Local & family history: Demolition of Kings Park psych center buildings set

Newsday reported today that demolition of the old Kings Park Psychiatric Center will probably begin later this month. Though it closed officially in 1996, at the turn of the 20th century, this psych center on the North Shore of Long Island was home to many psych patients from Brooklyn (Kings County, hence the name Kings Park for the area - before that, it was known as St. Johnland. You can read details and history on the place here. It's all very fascinating, how people and families used to have to care for senior family members or members with senility or with actual psychiatric problems. Many of them couldn't, hence these psychiatric centers. And at the turn of the century, even they didn't know exactly how to deal with these people.

But the demolition of Kings Park hits particularly close to home for me because my great-great grandmother, Nora Donohue Cronin, lived there for at least 20 years. She emigrated from Ireland to New York shortly before the turn of the 20th century to be with her children - she had nine children here but something was wrong enough with her that none of them could care for her, or wanted to care for her. And she was about in her 70s when she died, which means she was institutionalized by the time she was in her 50s. I asked my grandmother, Mary Cronin Raynor, once what she remembered of her grandmother or what she knew about her time at Kings Park, but she didn't know anything - she was young when Nora died and back then, mental problems just weren't discussed I guess. Psychiatric records are also almost impossible to get ahold of, so it looks like this is a family mystery that will forever remain a mystery, why Nora lived at Kings Park for so many years. I've driven past the center several times, never been, and I know that there's no reason NOT to demolish the facility, but as it's a part of not just local history but my own family history, it still makes me sad.

You can find the Newsday article here.





Building 123 sits abadoned, with its roof collapsing,File:KingsParkPC-Building 93.jpg

Where there's a will, there's a way: FamilySearch to the rescue again, New York Probate Records, 1629-1971

Cousin April and I have been on the hunt, seriously now, for months to find out or prove the parents of Jacob Raynor, our common ancestor. We looked at earmark records in the state archives in Albany, we looked at inventories of estate in the archives at Hofstra University, and our next step was to visit the Queens County Surrogate Court to look at wills. Well, the wills have found us. FamilySearch.org is constantly updating the records available online at their website and so I check back regularly. Yesterday I realized that they have probate records for many (not all) of the counties in New York State, including, that's right, Queens County. Hallelujah! The genealogy gods are finally taking pity on my broke, weary soul! The only problem is, if you like easy solutions, that these sections aren't indexed - they're organized, to an extent, thank god, but not indexed. But you wouldn't be into genealogy if you liked easy solutions, would you? It took me most of the day yesterday to find some of the things I was looking for, but find them I did, after checking the index for names, and then matching those names to either letters of administration for people who didn't have wills, or to actual wills. It looks like, at least in Queens County, the wills are transcriptions of wills, not the actual wills, but it's the whole deal, not just an abstract. Whitehead Raynor, god bless his racist soul, was quite descriptive about family relationships in his will, and Samuel Seaman, another great-plus-grandfather of mine, I was actually able to prove for the first time was my great-plus-grandfather thanks to his descriptiveness of relationships. I have only glanced at Jacob slightly - I'm not sure I have the will or stamina to jump into that without Cousin April's support. But if you have New York family history and more than a few hours on hand, I highly recommend looking at this set of records. I checked out Kings County and Westchester County as well to look at family there and the categories and breakdown of records are similar to Queens, though not exact. It, like everything else we do in this field, is a puzzle that you have to put together, but the pieces are there! I can't wait to get back to it...good luck in your searches!

Happy weekend, y'all! :)

Happy Independence Day, America!

Today is the United States' birthday - 236 years old, which, when you really think about it, is a very young birthday for a country. On July 4, the course of this nation's history changed, and most of my family was not happy with that course. But my family has been here so long - almost 150 years by July 4, 1776 - that I consider myself almost thoroughly American. Even when I research my German or Irish or Danish family, it's almost ancient history. I am American. My family history is American, is the history of this country. My family saw it all. And so today I'm inspired again to find out more about what life was like for my family when they lived in this colony, when they lived in this fledgling country, and as they watched the United States change and grow. Happy Independence Day, everyone - have a fun and safe holiday and hopefully you'll be celebrating with family, be it the family you were born into or the family of friends you chose, because FAMILY is what it's all about!

