, that will improve as the year progresses, particularly as I discuss people more remote in time.  Thanks.

A New Year, a New Approach

I've done resolutions for the last few years, with varying degrees of success.  I could analyze why they have or have not succeeded, but that won't further my genealogy, so I'm not going there.  What I am going to do is take a different approach this year and participate in a weekly blogging challenge - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.  This challenge has been going on since at least 2014, started by Amy Johnson Crow (www.amyjohnsoncrow.com) (but I could be mistaken about that and will gladly attribute the correct person if necessary).  The plan is to make a blog post on this challenge every Wednesday starting January 13th, with an extra post somewhere to make up for starting a week late.  I plan to have other posts as well, and I'm hoping for more activity in general in 2016.

I'm also going to be doing the year long "Genealogy Do-Over", a program started by Thomas MacEntee (www.geneabloggers.com) of the Geneablogger web site.  There should be at least one post near the end of each month going over what was accomplished on the progaram.  I' already behind on this, so I need to get moving on that.

 

Looking back at 2015 for a few moments now.  I'm not going to sugar coat it - 2015 was a year of stark contrasts.  We took our first real family vacations this year with my little dudes, building great memories and having lots of fun.  This was tempered, however, by the death's of my father and both maternal grandparents within the span of three months.  I've tried to write a few times about them, but each time, I've found it to be too soon.  The 52 Ancestors will be in no particular order, so it seems likely I'll include them at some point in the year.

Here's looking to a great 2016, full of family fun and good genealogy.

The Results Are In - AncestryDNA

The news of the day is that my AncestryDNA results are in. I'm guessing a big batch of results were posted yesterday (3/19), because quite a few of the genealogy folks I follow on Twitter were reporting that they had results in too.

The test results comprise two components - the Ethnicity Estimate and your Matches. Both parts are interesting in their own way and deserve some discussion.

First, the Ethnicity Estimate.  No surprises here.  My estimate is 97% European, with the remaining 3% spread out over other categories. 

The breakdown (in descending order of prevalence) :

• Europe West (37%) - Primarily located in: Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein
• Most of my ancestors on my paternal line (with the exception of my surname line and a few others) are from the German speaking areas of West Europe - many early German immigrants ended up in south-central Pennsylvania, so most people who have roots in that part of the country will have deep German roots
• Ireland (27%) - Primarily located in: Ireland, Wales, Scotland
• Between this category and the one to follow, this covers pretty much entire maternal line as well as the Irish components of my paternal line.
• Great Britain (25%) - Primarily located in: England, Scotland, Wales
• My maternal line is largely predominated by that group of immigrants known as the "Scotch-Irish" or "Scots-Irish", early settlers from Northern Ireland, originally of Scottish and English origin.  More than a few of these immigrants ended up in what is now known as Appalachia.

 These three categories make up 89% of my estimate, based on the averages that Ancestry has calculated (Ancestry describes the methodology used to calculate these numbers in some detail, and I'm not going to try to explain it in detail here, but  the averages are based on a number of trials which define a potential range of values, the listed value being an average of the values in the range).   The remainder of my Estimate is composed of what AncestryDNA calls trace regions - regions that have a positive average but where the range begins at 0% and which could thus appear by chance.

Trace Regions (in descending order with no commentary:

• Iberian Peninsula (4%)
• Scandinavia (2%)
• Finland/NW Russia (1%)
• Asia South (1%)
• Europe East (< 1%)
• Africa Southeastern Bantu (< 1%)
• Melanesia (< 1%)

So, according to AncestryDNA, that's my genetic heritage in a nutshell.

Now, we turn our attention to the Matches component.  At the time of writing, I have 252 pages of  matches, ranging in predicted degree of kinship from second cousin to distant cousin (5th cousin or more distant) - most in the last bucket with verying degrees of confidence.  I have not had the chance to review all of my matches so far, but i've at least browsed most of my closer matches.  I haven't initiated contact with any of my matches, but two of my matches have contacrted me - one whose user name I recignized as a known cousin and a second who AncestryDNA pegged us as 4th cousins, but who has no recognizeable paper trail to connect us at this time.

