Veterans Day thank yous and remembrances

A quick thank you to all the veterans in all our families over ALL the years who fought for our freedoms and way of life, for all the sacrifices they made, especially if it was the ultimate sacrifice of their lives...and thank you to their families, the brave women and children, who sacrificed, too, while their husbands/fathers were away.

Today might be a good day to go back into your records and find your veterans and focus on them and their families - what war did they fight in? Where did they go? What did they do? What were their families doing back home? How long were they away? Did it having a lasting affect on them as a person, as a husband, as a father? Has that trickled down to you today? Obviously, we can't answer all these questions, but we can think about them, and remember these people, who by their actions made us, in even a small way, the people we are today.

My veterans (that I know of):

Charles Haase (1838-1891), my 4th-great grandfather, who served in the U.S. Civil War in the 33rd New Jersey Infantry regiment, company H. He enlisted Sept. 22, 1864 in New Jersey and was discharged Jun. 1, 1865 in Bladensburg, Maryland. He was about 36 when he enlisted, and was married to Barbara Reinhardt and had a small daughter, Louisa. My 3rd great grandfather, Edward, was born a year after he came home.

Charles Haase's Civil War discharge papers.

My grandfather, Clifford Monroe "Dick" Raynor (1914-1991), served in World War II. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on Oct. 21, 1943 at the age of 29. He served in the Pacific and if we hadn't ended the war by dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, he would've been part of the invasion of Japan. He was released from the Navy Feb. 26, 1946 and 9 months later, he married my grandmother, Mary Cronin.

My grandfather, Clifford "Dick" Raynor.

Memory keepers; surviving Sandy

It's now been about three whole days since we lost power when Hurricane Sandy hit. I consider myself lucky. I live on Long Island and I have no lights, no hot water, no working stove or fridge, and no heat, but I have a roof over my head and a dry room/bed to sleep in. It's giving me a little taste of how people used to live before all these things became standard in the First World. I guess you can't miss what you never had, but when it's 8 p.m. and there's nothing to do except play shadow puppets with a flashlight and I'm not ready for bed yet and I haven't had a hot shower in two days, it definitely makes me appreciate the lives our ancestors led.

But many people in my vicinity didn't fare as well. My father and grandmother live in Freeport, on the South Shore of Long Island, the village my ancestors have lived in for 350 years. They're right on the water, and at the height of the storm, there was six feet of water in the street and more than two feet of water in my grandmother's apartment. She has been staying in a rehab facility following a hospitalization, so she was safe, but my grandmother is my family's genealogy matriarch - she is 97 years old and the keeper of our family's memories - our stories, our documents, our photos. My father is very family history minded as well, so as the water was rising, he and my siblings rescued my grandmother's hope chest and all her photo albums. My brother told me yesterday though that as they were tearing up her destroyed carpet, they found more photos, old photos, that had been submerged in the storm surge. I haven't seen them, but I assume they're probably destroyed. And while I'm grateful my grandmother is okay, and my father and siblings are okay, and most of my grandmother's photos *were* saved, while I know that these are the important things, I'm a little heartbroken over the loss of these other photos. All over Facebook there are similar stories, though, of people having to throw out all their precious memories - photo albums, furniture, other possessions that have been passed down or may have belonged to a dearly departed relative. People lost everything. Not just all their memories - but everything.

But that's the way the story goes. We can't save everything. Records are lost in flood or fire, things that are meaningful to one person are meaningless to another and are thrown away, things erode and fade with the passage of time - life happens. All we can do is hold on to our loved ones while we can. All we can do is pass on what we can, keep telling our family stories from one person to the next, one generation to the next, be memory keepers...all we can do is the best we can.

Thoughts and prayers with everyone else affected by Hurricane Sandy - hope your memories are safe, but more importantly, that your family and loved ones are safe!