Tombstone Tuesday: Zachariah Story and wife Mary



The graves of my 5th-great grandparents Zachariah and Mary Story, located in the Bangall Baptist Church #1 Cemetery in Bangall, Dutchess County, New York. I have so much Long Island New York family history that one day when I get a chance I'd love to delve deeper into some of my upstate roots - I think that would be fascinating. Zachariah was actually born near Charleston, South Carolina around 1732, and died in Stanfordville, Dutchess County, in 1811. His wife, though, Mary, is supposed to be from the upstate area, possibly Kingston - she died in 1812.





Zachariah Story headstone - very faded and worn.


Mary Story headstone - also very faded and worn.

A Daughter of the American Revolution???

I never had aspirations to belong to the Daughters of the American Revolution. A cousin of mine did/does, but I always knew better - yes, my family was here 150 years before the Revolutionary War, but the Raynors, like much of the Hempstead English settlers, were Loyalists. The DAR wouldn't touch me with a 50-foot pole.

But that was okay. The American Revolution was a pivotal moment in American history but it was only one small part in a very long, varied, storied history. My ancestors weren't Patriots. They didn't come over on the Mayflower. But they shaped American history, from those who came here in the 1600s to my great-grandfather in the 1890s. My family and I are still shaping this country today.

Enter today.

The past couple of days I've taken to looking up people from my family tree in Google News and Google Books - great-great grandpa Rudolph Stutzmann turns up in all sorts of newspaper pages AND books, as it turns out. But I already know a whole lot about Rudy - he is fascinating to me, especially in a day and age when there's a lot of distrust and resentment for big banks and big bankers, as Rudy was at the turn of the 20th century. But he might be the ancestor I know the most about. Lately I've been obsessing about finding a colonial New Amsterdam Dutch link in my family tree, and I have some brick walls that might prove fruitful if only I could break through them, so I've been plugging in all sorts of names - Whitehead Raynor turned up in the news a few times - between his estate being auctioned and his estate inventory, I've learned much more about ole' Whitey and he was fairly well off for an early 19th century fisherman - heck, he's more well off than me! - but that's an entry for another day. So far, the New Amsterdam Dutch link is still proving to be a deadend, much to my chagrin... I finally plugged in the name "Elijah Sprague." Elijah was my 5th great-grandfather, and his father was also Elijah. This is all based on other people's works and conjecture and educated guesses from my own legwork. But wouldn't you know Elijah Sprague Sr. turned up in Google Books under a book citing Patriots who served in the American Revolution...what the what? I decided to check out the DAR website itself and there he is - serving in the Albany County militia and under Captain Benjamin Hewlett. He's in the database. He is an established Patriot. And apparently he died in Canada. I knew several of his siblings had settled in Canada, but I didn't think I had a direct ancestor who had settled in Canada. The thing is, I can't PROVE my link to him. Not yet, anyway. All the names are right, but the proof, the paper link, isn't there yet. But at least now I have a name to TRY to connect to. My Raynor ancestors must be rolling in their graves!

So, I figured, if I have one possible Patriot on my line, I might have another. I have very few non-Raynor lines in that time period that I can trace, but I plugged in "William Johnson" into the DAR database, and he turned up. William Johnson is a possible 6th great grandfather of mine. It's a common name, but I know this William Johnson in the DAR database is my possible William Johnson because he had a son with an unusual name - Gilbert. And William served under Captain Peter Nostrand and Colonel Josiah Smith. Oh, I also know it's my possible William because the year he died is correct - I have a will abstract for William Johnson for 1818, which matches up. I think I am related to William Johnson through my fourth great grandfather Richard Poole. William Johnson had a grandson Richard Pool. My gut tells me they are the same person - and all the circumstantial evidence will have to be addressed in a subsequent entry - but I have no PROOF they are the same person. But it gives me something else to work on, a concrete person to try to link to.