Some observations:

• I'm seeing a lot of matches on my maternal line, and in quite a few of those the degree of kinship is overstated, primarily due to the presence of Barnabas Curry as a common ancestor. I have, I believe, three Curry lines that trace back to him, so even though he is either my 4x great or 5x great grandfather, his impact on my DNA is somewhat disproportionate
• I need to do more work on my Ancestry Family Tree, particularly on my maternal side to facilitate matching
• I think I need to come up with a handful of templates to use in contacting prospective cousins, one or two for each of my maternal and paternal lines

All in all, still lots of work to do.

One final note - I have located a folder that documents a potential family unit for Christopher McNally back in Ireland.  In the very near future, I'm going to document that on the blog and tie that in to the Y-DNA testing I have going on FTDNA.

Book Review - "Finding Your Roots: Easy-to-Do Genealogy and FamilyHistory" by Janice Schultz

I read a lot of books, both fiction and non-fiction, and one of the main varieties of non-fiction that I read are genealogy books, whether on general instruction or specific themes (such as DNA, sourcing, particular record types, etc.).  With the volume of genealogy books that I read, close to one per month, I thought that I might add a book review as a semi-regular feature to the blog.

The first book to be reviewed in this feature is "Finding Your Roots: Easy-to-Do Genealogy and Family History" by Janice Schultz, published by Huron Street Press, an imprint of the American Library Association. According to the biographical blurb, prior to retirement in 2013, Ms. Schultz was the genealogy librarian/branch manager for the Midwest Genealogy Center at the Mid-Continent Public Library.  I've never been to the MGC, but I know it is a major genealogical library.

"Finding Your Roots" is a reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date genealogy how-to instructional book, suitable for beginners to genealogy, but with enough information to serve as a solid refresher for more experienced practitioners. In the preface, Schultz states that her original intent was to update Ray Wright's "The Genealogist's Handbook", originally published in 1995. (A good book, by the way, one which I read some months ago and recommend.)  The weakness of Wright's book is that it set in the pre-web world of research, and Schultz does a fine job of bringing the concepts into the 21st century.

What I'm always looking for in an instructional book is some nugget that I wasn't aware of before, even something so small as a mention of a resource I wasn't previously aware of .  For example, in a section about military records, Schultz mentions a periodical concerned with Confederate veterans that published between 1893 and 1932 called "The Confederate Veteran" and that it is available at FamilySearch.  I know of at least one Confederate veteran in my wife's tree, so I'll be taking a look at that resource in due time.

There are a few small issues I saw - the discussion on sourcing your research is an afterthought rather than a proper section in its own right, and I believe that she is factually mistaken when she states that New York passenger arrival records are extant from 1820, as I distinctly recall seeing something in print from NARA that there are missing passenger arrival lists for the port of New York prior to 1850, but I cannot put my hands on that document at this time, so I could be mistaken.

Overall, "Finding Your Roots" is a solid effort, worthy of a place in your genealogy library if you do not already own a good how-to book or at the very least, a check-out from your local public library.

Grade:  B+

Resolutions Genealogical

2013 was a great and productive year in many ways, but not for my genealogical research or for this blog - the demands of keeping up with a pair of toddler boys proved too great to allow much in the way of time or energy in that regard.  I intend to do better in 2014, although admittedly, that wouldn't be difficult, as I only completed one post in 2013.  That said, here are my genealogical resolutions for 2014.

Resolution the first - I resolve to produce a new blog post about every two weeks, roughly two a month.  This resolution shall be aided by one of my Christmas presents - a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad, allowing me to write more efficiently with the pad, as I do not have to resort to the touch screen keyboard.

Resolution the second - I purchased Legacy Family Tree 8 back in early December.  I am going to move my tree into Legacy 8 and source everything according to Evidence Explained.   My sources in my current database are a mess and need to be redone.

