Chicago Trip Preparation Part III – Organizing my Itinerary and Reviewing my Research

It is six weeks before my research trip to Chicago – time to assemble my trip binder. I have been collecting notes (operating times, addresses, ckecklists, maps) on various research sites that I plan to visit and putting them into a manila folder. My next step is to organize the notes by day of visit.

First I get a 3-ring binder and some dividers. Then I take my trip calendar, see my post from June 24, 2012, where I have made a rough outline of my destinations by day of the week. I make a divider for each day and place them in the binder. Now I’m ready to tackle my bulging folder. I separate the notes and rearrange them according to the sites I will be visiting. Then I punch holes in the sheets and place them in the binder. It’s a quick way to bring order to my chaos.

While I am in this trip preparation mode, I decide to take a look at a webinar by Marian Pierre-Louis, “Ten Brick Wall Tips for Beginners” that I bought on a CD from Legacy Family Tree.com. One of my main goals for this trip is to try to gain more information on one of my brick walls. I haven’t been able to find much information on my great grandmother’s parents – John Kearney and Mary Duffy Kearney. Maybe some of Ms. Pierre-Louis’ tips could help me.

In fact, the webinar is full of helpful ideas. And it was the very first tip that helped me push my research forward, and put me in a better position to learn more from my trip to Chicago. Ms. Pierre-Louis cautioned her audience to review their research. She said that she knows people will say “Oh, I do that.” But she encouraged everyone to regularly review all their findings on their brick wall challenge.
 I believe the key here is “regularly.” As we find new information, it is important to re-look at our accumulated notes. Sometimes the new facts may give us a different perspective or idea. And, Ms. Pierre-Louis says this review can help us reorganize our information that may provide us a new research route. Well, I was inspired!

I started reviewing my documents on the Kearney/Carney family. A challenge I had been working on was to find where this family lived in Chicago. I knew that their daughter, Mary Carney/Kearney Kries Lauer, lived in West/North Chicago after her marriage in 1895. But before that date, I had no idea where she had lived with her parents. I have been unable to find a birth record for Mary where I might find a residence for her parents listed.

I looked again at the baptismal record for Patrick William Kearney – the infant son of John Kearney and Mary Duffy Kearney who was born 8 Dec 1877 and died in 1879. We know that documents can have many clues besides the obvious. I saw the sponsors’ names on the baptismal record – James Devine and Julia Cosgrove. I had noticed these names before. In fact, I had done a long search on the Cosgrove family, trying to link the Kearneys and the Cosgroves. But something new struck me. What were their addresses? If they were friends of the Kearney family, they must have lived close by.

On Patrick William Kearney’s death record, his parents’ residence is given as “Halsted at Hastings,” a South Chicago address. This is a big clue, but I wanted more evidence. If James Devine and Julia Cosgrove also lived in South Chicago, I could be pretty sure that I had placed my great, great grandparents in 1875. This is where the online Chicago City Directories might offer me some answers.

An important thing to remember when using the directories to search for addresses is that in 1909 the streets in Chicago were renumbered. If you want to plot pre-1909 addresses on maps.google.com or mapquest.com, you have to use a conversion tool to update the old addresses. 

In the 1875 directory, I found James Devine living at 80 (549 – post 1909) Barber St, also a South Chicago address near Halsted at Hastings.  Julia Cosgrove lived with her husband, Matthew, at 308 (703 – post 1909) S. Desplaines, also a South Chicago address but at some distance from the Kearney home.

Now that I had two addresses suggesting the South Chicago status of John Kearney and Mary Duffy Kearney, I wondered if there were any other friends of the family that might give me more confirmation. I remembered researching Catherine Sweeney Brookins Dinan, a friend of Mary Duffy Kearney and later a friend of her daughter, Mary Kearney Kries Lauer. Catherine had been a baptismal sponsor of Mary Kearney Kries Lauer’s first child, Henrietta Kries. I searched the 1875 City Directory for George Brookins, the first husband of Catherine, and saw that the couple also lived in South Chicago at 716 W. 18th St., near the Kearney/Duffy home.

By this point, I had strong evidence that John Kearney and Mary Duffy were South Chicagoans. This knowledge would save me time in my research in Chicago. And I would never have come to this conclusion if I hadn’t followed Marian Pierre-Louis’ Brick Wall Tip # 1 – look over your accumulated research on your brick wall(s) regularly and you will increase your chances of solving the case(s).

Categories: genealogy education, genealogy tools, research terms

Eliminate to Isolate

Does this sound familiar? I have an ancestor, my great, great grandfather with a very common name, John Carney/Kearney, and I have found very few records that can link the right “John Carney/Kearney,” out of the many wrong ones, to me. The first record I have is my great grandmother’s, Mary Carney Kreis Lauer, second marriage license application, where she lists her father as “John Carney” and her mother as “Mary Duffy.” No other identifying facts are given such as his address, occupation, or birth date. However, in the 1900 Chicago US Census, Mary gives her parents’ birth places as Ireland.