Will I join the DAR if I can prove any of this? Eh. Maybe. But I know my cousin will be very happy. And Cousin April has found her own unexpected possible DAR connection, so even though its different people for us, maybe this is another project we can work on together! (Genealogy is much more fun when you have someone to share it with!)

Great Migration Database at AmericanAncestors.org: Connecting Edward Raynor to history

I got an e-mail today from the New England Historic Genealogical Society about updates to their Great Migration database, based on the publication The Great Migration, Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. That period of time is known as the Great Migration because immigration to Massachusetts surged in numbers - that happens to be the time period most of my early American ancestors came over, including my Raynor family, and since the new edition to the database was for immigrants with names starting with R and S, I decided to look up my immigrant ancestor, Edward Raynor.

There wasn't much there I didn't already know: from Elmsett, Suffolk, England, born about 1624, sailed from Ipswich, England on 30 April 1634 with his probable uncle Thurston Raynor and Thurston's family, settling first in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1635, Stamford, Connecticut in 1641, and Hempstead, New York in 1644. I think about Edward all the time, sailing across the Atlantic to an unknown wilderness as an orphaned 10-year-old and then being continually uprooted for the next ten years, building settlements from scratch, navigating and exploring unknown lands, dealing with the sometimes unfriendly natives. I wish I could picture it a little more clearly, what it must have been like. But after all of that, no wonder, once he came of age, he refused to follow his uncle when Thurston once again uprooted his family and moved to Southampton, and no wonder Edward's descendants were perfectly happy to stay right where they were for the next 350 years.

The profile says he was a herdsman, which I knew, and that he signed his name with a mark, which I didn't. It also said he inherited his land at Hempstead, not from his uncle, but probably from John Strickland, another original proprietor. What I found really interesting though is that the profile says that on July 4, 1656, Edward made his mark on a petition from the inhabitants of Hempstead to Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam (even though they were English, they were in Dutch territory and had been granted the right to settle in Hempstead by Governor Willem Kieft.) Further research says the petition claimed that because the settlers were paying a tithe to Stuyvesant, that he should reimburse them for injuries received from the Indians. I thought that was fascinating - not only because it gives another tiny glimpse into what life was like for him 350 years ago - that he was sending part of his goods and produce to the governor of New Amsterdam, but that unfriendly Indians were a worry - but it connects my personal family history to the general, well-known history of New York and America. My ancestor, who is not a historical figure to anyone not related to him, signed a petition to a well-known historical figure, Peter Stuyvesant, someone we were taught about in school. Stuyvesant was his contemporary and was someone who had a direct influence on his life. It's not a strong connection, like having actually met him, but it's a connection. Stuyvesant may have held the same piece of paper in his hand that my ancestor did. How cool is that?

If you're a member of NEHGS and have immigrant ancestors from the Great Migration, you can check and see if their profile is in the database on the organization's website, AmericanAncestors.org.

1940 U.S. Census: New York is here!

I went onto Ancestry today and all these tiny green leaves began popping up on my family tree - and surprise, surprise, they're legitimate! If you're an Ancestry.com subscriber and you have family from New York, the New York records for the 1940 U.S. Census are now indexed and searchable by name! Definitely a pleasant surprise on what has been an otherwise stressful week! DC, Delaware, Maine, and Nevada are also searchable on Ancestry - but if you had family living in other states, be sure to check the FamilySearch website - their volunteer indexers have been unbelievable and are working at a breakneck speed; they have a lot more states than Ancestry already searchable by name. And that is all for now, because I have some 1940 census genealogy to do - off to find my grandmother, Helen Stutzmann Gorry, in a census for the very first time! :)

And the next generation comes along...