Resolution the third - I am going to use either Clooz or Evidentia (or both) to analyze my sources more fully.  I'm trying to take my genealogy to the next level, and I think these tools can help.

Resolution the fourth - I am finally going to get my genealogy workspace set up and organized.  Right now my files are boxed up in shambles, and I have boxes of loose papers to get filed.  Its a big mess that needs fixing.

Resolution the fifth -  I am going to photograph and transcribe the three or four small cemeteries that are within a few miles of my house.  I believe that the local branch of the OGS has done transcriptions, but I am unaware of any photos of these cemeteries.  Where I post the data is still to be determined.

There's more I could tackle (and might), like a McNally one-name study, but the five resolutions I have made should keep me plenty busy in the new year.

Good hunting, and happy new year.

Current doings

The boys have been keeping me busy, not leaving much time for actual genealogical research or posting new stories to the blog. This doesn't mean I've been sitting idle, watching the world go by and twiddling my thumbs. I steal a few minutes here and there to do some looking on Ancestry, and I've started to dig into the 1940 census records. I've found most of my living ancestors, but there are a few holdouts hiding in the paper trail, waiting to be discovered. I've also been preparing for a trip to the Ohio Historical Society Archives, after making some discoveries on FamilySearch.

I've also been doing a lot of thinking about how I want to move the blog forward, to keep telling stories and to keep connecting with far-flung relatives, and I think that the way to best do that given my time constraints is to hold true to the blog title, and start telling stories in the form of a pedigree chart in story form. Using standard pedigree chart numbering, my sons are numbers 1a and 1b, I am number 2, my wife, 3, and so on. Of course, with living people on the tree, those entries will be highly abbreviated to protect their privacy.

The first few entries will be short, so here they go.

1A & 1B. My sons. Although I have countless stories of their antics, some of which are entertaining, the simple truth is that their stories are yet to be told, and while I hope to be a significant part of those stories, they will not be mine to tell.

2 & 3. Myself and my wife (living Bone ) Hopefully, our stories are also largely to be discovered, and maybe one or both of my sons will tell them.

4 & 5.  My father (living McNally) and my mother (living Farley). They're both still alive so in order to protect their privacy, no further information shall be provided.

6 & 7. My wife's father (living Bone) and mother (living Kinder). Same thing applies here.

That gives you a brief outline of the tree so far. While there are still a few more living ancestors to be glossed over, the stories begin in ernest on the next post with number 8 on the tree, my paternal grandfather, Gerald Richard McNally.

Military Monday - William J. Miller

I have at least three direct ancestors that served in the Civil War (all Union), and my wife has at least two that fought for the Union and one that fought for the Confederacy.  A few weeks ago, I relayed the story of Isaac Edward Wentz, laid low by poor sanitation conditions in a Confederate POW facility and the runs.  Today, I continue the tales of ancestral military woe with William J. Miller.

Willam J. Miller is my third great grandfather, on my paternal grandmother's maternal line. He was born 12 September 1826 in Franklin County, Pennsylvania and died 24 January 1901 in Blair County, Pennsylvania.  He married Mary Jane Sneath on 10 July 1850 in Blair County.

In early March of 1865, he enrolled and mustered in to the Pennsylvania, B - 6 Cavalry, and in the few short months before the end of the war, he was transferred to Company F and the Pennsylvania Provisional Cavalry.  He saw action in this time, as he suffered injuries that compromised both his health and his hearing.  And in July 1865 after the end of the war, he went home, back to Blair County to be with his family, where he lived until January of 1901.

In November 1911, his widow filed for a Widow's Pension under the terms of the 1908 Act, and filed the following Declaration:

Here's a link to a copy of the document you can enlarge.

In December of that year, Mary Jane Miller received a reply

 According to the Army, William was a deserter as of 14 July, 1865, and as such, neither he nor his spouse were eligible for a pension.

This prompted some back and forth between the Millers and the Pension's Division, including this letter from the Millers.

It does not appear anywhere in the record that the charge of desertion was ever removed or that Mary Jane ever received a pension. 

