A Webinar for the Genealogist with New York Forebears

On May 30, 2012, Legacy Family Tree presented one of its series of free webinars: “Researching Your New York Ancestors” by ThomasMacEntee. It is available at Legacy Family Tree for free viewing until June 11, 2012.

Thomas MacEntee is well known as the host of Geneabloggers Radio, a radio show devoted to genealogy. He has 60 shows available at geneabloggers website that cover a wide range of topics. And listening to Thomas is a wonderful way to increase your knowledge and add resources to your genealogy tool box.

Of the many tips, Thomas gave in his Knickerbocker’s Approach to tackling NY ancestral research (and as Thomas said these suggestions can help with your research in any state), I will highlight three:

1.      Consulting off-line sources -- 90% of records have not been digitized and they are not online -- to do a diligent, “reasonably exhaustive” search that may turn up information you would never have found just by using on line records. In other words, cover all your bases.
2.     Using a research log will exponentially improve your research by preventing repeat searches and by giving you a snapshot of your efforts for reference and for analysis. RandySeaver wrote a blog post on research logs that goes into the software side, particularly how to use the research log in Legacy Family Tree. 

   

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3.     Following genealogy blogs on your geographic area of interest (state, county, locality) or your target surname(s) (I immediately googled some Chicago genealogical blogs) can bring unexpected rewards.

 In another section of the webinar, Thomas shared his Top Ten Resources for New York research. I’ll give you a taste of the fabulous fare by citing just two:

1.       The New York State Archives Thomas said that he goes to this site often due to its rich array of NY resources, including an online searchable catalog of the Archives Library, searchable database of NY Civil War soldiers and information on naturalization, probate and vital records.
2.      The New York portal of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) As a member of NEHGS, I have used the New England resources but never knew about the New York portal. Thank you, Thomas.

 In the final segment of the webinar, Thomas discussed five “Secret Links,” sites that may be unfamiliar to many researchers but that will give you access to some great information – some even go beyond NY. Here are two to whet your appetite:

1.       Atlas of Historical County Boundaries This is a publication of the Newberry Library in Chicago. It gives the county history for every state in the US. Another site that I think complements this is N2Genealogy.com. Here you can see how the counties for every state evolved through map overlays.
2.      Did you know that there is a state law in NY that requires every county to have its own historian? Again, Thomas, thank you for alerting us to this law and to New York History Net  which maintains an alphabetical list (by last name) of NY historians. You may also wish to consult the Association of Public Historians of New York State as they provide a list by county. However, at the moment, APHNYS is updating their list.

 Remember, the webinar, “Researching Your New York Ancestors” is available free of charge at Legacy Family Tree until June 11, 2012. After that date, you will be able to purchase the program CD at Legacy.

A Gem of a Map for Chicago Researchers

If you are doing research in a city, you may be able to benefit from a great resource threesome – city directory, census, and map. Although each of these tools can be very helpful alone, together they pack a powerful research punch.

I have been working on a project on my Chicago Carney/Kearney line. My goal that I described in a post on April 30, 2012  is to sift out the possible candidates for my John Carney/Kearney from all the other John Carneys/Kearneys listed in the Chicago City Directories and US Censuses in the time period of 1870-1880.

While I had studied the 1870 and 1880 City Directories, I decided to check out the 1875 edition as that year is close to the 1877 birth date of Patrick William Kearney – the infant son of John Kearney and Mary Duffy who died in 1879 at age one year and two months. And I know from Patrick’s death record that his residence was Hastings at Halsted. 

Most of the John Carney listings for 1875 were the same as the ones from 1870, but I found two new John Kearneys in 1875:

Kearney, John, engineer, residence 2 N. Wells

Kearney, John, painter, residence 173 W. Adams

When doing Chicago research into addresses pre-1909, you have to be careful to check the street changes record as many streets were re-numbered in 1909. I used an online tool, “1909 Street Renumbering”, made available by the Newberry Library in Chicago, to update the Wells and Adams numbers. This is what I found:

Pre-1909 Address                                    Post-1909 Address

2 N. Wells                                                319 N. Wells.

173 W. Adams                                         766 W. Adams

I checked these addresses on maps.google.com. While neither of these is near Hastings and Halsted, they are both near the area where Mary Carney lived in 1895 after her marriage to Henry Kreis – Chestnut and Wells.

Another address for a John Kearney that appeared in the 1870, 1875 and 1880 directories was 22 (1100 post-1909) Better. I wondered where this street was, but as it no longer exists, maps.google.com could not help me. This is where a gem of a map comes in. 

The University of Chicago Library has digitized a number of old Chicago maps. Although you can choose from twelve different maps, my favorite is the 1876 map, published by S. Augustus Mitchell because it has a handy street legend at the bottom.



I looked up Better Street, found the coordinates and located them on the map. Better was a short street one block south of Good St. and eight blocks north of Hastings and Halsted! Here was another possible candidate to add to my list.