I have TOTALLY been slacking on this blog, even though there have been genealogy field trips and new records to talk about and all sorts of fun and infuriating Jacob Raynor updates, but work has been hectic and real life has been getting in the way. So there's a lot to catch up on, but today is a day when genealogy comes to life - family history is about generations past, but we collect it for generations future, and today was the start of a new generation on my mom's side of my family tree - my cousin Tina and her husband Thom celebrated the birth of their first child this morning, Lucas. Lucas is my Aunt Linda and Uncle Cliff's first grandchild, and he's the first great-grandchild of my 97-year-old grandmother, Mary Cronin Raynor. Grandma told me several times of a woman her age who has more than 40 great-grandchildren, but as of last week she kept telling me how excited she was about the birth of her first. Lucas' birth reminded me that while we can get bogged down in the papers and the facts, genealogy is about real people, but more important than that, it's about families, OUR families. So today I say: Lucas, welcome to the family! (You are being added to the tree database as we speak!) :)

Happy Mother's Day

Especially in genealogy, it's so important to remember our MOTHERS and maternal ancestors - after all, we get half our DNA, half our traits, half our stories, half our history from them! Happy Mother's Day everyone! Miss you, Mom, every day...

Me and my mother, Margaret Raynor Gorry, circa 1981.

The mysterious death of Tim Tormey




From the April 18, 1921 issue of The Daily Star...Tim Tormey was my great-grandmother's brother. I think I recall my dad saying that he was kind of named after Tim Tormey (Dad, is this right?) In 1921, my great-grandmother, Mary Tormey, was 25 and unmarried. Her father, Michael, had died in 1908 of pneumonia when she was 12; her brother, also named Michael, died four years later when Mary (also known as Marie) was 16. Three days after Michael died in 1912, Marie's mother, Ellen Prendergast Tormey, died of breast cancer. From what I can tell, from the stories and photos my dad has shared, Marie and her siblings, especially her sisters, were close - and who can blame them? They were all they had.

After Michael Jr. died, Tim was the only brother. In 1921, he was already married ... he had married Adelaide Finn in 1916. It seems he was a bit of a shady character, someone who liked to party and who may have owed some people money, who may have drank too much, who may have flirted with the wrong guy's wife...the official story, as you can see from the newspaper article, is that he fell down the stairs and fractured his skull. I may have a death certificate floating around somewhere, too...you'll have to ask my dad about that.

But the question remains - *how* did Tim Tormey fall down the stairs? It's not like he was old or infirm. Maybe he was drunk. Another theory is that maybe he was pushed during some kind of altercation. I'm not sure we'll ever know the real story. At least, not until I can ask Tim Tormey himself... ;)

For Tim, on my little brother's birthday :)

Some of the old school Frankel Avenue gang, circa 1985. I'm second from left and Tim is, well, the only boy in the picture.



Today is my brother Tim's birthday. This photo I'm posting is a typical summer scene from our childhood on Long Island - hanging out with the gaggle of kids who lived on our street, eating popsicles, a bunch of girls...and Tim. He was a good sport. Especially when we made him play house. :)

My grandfather, Elmer Gorry, had 17 grandkids and only two - my brothers - will carry on the Gorry name. For a very thin branch in which my grandfather and his brother were the first generation in at least three generations to have any branches, at all, and we're lucky to even be here, that's a lot of responsibility, genealogically speaking lol!

Tim lives in California now, and he's not quite as blond - he looks more like a surfer dude in this picture than he does now. He's still a good sport, though - not so much with the playing house, but in listening to all the family tree stuff that I discover. He's on the other side of the country and I won't actually get to spend his birthday with him, but I hope he knows his big sister wishes him a happy birthday anyway!

AncestryDNA is here



I got an e-mail just now that Ancestry.com has finally announced that its new autosomal DNA testing is here. Unlike the traditional mtDNA and y-DNA tests, the autosomal tests are available to both males and females and more specifically gives you an idea of your ethnic make-up and what regions your ancestors came from. For someone like me who is pretty exclusively northwestern European, I'm excited to see if it can isolate any particular subgroups from those regions, but I'm not expecting to find much diversity. For someone like the boyfriend, who has northern European, southern European, black Carribean and Mayan roots, I am almost literally DYING to see what this test can tell him. The last tests I did and made my male relatives do were done only four years ago, but even in that span of time, there have been so many advances in this kind of technology that I'm really looking forward to seeing what kind of light, if any, this new test can shed on my family tree.