I'm sure that there are countless other soldiers who suffered the same fate, who simply went home when they thought the war was over and never received a proper discharge and were then denied an invalid's or widow's pension.  I sometimes wonder if there is any action I could take to clear the charge of desertion from William Miller's record, or if anyone other than me would even care.  For what it's worth, I don't think of William as some sort of criminal or scoundrel, just a man broken by the war and, when hearing it was over, just wanted to go home.

Christopher McNally, Part III

A number of years ago, on 7 April 2008 to be exact, I posted a query on the McNally message board at Rootsweb. (link here) Here's the content of the post

Looking for informatin concerning Christopher McNally.
Birth: 25 Dec 1819, Dublin, Ireland
Death: 1903, Bedford County, PA
Married: 1851 - Rosanna Pearson, Blair County, PA

According to his naturalization papers, Christopher arrived in the U.S. in September 1844. The date of birth is from his obituary and is not confirmed by any other source at this time. I've got him well documented once he is in the U.S., but lack any info about his parents, actual date of birth, etc. Possible names for his parenst would be Thomas or his father and Mary or Lavin for his mother (These names are inferred from tradfitional Irish naming patterns - the second son and first daugter match the pattern of being named for wifes parents, and i have no reason to believe that they would have deviated for the first son and the second daughter). Any help or insight would be appreciated. Thanks.

That post might well represent the most important genealogical action I have ever taken, as it allowed me to connect with quite a few other of Christopher's descendants,  many of whom I regularly correspond with to this day.   Besides the odd typo, still present in the post, I made at least one mistake with my query.  Quite simply, I feel like I didn't make clear in a strong enough fashion that with respect to the names of Christopher's parents, my comments were pure and utter speculation, designed to facilitate a potential line of research and not intended to be taken as fact.

Fast forward to last week.   I recently reactivated my Ancestry.com membership, and was taking a look at some of the user generated content, when I came upon Christopher McNally in a tree, listed with "Thomas" as his father and "Mary or Lavina" as his mother.  Five minutes investigation revealed five or six trees, all containing similar information.  I contacted the various tree owners to see if any of them had documentation confirming Christopher's parentage.  A few wrote back, saying that they had taken the information from one of the other trees, some didn't respond, so I couldn't determine the originator or originators of the information, but I have a pretty good idea how it started. 

That said, and my feelings about user trees on Ancestry aside (there are some really great, sourced public trees, and there are also quite a few that are rubbish), last week I came upon some information that I thought might be of interest to Christopher McNally researchers. 

One of the podcasts I listen to mentioned that the Irish National Archives was actively digitizing and posting Irish church records (both Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland) at  the Irish Genealogy web site.  I surfed over to the site, and just for fun, put in Christopher McNally into the search box.  There was one result in particular that I found interesting - an 1816 Roman Catholic baptismal for a "Christopherium McNally" in the St. Andrew Parish of Dublin, baptised in 1816 with parents listed as "Lavi McNally" for the father and "Mara" as the mother.  There was just an abstract, no image or transcription, no further granularity in the date, listing Christopher, his parents and his sponsors (Pat McNally and Joanna McNally). 

This piqued my curiosity, and I performed some more searches. I started with McNally as the surname with "Lavi" as the father with no results.  I switched to "Mara" as the mother and an additional record fell out, an 1826 baptismal (Roman Catholic, St. Andrew parish, Dublin) for a "Mariam McNally", parents listed as "Laurentii McNally", mother as "Mara Dillon", with "Thoma McNally" and "Rosa Dillon" the sponsors. I feel pretty strongly that the Christopher and Mariam listed are siblings - I think that Laurentii McNally and Lavi McNally are one in the same.  These records are in Latin, and in Latin "u" and "v" are represented by the same character ("v"), so it is likely that "Lavi" is really "Laui" - that particular priests Latinized abbreviation for Laurence (the marriage record for Laurence and Mara is for "Laurentium McNally").  