Monroe Raynor: a comparison

I am most familiar with my great-grandfather, Monroe Raynor, from my grandparents' wedding photos. That was in 1946 - Monroe was 65. Just this week my father e-mailed me a tintype he found in the Freeport Memorial Library's digital collection of Monroe with his family as a child. He is no more than 9 years old, but probably closer to 7 or 8 (circa 1888-89). Monroe, by the way, lived his whole life in Freeport, Long Island, New York, although I can't be sure where the photo of him as a child was taken. Anyhow, I couldn't help but notice that across the years, across more than 50 years, Monroe has the same face - I had only seen him as an adult in his 60s and 70s, but I recognized him in the face of that 8 year old immediately. It was amazing, and so very cool. I'm probably not the only one who does this, but it's very difficult for me to picture people I knew as adults (such as my grandparents and great-grandparents) or even people I never knew but who I just think of as my ancestors, and therefore as my elders, as children. But we all start there - we were all children before we were adults, before we were parents, before we were grandparents. So it's always quite a find to actually be able to *see* our "elders" as children. Especially when that child's face shows that they were the same person all along, whether they be 7 years old or 70.

Just one additional note: Did nobody ever tell this boy/man to smile when his picture was being taken???? :) 

Monroe Raynor, 1946

Monroe Raynor, circa 1889

Wordless Wednesday: Raynor family photo surprise

Almost wordless; not quite! My father found this photo as part of the Freeport Memorial Library's digital collection, a collaboration with the Freeport Historical Society. The images have show people and places having to do with Long Island history and lo and behold, they happened to have a tintype of a couple and their two young children. The couple are my great-great grandparents, Joseph "J.J." Raynor and Annie Poole Raynor, and their kids are Lidie and my great-grandfather, Monroe Raynor. Before this, I had only seen photos of any of these people as senior citizens (I had only ever seen one photo of my great-great grandparents - and Monroe has the same face as an 8 year old as he does as an old man!). Based on their birthdates and apparent ages, I'd say this tintype is circa 1890 (probably 1889 because the Raynors' youngest son, William Poole Raynor, was born in July 1890 and Annie doesn't quite look pregnant yet). I love their old clothes and hairstyles - this is such a cool find! Thanks, Dad! :)

From left-right: Annie Poole Raynor, Monroe Raynor, Joseph J. Raynor, Lidie Raynor. Circa 1889. Courtesy Freeport Memorial Library

170th annual Long Island Fair - Sept. 30, 2012

Well now this is almost a month late but at the end of September, my fiance and I went to the Long Island Fair at Old Bethpage Village Restoration on Long Island. He had never been, but I remember going once or twice when I was a kid. I love anything having to do with Long Island history and it was a beautiful autumn weekend to be outdoors.

According to the fair's website at www.lifair.com: "Founded in 1841 as the Queens County Agricultural Society, The Agricultural Society of Queens, Nassau & Suffolk Counties is one of the oldest agricultural societies in the United States . The Society has sponsored a fair on Long Island since 1842. The earliest fairs sponsored by the Society were held on various members' farms and vacant lots in the Hempstead and Mineola area. Finally, in 1866, the Society acquired the original fairgrounds on Old Country Road at Washington Avenue in Mineola, and constructed livestock barns, carriage sheds, a business office, and surrounded it all with a castellated fence. The centerpiece of the new Fairgrounds was the large cruciform Exhibition Hall, with a high central tower capped by a grand eagle weathervane. Inside, a fancy iron fountain graced the center of the floor area that provided an exceptional exhibition space for the domestic arts, horticultural and agricultural displays of the fair.

The Queens County Fair was held nearly every Fall on the new Fairgrounds. In 1899, after Nassau County was created out of the three eastern towns of Queens County , the Fair became known as the Mineola Fair. As such, it continued to be held until the 1950s.  

As Nassau County grew, and lost much of its rural and agricultural character, the fair was displaced by the new County Court complex. The Mineola Fair then moved to Roosevelt Raceway.