If you're an Ancestry subscriber, your invite should be coming. I imagine that it won't be long before the test becomes available to the public. I'm curious to hear from you - is this something you have already pursued or plan to pursue as part of your genealogy research?

Birthday surprise party for John Meinberg, November 13, 1915



As you can see, I'm on a newspaper kick. These are my favorite - the noting of a normal, lifetime event, a moment of family gathering together, a hint that these people weren't just family - they enjoyed spending time together. And most importantly it's a reminder that these people weren't just names and dates - they threw surprise birthdays for each other, they had fun, they did impressions of famous actors, they lived lives, lives that we, as genealogists, believe are worth remembering. In this case, it's a surprise birthday for John Meinberg, my fourth-great uncle. I had hoped it was an article about his father, somebody I know absolutely nothing about - he had four children with my 4th great grandmother and then disappeared between 1873-1878, presumedly dead since she remarried. Still, this was a pretty neat find. Love the reference to Charlie Chaplin, back when he was actually a real live movie star!

The story comes from the Brooklyn Daily Star, November 1915: "A birthday surprise party was given John Meinberg of 1629 Decatur Street, Evergreen, on Saturday evening, November 13. Mr. Meinberg is one of Evergreen's oldest and most prominent residents. ... Dancing and merriment of all kinds were indulged in ... Fred Meinberg jr. gave an impersonation of Charlie Chaplin."

 Among those present were my third great grandparents, Ed and Eva (Meinberg) Haase (Eva was John Meinberg's sister); my great great grandparents, Gus Haase and Meta (Ricklefs) Haase, John and Eva's sister and brother-in-law, Anthony and Elise/Elizabeth Smith, their brother and sister-in-law, Fred C. and Justine Meinberg, their half-sister Katherine and her husband, Henry Hennigan, John's son James W. Meinberg and his not-yet wife Edith Lorch, John's other son John Meinberg Jr., Fred's son Fred Meinberg Jr., August Lorch, who I assume to be Edith's brother, John Sr.'s wife, Emma, my fourth-great grandmother Katherine Hellman (maiden name Naeher, mother of the Meinberg children), her sister Elizabeth Riders, Elizabeth's daughter (and cousin to John, Eva, Elise & Fred Meinberg & Kate Hellmann) Kate Weigert, Elise's sons William, George, and John Smith, John Sr's daughters Dorothy and Deborah Meinberg; and Fred's daughters Elisabeth and Eva Meinberg.

There are a few people I have yet to identify, whether they be family friends or married names of daughters, but I'd like to look into that to see if they are important clues to this tree. But we have here three generations of a family - it just warms my heart to see this!

Whitehead Raynor's estate for sale, 1845

I found this on one of my favorite websites, the newspaper archives at FultonHistory.com, and thought it was so interesting - it doesn't really add anything genealogically (although it does verify some known info) but the description of Whitehead's land helps me picture a little bit what his life might have been like living there. Whitehead Raynor, by the way, is my fifth great-grandfather.

From the Long Island Farmer, July 1845:
Salt Meadow at Auction
The subscribers, executors of Whitehead Raynor, deceased, will sell at Auction on Monday, the fourth day of August, next, at 1 o'clock, P.M., on the premises, the salt meadow, upland, hay house, and landing, formerly belonging to Whitehead and John Raynor, situated at the landing formerly known as John Raynor's, between Raynor South and Hick's Neck, in the town of Hempstead. This tract of meadow contains about 24 acres, and the most of it of a good quality and conveniently situated. It has recently been surveyed and and divided off into four pieces, containing from 5 to 7 acres each, and will be sold separately. The upland contains upwards of 2 acres and has a Hay House on it.
         The terms of sale will be 10 percent on the day of sale, and the balance 1st of May, 1846, when the deed will be given. Title indisputable. For further particulars inquire of Joseph Smith, Merrick, where a Map of the Meadow can be seen.
Joseph Smith
Hiram Raynor
Samuel Raynor, Executors
Hempstead South, July 14, 1845
Should the weather be stormy on the day mentioned above, the sale will take place the first fair day.