So what I have is a Christopher McNally, Catholic from Dublin Ireland, born in approximately the right time frame with a sister Mary, which matches the note in one background document about Christopher that he emigrated with a sister named Mary who ended up in California.  I could not locate either marriage or burial record for either Christopher or Mary in the database, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, only that no such record has been abstracted.  That gives me a few pieces of circumstantial evidence in support of the possibility that the Christopher I found might be my ancestor.

This circumstantial evidence does not, by any stretch of the imagination, constitute proof that the two individuals are the same, so please don't quote me on this.  I have no evidence linking my Christopher in Bedford County, Pennsylvania to the Christopher McNally in Dublin, Ireland.  At best, I have a new avenue of research to follow to confirm or refute this conjecture. 

I'm going to hold on to these records, keep checking the Irish Genealogy database and gather more information - see if I can unearth any other siblings (another son with an unbroken line of McNally son's would be ideal, as Y-Chromosome testing could be used to confirm or refute a common ancestor).  And I'll continue to dig on this side of the Atlantic to see what I can uncover. Because, ultimately, that's what's important - the act of seeking.

Tech Tuesday - Dropbox, or How the Cloud Saved My Netbook from Obsolesence

A while back, I was listening to a back episode of Geneabloggers Blog Talk Radio and Thomas MacEntee mentioned this Cloud Computing service he uses called Dropbox for sharing data amongst his various computing devices.  I remembered reading an article in a genealogy magazine that mentioned it, so I surfed over to the website, http://www.dropbox.com and gave it a look.  I reviewed the site, saw I could use it to share data between my laptop and my Apple devices (iPad and iPhone) more conveniently than iCloud (which is great for sharing among Apple devices but not so much with my Windows PC), so I installed it on my PC and i-devices and it worked as advertised.  It didn't hurt that 2GB of storage is free - I'm not sure I would have paid for the service at the time.

Shortly after getting my iPad back in December, I purchased the Families app, designed to work with Legacy Family Tree genealogy software.  It was nice to be able to share my family tree data from my PC to my iPad and iPhone, but if I made any edits to the data, it was a pain in the rear to sync the data back up so all of my devices were working with the same data.  Plus, data entry in Families is something of a chore and not nearly as robust as in Legacy.  The iPad is a wonderful device, with many incredible applications, but it was coming up short in one way I wanted to use it - as an extension of my laptop for genealogy.

Fast forward a few weeks.  I had just recently completed the first phase of reorganizing my laptop - cleaning up the desktop, rearranging and organizing files on the hard drive, getting rid of unneeded applications and so on.  It's a worthwhile endeavour if you are anything like I am and basically did no maintenance or organization in the three or so years since I originally bought the laptop.

Then, inspiration struck.  I looked at my poor, lonely netbook, nearly forgotten in the wake of my new devices.  The netbook was slow and underpowered, used primarily for travel and when I rode the train when I lived in D.C.  I'd even thought about selling it to get a little value back out.  I fired it up and started the process of cleaning it up, jettisoning all sorts of unnecessary and unneeded programs and data, dumping pretty much everything except OpenOffice and a few games.  I downloaded Legacy and DropBox, then moved my Legacy files to Dropbox.  Now, I had a light-weight device with great battery life that could seamlessly share by genealogy database with my laptop.  And after getting rid of the various toolbars that had accumulated on my browser, I could actually surf the web at a reasonable speed.  Although the iPad is nice for web browsing, the netbook is better for both HeritageQuest and FamilySearch, both crucial stops on your average genealogical quest.

There's a lot of great technology out there that can make life easier for the genealogist.  The Cloud, through Dropbox, has certainly improved mine.  

Military Monday - Isaac E. Wentz

I think that most people, when researching their family tree, secretly (or not so secretly) hope that when they give their family tree a good shake, a war hero will fall out.  It's understandable, hoping for a little excitement and deeds of daring-do amongst the dry recitation of names, dates and places that are, by necessity, the staples of genealogical research.  And, "Would you like to hear the story of how your great-great-great uncle Hezekiah won the battle of Nobbled Ridge?" is a much better icebreaker to family not familiar with your research than an introduction to pedigree charts and family group sheets.  (The battle of Nobbled Ridge never really happened, but Hezekiah would have been magnificent there if it did).