In 1970 the fair returned to its agricultural roots when it moved to Old Bethpage Village Restoration. Now known as The Long Island Fair, it is held every year on a reconstructed fairground based on the original in Mineola . The fairground, like the original, is graced by a magnificent replica Exhibition Hall, complete with eagle weathervane and iron fountain. One of the largest wooden buildings constructed in the 1990's, it provides a marvelous backdrop for horticultural, agricultural, and domestic arts exhibits. The grounds also contain the only surviving 19th century building of the Mineola site - the small Superintendents' Office built in 1884.

After 170 years the Long Island Fair continues as the only county fair sanctioned by New York State for the counties of Queens, Nassau and Suffolk."

While it was fun, especially watching Sam learn how to dance with the Village dancers and getting to not only see a baseball game played with 1864 rules but also having some of the nice men involved in the old-timey league explain those rules to us, I would've loved for there to be a little more, well, history to the fair - maybe some more historical/homemade crafts, some old fashioned foods we could've enjoyed, some more historical exhibits. Also, the fair is geared toward families - so if you have kids, there are plenty of ways for them to be entertained. For two grown-ups, not so much...well, except for the entertainment of seeing Sam do-si-do :)

Listening to a band on the fairgrounds.

Sam in front of the reconstructed Exhibition Hall.

Sam do-si-dos!...

...and promenades! :)

Sunday's Obituary: Thomas Dauch, The Hempstead Sentinel June 25, 1903

Thomas Dauch was my third great-grandfather. I had an obituary for him but thanks to Fulton History's recent addition of The Hempstead Sentinel pages, I found a much more detailed obit (and a story about his birthday party from 1901, too, which was pretty cool - the obit was pretty much cribbed from the birthday story, but I'll post the birthday story at another time just to check and see if everyone listed in attendance is accounted for in my tree...and who knows, maybe the guest list includes someone from your trees as well!)

Anyway, on to the obit (italics mine): "Thomas Dauch died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Theo. P. Berg (my great-great grandmother, Delia Dauch Berg), corner of Front and Attorney streets, Sunday, after an illness of several weeks, from apoplexy. He was in his 78th year. The funeral service was held Wednesday afternoon, the Rev. Mr. Munson officiating. Interment was in Greenfield Cemetery"
       "Mr. Dauch had lived here some ten years. He was honored as a worthy citizen, valued as a good neighbor. When 25 years old he left Germany for New York, where he was employed as a cooper. Seven years later he bought a farm of ten acres on the (Hempstead) plains, and a little later increased it to fifty. Some time ago he informed a SENTINEL representative that he never has had a cent of indebtedness, always paying for everything in advance whether it chanced to be a farm or a loaf of bread. He owned considerable real estate. He has five children and 31 grandchildren. His wife died in 1871." Leave it to a German to value most his frugality!

Of course, the best part and an awesome surprise was that the obit, as you can see below, included a photo of great-great-great Grandpa Thomas. He looks like a good, upstanding German in this photo. I think he looks stern, yet gentle.

Always keep looking! You never know what you'll find! To check out the Fulton History newspaper website, go here.

Thomas Dauch obituary, 1903

Sunday's obituary: Theodore P. Berg, Hempstead Sentinel, Jan. 13, 1944

I would love to thank FultonHistory.com, my go-to New York newspaper archive website in my genealogy research, for recently adding a ton of old Hempstead Sentinel pages - because of that, I've found so much more information about my Hempstead, Long Island area family, including this newfound obit for my great-great grandfather, Theodore Peterson Berg. I knew a lot about him already, but this obit proves there are always new things we can discover! (I never knew he owned a deli in Brooklyn or that he ever flew in an airplane, or that he belonged to a mason lodge)