Hiram and Samuel Raynor were Whitehead's sons. Joseph Smith was his son in law. Raynor South is now the village of Freeport and Hick's Neck is now the town of Baldwin, located right next to each other. In this second one, from the Long Island Farmer, December 1845, more of Whitehead's property is being sold. Parts read: "executors of the estate of the late Whitehead Raynor, offer the Farm recently owned and occupied by said deceased, situated in the town of Hempstead, on the road leading from Greenwich Point to Raynor South, and about 3 1/2 miles South of the village of Hempstead. Said farm is pleasantly situated, and contains about 50 acres of land, 4 acres which is excellent woodland and 3 acres of wood and swamp. The land is generally of a good quality, and with good fences. There is an orchard containing Apple, Pear, and Plum trees, with other fruit. A well of the very best water conveniently situated. The buildings consist of a two story House and Kitchen adjoining, a small new Dwelling House a few rods below. Also, Barn, Wagon-House, Hovels, and other outbuildings. ...Should the said Farm not be sold at private sale by the first of February next , it will be offered at Public Auction."


Again, Raynor South is present-day Freeport, and Greenwich Point appears to have been in the vicinity of present-day Roosevelt, which is to the town right north of Freeport (if you look at the old map from 1873 here, you can see Babylon Turnpike's northernmost end, which is in Roosevelt).

But I love the descriptions - fruit trees! A well! Woodland! All these buildings dotting the landscape! Can't you just picture what it looked like? I love it! :)

If you love dead people, you're either a serial killer or a genealogist

So sayeth cousin April and I.

So, a few weeks ago already - Good Friday, I think it was, since we both had off - April and I drove up to Albany to take a look at some holdings at the New York State Archives. If you're an armchair genealogist, there's nothing wrong with that - you can find all sorts of perfectly reliable info at your fingertips on the Internet nowadays. Part of the fun for me, though, is the field trips. Even when the field trips are a bit fruitless.

April and I are each currently researching several branches of our own trees but the thing that brought us together and that we're determined to solve, is the mystery of Jacob Raynor's parents. Jacob and his wife Rebecca are our common ancestors - April is descended from their daughter Elizabeth and I am descended from their sons Joseph and James. The Raynor name is huge where we're from on Long Island because they were one of the founding families of the area, but strangely enough, we're connected to them through Rebecca (who, yes, was a Raynor before she married a Raynor - that's what happened in these colonial towns where everybody was related to everybody else!), but no one seems to know who Jacob's parents are. Two theories have been posited but no one can seem to tell me or April the basis for putting forth these possible parents - all we want is some proof of said theories. That was the purpose of our Albany trip.

An interesting but also frustrating thing about genealogy research is that while there are records that are overaching, for the most part, each locality also has its own types of records that you may not find in other places or in other years. In the course of some of her own research, April had stumbled upon something for the Town of Hempstead called the earmark register, in which people had to register the identifying marks on the ears of their cattle. What some of these entries indicate, and what can also be inferred by similarities in earmarks, is who the cattle came from - in many cases, they were inherited by sons or grandsons. If we could find Jacob as someone's son or grandson...well, that would be too easy. That would solve our whole mystery there!

Needless to say, that didn't happen. April and I sat in front of a microfilm machine for hours pouring over pages and pages of indecipherable handwriting and nowhere did we find "Jacob, son of." What we did find, however, were some possibly important clues as to who else to look at to get to the next step - sometimes you can't go back from a person, but you can go back from a sibling or another relative. We saw a lot of "James, son of Jacob"s, which could be my James, son of Jacob, though they were both common names, but two other names were starting to show a pattern - Micajah Raynor and Zebulon Smith.

Gotta love those crazy Old Testament names, huh?

Those two names kept coming up in connection to a Jacob Raynor. Micajah pinged on mine and April's radar because when we took a fruitless field trip up to Boston several months ago, April had brought an inventory of Jacob's estate from 1829 that was put together by a one Micajah Raynor. When we showed it to David Allen Lambert, a professional genealogist with the New England Historic Genealogical Society, his very first reaction, without hesitation, was that Micajah was of course Jacob's brother. Now is it possible he was just a good friend or neighbor? Of course. There were Raynors everywhere at that time. But Dave's gut was telling him something and I never, ever discredit my gut when it comes to following a lead.