The reality of the situation is that this scenario is almost never the case, and most "war hero" stories suffer from significant embellishment, often growing in magnitude as the story is passed down through the generations. You won't get that here - no embellishment, just the truth as I know and learn it.  The truth is that most soldiers that go off to war are lucky (and happy) to get home under their own power with most of their limbs and major organs in

One of my favorite sources of genealogical information are Civil War pension application files, particularly if the application is being made by a widow. Depending on how soon after the War the application was filed, there can be a huge wealth of information, as marriages have to be proved and dates of birth of minor children have to be established.  The right application file can crush a brick wall and give you leads to research that can move a live generations back in time.  Not all application files are this fruitful, but some are, and they almost all contain some parcel of information worth having (although some might not be worth the $75 that NARA currently charges for the file by mail).

One thing I really like that is often found in these files are bits and pieces of correspondence - letters and notes that add some real depth to the people involved in the process, and that is where the tale of two soldiers begins.  On my father's side of the family, I have two known, confirmed civil war veterans, Isaac Edward Wentz and William J. Miller, and I have pension files for both soldiers.  Today's discussion is about Isaac Wentz.  William Miller's story will have to wait for another day

Isaac Edward Wentz is my great x 3 grandfather (through my father's paternal grandmother). He was born in 1831 in Bedford County, Pennsylvania and married Susanna Fickes in 1857. They had four children - John H. (my great x 2 grandfather), Leah, Rebecca, and Elizabeth. He enlisted in Company E of the Pennsylvania Cavalry and mustered in in early 1864.  He saw action, and by his own account was taken prisoner in early 1865.  A letter to his wife dated May 4, 1865, posted from Raleigh, North Carolina states:

Dear Wife,
  Availing myself of the services of our Chaplin, I hereby inform you that at present I am here in the 1st Division Hospital, 23rd Army Corps, suffering from chronic diarrhea.  I came here on the last day of April, and I can not say that I any better yet, though I am able to go about.  The weather is very fine & health-inspiring, and I hope by careful attention & medicine soon to recover & return to my ? ?. On the 13th day of April when our cavalry were making a charge on the rebels near Raleigh, I was taken prisoner & I remained in their hands at Greensboro until the 30th of April, when they discharged me, after the surrender of the rebel Gen. Johnston, and sent me down here, where I am now in hospital.  The war being now about over, the general impression prevails that we will all soon go home and out of the service. Hoping that you and the children are well, I am ever
  Your faithful husband Isaac Wentz

(The images are scans of photocopies and quality-wise, are the best I can do with the materials I have available to me.)

So at the beginning of May, Isaac was laid low with diarrhea, but hopeful that he would be home soon to see his wife and children.  This, however, was not to be.

On June 29th, 1865, a Mr. M. H. Hadley posted a short letter to an unidentified "Sir" of Union Township, Bedford County, Pennsylvania from the Sick Soldiers Rest in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Dear Sir:

Isaac Wentz of 13th Regt. Penn Cavalry Co. E is nearly dead with chronic diarrhea at this "Rest". He was brought here at 3 o'clock this morning.  If he has any friend who can attend to him, he had better come here at once.  I do not believe he can live a week, perhaps not three days.  He says he has a wife and other friends in your township.  Can you notify them?

  Yours truly

   M. H. Hadley

   Supt S.S. Rest, Harrisburg 

Isaac Edward Wentz died on 29 June 1865, the day the letter was posted, never making it home to see his wife and children. 

The Pension Application file is full of great information, lots of proof of relationship, name and date.  But those two letters breathe some life into the story, make Isaac a person, not just a collection of facts.

I have a Pension Application file for William Miller and will be tracking down some others (from my mother's side of the family and my wife's ancestors) the next time I make it to DC and can go to NARA. More stories to be told. 