Hempstead Sentinel Jan. 13, 1944 p. 2

Service held for Theodore P. Berg

"Rev. Hubert B. Munson, Methodist minister who had served five generations of the Berg family, officiated at the funeral service of Theodore P. Berg, resident of Hempstead area for 62 years, Monday afternoon at the Pettit funeral parlors. Burial was made in Greenfield Cemetery. A Masonic service was held Sunday afternoon."
     "Born in New York City 90 years ago, Mr. Berg's first job was driving a horse-car in Brooklyn and later he was proprietor of a Brooklyn delicatessen store. He learned the mason trade and followed that business when he moved to the Hempstead area. His first home was near East Meadow, later moving to the corner of Front and Attorney street, where he and his family resided many years." (That house is still there by the way)
     "Illness detained Mr. Berg from spending this winter in Florida, the first time he had missed in 33 years. When he and the late Mrs. Berg first went south, they made the trip by train, but in recent years always drove down in their car. Mr. Berg made one trip by plane, but afterwards decided to continue motoring."
     "A member of Hempstead Lodge of Masons for over 60 years, he was at one time a member of Enterprise Hose Company. He was a devout churchman and was a member of the Hempstead Methodist Church."
     "His survivors include five sons: Thomas A. Berg and Edward T. Berg of Hempstead, Allen H. Berg of West Hempstead, Stanley D. Berg of Charlotte, N.C., and R. Howard Berg of Melborne, Fla.; also a daughter, Amelia B. Raynor, of Freeport, at whose home he died January 6; a brother Albert H. Berg of East Meadow; 24 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren."

AncestryDNA results are in...and I'm shocked!

I am, in a word, flabbergasted. First, I'd just like to commend AncestryDNA for how quickly they got my results. I was told it would take 6-8 weeks upon arrival of the specimen. I think they started processing my DNA on Sept. 19. My results were posted today, Oct. 1. So, not too shabby.

But to say I was surprised by my results would be an understatement, and I honestly thought I wouldn't be surprised at all. I thought, considering I know that everyone in my family hails from either England, Ireland, Germany or Denmark that my results would be pretty straightforward - British Isles, Western European, and possibly a hint of Scandinavian from the 1/32 Danish blood in me.

But how quickly I always forget that just because I know the countries doesn't mean I know the ethnicities...the United States is not the only nation of immigrants.

How much British Isles was in my ethnicity graph? Zero percent.

How much Western European was in my ethnicity graph? Zero percent.

How much Scandinavian was in my ethnicity graph? A whopping 88 percent.

And what made up the other 12 percent? Of all things - Eastern European! What??????

Now, if you're taking an autosomal DNA test, you have to remember that just because an ethnicity DOESN'T show up in your DNA, it doesn't mean it's not there. It just means it wasn't in that sample. But I was shocked by the amount of Scandinavian and I never expected Eastern European, which according to AncestryDNA covers the modern day countries of Poland, Greece, Macedonia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Moldova, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Belgarus, and Kosovo.

Reading the description for each ethnicity, though, a whole lotta Scandinavian DNA does make sense. The Vikings invaded and settled in the British Isles - that's where Irish red hair comes from. And I just learned, by reading the description, that the Goths, who eventually populated Germany, were originally from Sweden. And I have both German and British Isles ancestry...

The Eastern European has me a little mor flummoxed, although if I look at the pins for family tree members on the AncestryDNA map, several of my German relatives hail from the Eastern parts of Germany, bordering Poland and the Czech Republic (which isn't counted as Eastern Europe, but which used to be part of the same country as Slovakia, which is). So that's interesting.

In any case, I have a lot more to look at - AncestryDNA gives you potential relative matches within 4-8th cousins, which so far doesn't really look that promising, but I definitely have a lot more to digest. But my (surprising-wow!) results leave me with two thoughts - the first being that perhaps I'm really adopted, just as I always thought when I was little, and the second being...

...I always KNEW I was a Viking!! :)

Richard Lindemann, German enemy alien 1917

Sometimes, when I have nothing better to do (and even sometimes when I DO have stuff I actually need to be doing but I feel like procrastinating), I like to visit FultonHistory.com and just plug in random family members' names, just to see what newspaper stories come up. Not just people I'm looking for, but addresses associated with them, businesses associated with them, friends and family associated with them - you never know what keyword is going to find you new and/or important information.