When our ancestors don't seem to have left a clear paper trail, we have to resort to creative strategies in our effort to trace them. I have tried to establish some anchor points for my John Carney/Kearney great, great grandfather. The two points I have documented are:

1. the 1879 address for one John Kearney and Mary Duffy (who may be my ancestors as the names match those given by Mary Carney, their daughter, on her second marriage application) and listed on their son's, Patrick William Kearny, death record: Hastings at Halsted.
2. the 1895 address for Mary Carney and Henry Kreis, (stated by Mary Carney Kreis on her daughter's , Irene Kreis, delayed birth certificate in 1942): Chestnut and Wells.

My strategy has been to use city directories and census documents from 1870-1880 to identify addresses for John Carneys/Kearneys  and see how they stack up against the anchor points. This is a work in progress.

Indexes (Indices) – the first place to check but not the last

In the real world, we are pretty used to indexes. Actually we expect to have them and we depend on them – the telephone directory online or in print, databases at work and at home, book indexes, online indexes of back issues of our favorite magazines, and indexes of restaurants, movies and songs on our mobile devices.

Indexes are very useful in genealogy. We see them for vital records, military records, land records and census records (right now the 1940 US Census is being name-indexed) to mention just a few. In this age of digitization, more indexed records are coming online all the time.

Because of our familiarity with indexes in the non-genealogical parts of our lives, we may blithely assume that we have the same expertise with the specialized index tools used in family history research. But here is where a word of caution can help us be more successful in our use of genealogical indexes. In the book, Printed Sources: a guide to published genealogical records, edited by Kory L. Meyerink,   chapter six, “Published Indexes”, Kip Sperry, states: “It is always wise to check the original source…when using indexes and compiled sources.” (p. 203.) And the reason for this caveat is spelled out in the overview to chapter six on p. 191: “No index is completely comprehensive or absolutely correct.” Sperry suggests that a researcher should analyze an index before using it. This analysis includes studying the lay-out and style of the indexer or indexers. This advice saved me from records that were very important to my research on the Cosgrove line, a cohort family of the Carneys.

I know that Julia Mercer Cosgrove was one of the baptismal sponsors for my great, great grandparents’, John Carney/Kearney and Mary Duffy Carney, first child, Patrick William Kearney: 

Since I have found so few records on this couple, I decided to look for Cosgrove family records – maybe Mary Carney was a witness for one of the Cosgrove children or at Julia Mercer’s wedding to Matthew Cosgrove.

I started with the St. Patrick’s Church records in Chicago which are available on FamilySearch.org. St Patrick’s was the church where Patrick William Kearney was baptized. It was also the main Irish church in the area where the Cosgroves lived. To access these records, you start on the first screen of FamilySearch.org. Scroll to the bottom of the left-hand side of the page, until you see “All Record Collections.” Continue scrolling until the last entry: United States. 

When you click on “United States,” you will see a list of the states on the left-hand side of the screen. Click on “Illinois” and the record collections for this state will appear on the right-hand side of the next screen. The third record set is the “Illinois, Chicago, Catholic Church Records, 1833-1925.” When you click on this, a screen pops up with the invitation to “Browse through 179,454  images.” Click on this and you will see a list of Catholic Churches in Chicago.

I scrolled down to “St. Patrick (Chicago)” and clicked. A list of available record sets appeared, and I clicked on “Baptism Index, 1846-1883.”

This index was created using a notebook with pre-printed page numbers in the upper corner of each page. Remembering Sperry’s advice to analyze the index style, I started looking at the beginning pages from A – C. Although the person/persons creating the index made an effort to alphabetize within each letter, this order was sometimes interrupted when a new letter was started. Space issues became so complicated that the indexer had to go backward and/or forward to fit in additional names in a letter grouping. In short, a brief look at the grouping for letter C showed a serpentine path. I found that this index required a careful reading of every page.

I was able to find an entry for Daniel Cosgrove, born 1873, to be found on p. 228 of vol. 6. I went back to the list of records for St. Patrick’s and found vol. 6 of Baptisms, 1871-1875. And on p. 228 (image 119), I found this record:

 Unfortunately, neither John Carney nor Mary Duffy Carney were witnesses.

Another problem with indexes is that the ink can be faded. This is the case with the baptism records from St. Patrick’s. I never did find an entry in the index for Catherine Cosgrove, daughter of Matthew Cosgrove and Julia Mercer Cosgrove, and part of the reason may have been that I couldn’t read the ink. But again I followed the advice of Sperry to go to the actual record. 

From the 1880 Chicago US Census, I knew that Catherine’s birth year was 1875. I returned to vol. 6 of Baptisms, 1871-1875. This time, I didn’t have a page number but I did have the year. I went through late 1874 and into 1875 and there she was on p. 330, Image 170:

Again, unfortunately, neither witness was John Carney or Mary Duffy.

Although you may not find the name you were looking for when you complete a piece of research, just going through the process is very helpful. You gain more skills in a particular area of genealogical research such as using indexes.