A quick follow up on Christopher McNally

I had a request to post the complete picture from which I cropped the photo of Christopher.

Back Row: Hilda Kennedy; Maggie Kennedy (Kyler); Lavina McNally Kennedy (daughter of Christopher)
Front Row: Collie Kennedy; Christopher McNally; Bessie Kennedy (Reed)

I cannot vouch for the names, but they look reasonable based on what I know about the Kennedys.  Thanks again to Deb Pfieffer for sending me this photo, along with a few others of some of Christopher's descendants through his son Edward.  I'll post those at an appropriate time.

More soon.

Introducing Christopher McNally

It's been a busy week, genealogically speaking. The RootsWeb Blair County mailing list had its annual "Roll Call" and listing of surnames and I spent a few hours corresponding with distant cousins I didn't know existed about ancestors we share.  The folks on the Blair County list are some of the nicest people you would ever want to meet and its a real pleasure making connections with them.  And, as an added bonus, for the first time ever, someone actually responded about my McNally surname. 


Of all my ancestors, I've invested the most time and effort in researching Christopher McNally and his descendants. He is my McNally immigrant ancestor, my great x 3 grandfather and the patriarch of the initial line I started researching all those many years ago.  Over the years, I have corresponded with a few other researchers about Christopher, most of whom I met as the result of queries placed on various genealogical message boards. Every once in a while, I get an e-mail from someone who is just seeing the posts for the first time, asking me what I know about Christopher.


First a picture:

Deb Pfeiffer provided me with this photograph (actually a group photo that I cropped this from), and a few others.  She's one of the nice people I've shared information with as a result of the message board queries. 

Christoper McNally's obituary in the 26 September 1902 Bedford Gazette lists his date of birth as 25 December 1819 and his place of birth as Dublin, Ireland.  The place of birth is consistent with his Delcaration from his naturalization papers.  His date of birth, however, varies between 1818 and 1822 depending on which document you look at (census records and the naturaliztion records, as well as his obituary).  The 25 December 1819 date was also repeated in the article "McNally Family Active In Cove Iron Industry", the details of which seemed to be repeated from his obituary.  Absent finding a birth record from Ireland, at best I think the 1818-1822 range is best that can be said about his date of birth. (The Cove mentioned in the article is Morrison's Cove, a region of south-central Pennsylvania that straddles the Blair County/Bedford County border)

What is not in question, however, is when Christopher arrived in the United States.  His Declaration and Petition for Naturalization both state that he arrived in the United States on 23 September 1844 at the port of New York. Neither document lists the name of the ship on which he sailed, only that it originated in Liverpool.  I have personally reviewed the microfilm avaialable at the National Archives for the entire month of September of 1844 for ships arriving at the port of New York and could not locate any entry that might remotly correspond to Christopher. I do know that prior to 1850, there is not a complete record of arrivals and some passenger lists have been lost, so it is likely that the ship he arrived on might never be known.   His obituary states that he arrived in the United States in 1848, but I believ that to be an error, as his Declaration for naturalization was filed on 28 August 1849 and gives the 1844 arrival date.

He became an American citizen with the completion of the naturalization process on 29 September 1851.   His father and brother-in-law Edward and William Pearson both signed the petition as his character witnesses.  Also of interest from his naturalization documents is that Christopher McNally, as least in 1851, could not write as he signed with a mark.

He married Rosanna Pearson (1831-1896), daugther of Edward Perason, on 6 February 1851, at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Newry, Blair County, Pennsylvania.  Rosanna converted to the Catholic Church and was baptised on that same day.  The Blair County Genealogical Society  has transcribed the records of St. Patrick's Church for the time period 1828-1907 and has made those records available in two volumes.  I have not seen the original church records, only the BCGS transcriptions.