Two people I've had a difficult time fleshing out are my third great grandparents, Caspar and Margaret Lindemann. I've found them in the census, I've found their death certificates, I've even found Margaret's obituary, but there are no probate records for them in Brooklyn, no passenger list manifests (even though they are two of my most recent ancestors to come over to America, sometime in the 1880s or 1890s), no immigration records, and Caspar especially has been elusive. Considering how high-profile their son-in-law (my great-great-grandfather), Rudolph Stutzmann, was in Brooklyn/Queens circles, I'm surprised I haven't been able to find more on them. I guess I'm looking for specifics like birth dates, an actual date of immigration, or a place name of origin in Germany - anything that could help me find them on the other side of the pond since they were both older with grown children when they came over, so they would've spent a large chunk of their lives in Germany.

Wow, I'm really digressing here, because while my search was for Caspar and Margaret, I was using their grandson, Richard Lindemann, as my keyword in my search. Richard is a mystery to me. According to Schlegel's, his mother was Caspar and Margaret's daughter Caroline, married name Werner, and yet he uses her maiden name. I have no records of her - she supposedly died young, and since Richard is always listed in the census records with his grandparents (and later with his aunt, Augusta Stutzmann), I assume they raised him. Anyway, he was born in Germany and came over as a child. I get positive newspaper search results for him, usually as an adult placing ads for his services as a limo driver (I believe he was also employed by Rudolph Stutzmann in his funeral home business as a hearse driver), but I found one newspaper record from December 8, 1917, that showed him listed as a "German Enemy Alien." I had never heard of such a list, but the page was full of names and the addresses where these men lived, and a note at the end basically said this was only a partial list, with more names to come.

So I Googled it. According to the German Genealogy Group's website, "on April 6, 1917 President Woodrow Wilson took the first steps to minimize the threat from German aliens residing in the United States by issuing twelve regulations for 'alien enemies,' persons of enemy birth who had not completed the naturalization process. ... The names and addresses of all German males from New York City who were not citizens were printed in a series of articles in 'The Herald.' The list was published between December 4, 1917 and December 9, 1917." Obviously, this was around the time World War I was going on, but the list of regulations is insane, paranoid, and frightening. Among the regulations are some that make sense in that the government was worried about spies or attacks from within, but others say the "enemy aliens" could not change their residence or travel freely, they weren't allowed to fly, they weren't allowed at all in Washington D.C., they were not allowed near U.S. waterways except on public ferries, and they were not allowed to own a firearm. The whole list can be found here. And any "enemy alien" found to be in non-compliance was allowed to be interned.

I realize the United States has a history of going overboard with people they see as internal threats (re: Japanese-Americans during World War II) during times of war, but I think of my great-uncle Richard, who, yes, was born in Germany, and no, had not become a citizen, but who had basically grown up in and lived his whole life in Brooklyn. For all intents and purposes, he was a New Yorker. It's a little sad and a little scary in general, but even moreso when it hits so close to home, in that your own relative was so blatantly targeted. I'm sure the men listed on those pages of The Herald were shunned and discriminated against by more than a few of their paranoid neighbors.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting, from both a family standpoint and an historical one, a little piece of national and family history I never knew about.

AncestryDNA: DNA sample has been received!