Now, Zebulon Smith was NOT a name April or I had ever seen in connection to our Raynors before, but he, too, was turning up everywhere. One set of posited parents for Jacob was Joseph Raynor and Phebe Smith. Was Zebulon Smith Phebe's father? Was he Jacob's grandfather? In many unsubstantiated family trees floating around the Internet, Joseph and Phebe most often are not listed with a son Jacob. But they are listed with a son Micajah. And Zebulah (bastardized version of Zebulon Smith?)

So that's the direction April and I are heading in now. Zebulon and Micajah, unlike Jacob, seem to want to be found, very much so. Is it because they're family? Maybe. But we're thinking if we can somehow find death dates and then wills or property deeds or transactions for Zebulon and/or Micajah and/or Joseph and Phebe, maybe someone will make mention of "my brother/son/cousin/nephew/grandson Jacob...husband of Rebecca, not to be confused with the other Jacobs out there." It's extremely, extremely frustrating. But this is also the exact reason I love genealogy so much - if it wasn't as much of a mystery and a puzzle, it wouldn't be half as fun!

And just as a sidenote, if any of you out there reading this has some reliable research on Micajah Raynor, Zebulon Smith, or Joseph Raynor and Phebe Smith, hit a sister up, would ya? :)

Tombstone Tuesday: Ayn Rand, Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, NY

Cousin April and I went on a genealogy field trip to the New York State Archives in Albany on Friday to try to chip away at the mystery of Jacob Raynor's parents. It was an interesting day, which I will write about in a later post. On the way back, she wanted to stop at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, where some newly discovered relatives were buried. Like many of us with poor relations, they did not have a headstone, but the many people who do have these huge, unique, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ostentatious headstones and mausoleums. The place is just absolutely gorgeous. Anyway, quite a few famous people also happen to be buried there. April and I visited two of them, and I submit this photo I took of Ayn Rand's grave for this week's Tombstone Tuesday post:

Ayn Rand headstone in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, NY. Taken by Mary Ellen Gorry, 6 April 2012.
I'll be honest - I've never actually read any Ayn Rand novels but I am an avid reader and I know she's one of the great figures of modern literature. We also stopped to look at the grave of Lou Gehrig; I posted that photo in my sports blog here. In both cases I loved seeing how simple the headstones were of these two very famous people. I also liked seeing Ayn Rand buried with her husband, and Lou Gehrig surrounded by his family - I think sometimes we forget that even famous historical figures had families and were mothers, wives, and daughters.

Happy 97th birthday to my genealogy inspiration...

Grandma, circa 1930, with her mother, Ellen Casey Cronin.
 My grandmother, Mary Cronin Raynor, is 97 years old today and still kickin'. She started to learn genealogy as a hobby when her kids - my mother, my aunt, and my two uncles - were in school, way back when you still had to use books and write snail mail letters to distant relatives to ask them what information they know, and depend on church records and any old letters or photos or, if you were lucky, birth and death certificates that your parents or grandparents might have kept. My grandmother's family is 100 percent Irish - her dad, Timothy Ambrose Cronin, was born in Ireland, as were her maternal grandparents, Peter Casey and Mary Agnes Enright, and while Grandma did a great job of recording as much as she could find on her family from her grandparents down, what lay beyond that was always a brick wall for her - she even made a trip to Ireland to try to find her grandfather Denis Cronin's grave, but the cemetery was full of Denis Cronins, with no dates or other info on the headstones. I've had a bit more luck, finding Mary Enright's maternal grandparents, but not much more than that. My grandmother kept good notes though full of clues about cousins on her dad's side of the family, and she gave them to me, so at least I have something to work with.

My grandmother actually focused much of what she learned on my grandfather and her husband, Clifford Monroe Raynor's, side of the family. The Raynors have a lot of information out there. My grandmother recorded it all down, and she even researched his mother's side of the family, the Bergs. She wrote down who she got the information from and little anecdotes they told her as well.