Christopher and Rosanna had six children -

1. Thomas Christopher McNally (1852-1912) m. Anna Martha Myers
2. Edward McNally (1853-1932) m. Atalanda Martha Hainsey
3. Margaret McNally (1859 - ?) m. Herman Goettleman
4. Mary Lavina McNally (1860-1942) m. John Kennedy
5. Richard McNally (1860 - 1934) m. Emma Hengst
6. James McNally (1866 - ?) m. Alice Sullivan

Details about various of Christopher and Rosanna's children will likely be the subjects of future blog posts.

Rosanna Pearson died on 25 March 1896 after being struck by an ore train operated by the Duncan Mines in Bedford County, Pennsylvania.  She was hard of hearing and likely did not hear the train coming from around a bend in the line.  She was buried at the Catholic cemetery at St. Patrick's Church in Newry.

 

 

Christopher's daughter Mary Lavina and her familiy came to live with Christopher after Rosanna's death, and lived with him until his death on 17 September 1902.  It is said in his obituary that he left work at the mines on 11 September 1902, complaining of not feeling well and passed a few days later.

His obituary states "He was every man's friend and had a kind word for all he met, no matter when or where.  He was always cheerful, generous and obliging."  Admirable traits, and I hope that people speak that nicely of me.

There are a few open issues with regard to Christopher-

First - I know nothing about his parents.  I've ran across no documents that name or even hint at his parents, and all I know about his origin is that he was born in Dublin County, Ireland.  From what I understand about Irish research, you really need to know the parish to make reasonable progress.  The wholesale destruction of the Irish censuses prior to 1900 don't make finding this information any easier.

Second - In a document I received from the above-mentioned Deb Pfeiffer (that was compiled by an unnamed great-grandchild of Christopher McNally through Edward McNally), it states that Christopher has a known sister by the name of Mary with some kind of tie to California.  It also states she immigrated with him.  This document is the only place I have ever seen this sister mentioned.  I would love to see additional documentation of this sister.

Third - The St. Patrick's baptismal records show a baptism for a "Georgius Guielmus McAnally" with no listed date of birth and a baptism date of 28 July 1875, with Cristopher and Rosanna listed as the parents and Thomas as the sponsor.   Is this a seventh child, one who perhaps died young and did not live long enough to be reflected in a census, or a delayed baptism for one of Edward or James?  My belief is that this is likely James's baptism and not a seventh child, as there is no burial record for an additional child and Christopher's obituary states that Rosanna bore him six children, all still alive at the time of Christopher's death.


Note - a less narrative version of this account, along with additional citations and such will show up in the near future as a separate page. 

Anyone have anything to add or can shed any light on the open issues?

Confessions (of a Genealogical Nature)

Many of my ancestors were members of a religious organization that believes that confession is not only good for the soul, but is, in fact, required. In that spirit, I'd like to offer up a few genealogical confessions, to lighten the load on my genealogical spirit.


First, I will admit that I haven't always been the best correspondant.  I've let e-mail languish for embarssingly long periods of time before dashing off a sheepish reply, full of apologies and promises of better behavior in the future, along with at least some information that had been requested.  Most of my correspondents have been understanding, but I'm sure there are a few potential relationships that I have dealt near-irreparable damage by this behavior. I've gotten better with age, and strive to respond to e-mails, letters and the like in a reasonable amount of time.


Second, over the past fifteen years I've made virtually every mistake that an amateur genealogist can make, in terms of research and recording. I don't think I cited any sources for the first five years, I've made photocopies out of books without noting the source. I've found records in courthouses without noting any of the citation data, including, for a few documents floating around my files, the courthouse where found. If there's a mistake that can be made, I've made it. I'd like to believe I've learned something from all my miscues.  Heck, someday I might even be able to figure out where I found a particulary vexing photocopy that includes a marriage for one of my ancestors with a cryptic cross-reference to the original. 

Finally, and related in part to my first confession, I haven't really done my part to be a good member of the genealogial community and shared the work I have done (as good as some of it is and as suspect as some other parts).  But that's where this blog comes in, to help in the sharing.  I've already shared some surnames and locality information, and my next post is going to be all about sharing, as I am planning on talking about my immigrant McNally ancestor, Christopher McNally.  That's all for now.