I apologize for the lack of blogging lately. Real life has been interfering with blogging life and there hasn't been a lot of opportunity/energy to blog, but I'm still here, never fear...I know you were worried and missing me! :)

So, I FINALLY sent in my AncestryDNA sample. I can't believe how long it took me to get that done. I had it sitting on my nightstand for forever, which is unbelievable, considering how excited I was when I got it. I had finally decided to let my boyfriend send in a DNA sample but almost immediately changed my mind. I guess I was having a selfish genetics moment. But this gives me the opportunity to beg Ancestry.com to FINALLY open up AncestryDNA to everybody, so I can buy Sam his own DNA sampling kit (hopefully for a reasonable price!) because I really am beyond curious what his will reveal...I just know it's going to be exciting and shed some light on his wildly varied genetic history! Plus, why should I get all the spitting fun? (The first DNA sampling I ever did was a cheek swab...nowhere near as fun as Ancestry's spit sample!)

Anyway, I received word this week that Ancestry received my DNA sample...now the real waiting begins! 6-8 weeks, if I'm lucky...I guess I was able to wait almost that long to send the sample in, I can wait that long to get my results! I had a dream the other night that I got my results and there was a surprising find in the mix - I feel like it was Ashkenazi Jewish or something like that. I'm really not expecting that at all, but I guess anything's possible. I know for a fact that over half my genetics come from the British Isles (Ireland mostly and a bit o' old world English), but it's possible my German side (about 33 percent) might yield a surprising find, and it might be nice to see Scandinavian pop up courtesy of my 3rd great grandfather Peter Hansen Berg, who was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. My sister totally looks like a Viking warrior princess, so even if Scandinavia doesn't show up, I know it's totally in there. Though I hope it does!

So, that's the deal with that. I'm curious - anybody out there do AncestryDNA or a similar autosomal DNA test and expect to know what they'd find but get some totally unexpected results?

And I promise, I'll try to write more frequently than once a month, because I've missed y'all, too!

Happy weekend! :)

Attention all New York genealogists/anybody with New York family history...

Family Tree Magazine and Ancestry.com will be hosting "The Genealogy Event" at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City Friday Oct. 26 & Saturday Oct. 27.

From the website it looks like there will be both speakers and exhibitors for beginners through more advanced family historians. There are sessions on ethnic-specific genealogy, using technology for research, fleshing out our family trees to include not just the facts but the stories, and a few New York specific genealogy resources such as the New York Public Library and Castle Garden/Ellis Island records.

Tickets are $15 in advance, which is a crazy awesome price. I've been taking a break from genealogy research lately just because of a lack of progress on most fronts and an overload of other fun (sense the sarcasm) stuff life has been throwing at me, but I'm intrigued by this event and might just have to check it out. It seems like a miniature version of the larger, national/regional conferences, and it's right in my backyard, so it's really kind of hard to think of a reason NOT to check this out!

For more details and info, check out www.thegenealogyevent.com or follow this link.

AncestryDNA...finally!

So yesterday I FINALLY got my chance to buy an AncestryDNA kit from Ancestry.com, only several months after my first e-mail (and second) saying I was eligible to purchase from their limited supplies. It was like being on hold for a company with really bad customer service. "Please hold, your call is very important to us..." Meanwhile, an hour later...

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know I already did my maternal DNA (haplogroup T) and my paternal DNA (through my brother - R1b) but the AncestryDNA test does autosomal DNA testing - that is, it doesn't just look at your maternal line or your paternal line, it looks at a bunch of your DNA and can tell you not necessarily what countries your family comes from, but what ethnic groups and the general areas from which they came. Now, I love my family tree -y'all know that - but as far as family trees go, it's fairly boring. I have family from Ireland, England, Germany, and Denmark, but in autosomal terms, that basically makes me 100 percent northern European. Still, my family has been in America for so long and there are maternal lines I just can't trace that who knows who else my family has intermarried with? So, even though I pretty much expect a fairly homogenous result, I've still been really psyched to do this test. You can do it through a whole bunch of genetic genealogy/genetic testing sites, but the test is still really expensive, and Ancestry has been offering it cheap, which is why I waited.