After my parents got married, Grandma even went so far as to find information on my *dad's* side of the family tree - the first thing I know about my paternal grandmother, Helen Stutzmann's, side of the family is from my maternal grandmother. How cool is that?

But I got my first taste of genealogy from looking through the books of information my grandmother had put together. I was hooked even before I knew I was hooked. And as I got older and took it more seriously, I became someone she could share her research with, she loved hearing about all the new things I was discovering about the family, and genealogy became something we could always talk about.

So thank you Grandma, for inspiring me to always keep chipping away at those brick walls, and for instilling in me a passion for trying to learn who my family is and where I come from. Happy 97th birthday!

The two Marys and two genealogists.

Nancy Drew and the case of the 1940 U.S. census

The detective work has become and the first results have already come in! The period between 1930-1940 saw a lot of deaths in my family and a lot of families moving around, which can make finding their enumeration districts difficult. Lucky for me, the Raynors have deep Freeport roots. They came in the 1650s and they never left, so I know exactly where to find them!

I neglected to put in my last post where to find the census - if you're an Ancestry member, they're uploading the census images as we speak. If you're not, you can go to 1940census.archives.gov, but be forewarned - EVERYBODY is using the site and pages are loading extremely slowly, if even at all. I searched for 3rd great-grandmother, Meta Tiedemann Ricklefs, where I last saw her, in Patchogue, Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. Her husband, John Ricklefs, had died in 1937, and I couldn't find her at first glance, so she's either in the next ED over or she has died by 1940 as well. Freeport is a fairly small place, and that's where the Raynors are entrenched, so that's where I went next. The good news is, once I FINALLY got to an ED, I found that they've been broken up into manageable chunks - you only have to go through about 24 pages, at least in the EDs I've checked so far. But Randy Seaver over at Genea-Musings gave some good advice here, suggesting how to find the ED if you don't already know, and that downloading all the ED file would be a better way to look over each page, which is what I did - it was taking too long for the images to appear on my screen, but they downloaded very quickly to my computer.

I already found my grandfather, Clifford Raynor, his father, Monroe Raynor, and HIS father, Joseph J. Raynor, living on South Main Street in Freeport - the handwriting isn't so great so it's a little difficult to read some of the info, and since these are ancestors I know pretty well, there aren't too many surprises so far, but I have already found mistakes - great-great grandpa J.J.'s daughter Eliza is listed as his wife, and his daughter-in-law, Alice, is listed as a daughter and his *granddaughter* is listed as a daughter. There's supposed to be an "x" next to the name of the person who provided the information, but I haven't seen one so far. Still, I'm excited to see what else I find, but I know now that I'm going to have to perfect the art of patience over the next few weeks. Maybe I should start meditating...

1940 has arrived!

Starting today, you can look for family in the 1940 U.S. Census.

If all you've ever experienced was a nicely indexed census where all you have to do is type in the name of the person you're looking for and, voila, it appears out of thin air, then be forewarned.

This census, at least for the time being, is going to be a lot of tedious, frustrating work.

Indexing is in the works, and if you feel up to the task, volunteers are signing up every day to help with the process. I'm both excited about and dreading this day - I'm looking forward to finding out what happened to some of the individuals in my family who I last saw in 1930 - I know a lot about their early years but almost nothing about their later years. But I remember a time, not too long ago, when the 1920 census wasn't indexed, and I had to sit at my computer, for hours on end, Ancestry.com on one page, a street map of Brooklyn on the other, and try to find, based on my ancestors' addresses, the proper enumeration district, and THEN scroll through that district page by page by page by page....you get the idea. For now, that's what we're all in for. And while it's time-consuming work, in a way, I'm kind of looking forward to it, because it puts the detective aspect back into genealogy. This information is not going to be handed to you on a silver platter. You're going to have to earn it. It's going to be boring. It's going to make you want to tear your hair out. But when you find what you're looking for, boy, is it worth it!

Good luck everyone - happy hunting!