Anyway, I didn't realize that I was only going to be allowed to buy one test. Limited supplies - duh! The thing is, while I really want to take the test, I feel like I already know what it's going to tell me. What I really wanted was to also buy a test for my boyfriend because I think his genetic genealogy will be fascinating - both his parents are from Honduras, and he has known Mayan, Jamaican, Sicilian, and Scottish branches, and who knows what else!! So, part of me wants to just let him take the test when it comes in the mail - I've been dying to find out more about his background...I know it's going to show a fascinating and diverse mix of people and places...but part of me really wants to be selfish and keep the test all to myself!

Ah, genealogical dilemmas!

Anybody have suggestions of other companies to purchase a (relatively) cheap autosomal DNA test?

Not exactly genealogy, but happy 115th birthday Amelia Earhart!

I didn't know anything about my family history when I was a kid, but I was always interested in history in general, and I used to read a lot. ::cough::nerd::cough::. That's right. I'm a history nerd. Anyway, as a young, impressionable girl, I used to devour books and through that I developed several strong, female heroes who I just thought were the coolest - Laura Ingalls Wilder, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Annie Oakley, and Amelia Earhart. These were real life women who lived on the harsh frontier and challenged what was expected of them in particular and women in general. I wanted to be just like them.

Today is Amelia Earhart's birthday, and she's been in the news a lot lately because the anniversary of her disappearance (July 2) just passed and there was a research excursion to try to find the wreck or remains of her plane. I think Earhart fascinated me in particular because of her mysterious disappearance...it always made me kind of sad.

As I got older, I learned about my own family history and developed an appreciation for the heroines in my own tree - women who may not have become as famous as my other heroes or who may not have bucked as many trends, but who kept their families together in dire circumstances and did what they could to make a better life for their children and their children's children...people like me.

But I still remember my childhood heroes like Amelia Earhart, and even looked them all up on Ancestry.com records such as census images, tracing their journeys and remembering the things about them that inspired me.

Budget Travel article: Find Your Roots in Ireland

Very nice article from Budget Travel about tracing Irish ancestry on CNN.com today - read it here. On a personal note, the author consults with Paul Gorry, a leading genealogist in Ireland who not only has the same last name as me but uses the same spelling. Makes looking up Gorry Irish ancestry very difficult in Google, as every result has to do with him. Should contact him and see if he can help a girl out!

Third wife's the charm: Friedrich Stutzmann probate proceedings

I've been knee-deep in Raynor genealogy, using the Queens County probate records that are now online at FamilySearch.org, but today I decided to switch it up and take a look at my father's side of the family. I found a bunch of names in the index for Queens, Kings AND New York counties, though the actual records are not yet online (I know, I'm getting greedy) but I did find the index AND probate proceedings for my third great grandfather, Friedrich Stutzmann, who died Jan. 14, 1906 in Ridgewood Heights, Queens County. Now, my third great grandmother, Mathilde Rau, was Friedrich's first wife, and died very young in 1880 from yellow fever. With small children to raise, Friedrich married again, this time to Rosalie Goess/Goesz, who also died fairly young sometime in the 1890s. Looking at his probate proceedings today, I see that, who is requesting letters of administration for his estate, is his WIDOW Augusta. So great great great granddaddy Fred had a third wife that apparently nobody recorded, not even Schlegel's. I went to the Italian Genealogy Group's website, italiangen.org, as I usually do when I'm looking for New York City vital records, and there it is - on May 8, 1901, a Fred Stutzmann married an Auguste Sander.

Looking back, I realize I saw Friedrich with a wife Augusta in the 1905 New York State census, but for some reason, I assumed it was a mistake - that Friedrich's daughter-in-law, also Augusta, had mistakenly been listed as his wife. Because that sometimes happens. So today was twofold productive - the discovery of a third wife I never knew about (even if you're not related to them, second/third/beyond spouses can help you find family in future census records/directories/newspaper articles etc) AND I relearned the valuable lesson to NEVER assume in your research - if you see something that looks like a mistake, check it out. Maybe it is, or maybe it's brand new information.

Here endeth the lesson.

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.

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!)