The second, and last, record that I have is a baptism certificate for Patrick William Kearney from 1877, born to “John Kearney” and “Mary Duffy.” One clue is that Patrick was baptized in St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago. He died only two years later and was buried in Calvary Cemetery near Chicago.

For the past several months, I have been looking at addresses and occupations for “John Carneys”, using the Chicago city directories online and trying to match these to the 1870 and 1880 Chicago US census documents, using Ancestry.com (fee-based) and HeritageQuest.com (can be used for free at home through most local libraries.) My non-strategy or haphazard approach has been to take each case individually, record my findings on a separate sheet of paper and place the sheets in a file folder. In between, I work on other lines.

Just yesterday, I realized that I need to have one place (instead of a pile) to record my findings so that I can really “see” what I have. Strategy # 1 -- create a spreadsheet/chart. I started with the 1870 Chicago US Census. In the HeritageQuest.com US census search window, when you search on a name in a particular state, a page comes up with all the appearances of that name in the different counties in the state. Here is what HeritageQuest shows for Cook County:

Because no addresses are given on the 1870 census, I decided to combine the census information with the city directory addresses – strategy # 2. Since “John Carney” is such a common name, there are six listed in the 1870 directory! I faced quite a hurdle. But I decided to look at the census page to check out if there were neighbors listed who had more unusual names. Then I might find their addresses to correlate with the “John Carney” on the same census page – strategy # 3. 

With this backdoor technique, I was only able to find one address for one “John Carney” in the 1870 census – Wallace St. Even though I found some very unusual names of neighbors of different “John Carneys”, these names didn’t appear in the directory.

Although I only had one address for the “John Carneys” under investigation, I could still use the 1870 census to differentiate among the seven listed. I used the variables of age, marriage partner and name of children as eliminators. I was looking for men who were old enough (and too old) to have fathered my great grandmother in 1876. I used age 20 - 40 as the age range, which gave a birth year of 1836-1856. Using this strategy, I eliminated 3 men, leaving me 4 possibilities, but I knew the address of only one of them – Wallace St. I needed to go forward to the next census in 1880 where addresses were given.

By 1880, there were many more “John Carneys” in Chicago, 26 to be exact, but only 9 were born in Ireland. And 12 “John Carneys” appeared in the 1880 city directory. By using the same variables that I used in the 1870 elimination process, I was able to come up with 4 candidates from the census. But only one of the four target addresses appeared in the 1880 city directory –3558 Wallace St. While I could eliminate 5 of the 11 remaining listings using the census records, I was left with six to add to my list of possibilities!

But I am undaunted. I know I am closer to identifying my John Carney than I was before. And that is worth the three days of work this project took.

Categories: census, genealogy professional, genealogy education, genealogy tools, research terms

Track your forebears with the census, city directories and voter lists

Are you ready to trace an ancestor’s movements in a new city? In one of our telephone conversations, my cousin J.D. told me that our ancestor in common, Henry Kreis, had left New Jersey in 1929 for the sunny shores of California. She didn’t know where in California he had gone. But here is where a census record for 1930 might help.

From experience, I know that on Familysearch.org, you can find census records. However, to look at the actual 1930 census record, Familysearch.org requests that you set up a free account. In the upper right corner of the first screen, click on “Sign In” to open an account.

After I signed in, I did a "residence search." In the name box, I put “Henry Kreis.”  Next, I clicked on “Residence” and filled in CA for “Residence Place” and the years “1930” to “1930” in order to bring up the 1930 US Census records.

As I looked down the results page, I found no matches. But scrolling further down the page, I found a “John H. Kreis.” A quick glance at the record told me this must be my Henry! Four items in the record convinced me this was my ancestor:

1.     The birth date was given as 1875 (Henry’s birth date)

2.     The birth place was given as “Missouri” which fits with

       Henry

3.     The parents’ birth places were given as “Switzerland” which

       again fits with Henry

4.     The place of residence was Los Angeles, CA which fits with J.D.’s belief that a family story said that Henry left New Jersey in 1929, headed for California

I believe that in this new phase of his life, Henry decided to use his first name, John. He couldn’t quite leave “Henry” behind, so he used “H” as his middle initial.

Another piece of information I gleaned from the census record was Henry’s street address: 1517 Stoner Street.  His occupation was given as a “sawyer” in a lumber yard. I had gotten everything I could from the census record. Now, I needed another tool. From previous experience, I knew that with the street address and occupation I had found for Henry, I could search further in the Los Angeles city directories.

Many city directories are on the internet. A quick search on Google confirmed that several Los Angeles directories are available on-line through the Los Angeles Public Library.  In 1932, John appears to have used “Henry” as his first name again. His occupation is listed as “sawyer”. No street address is given, just the information that his residence was “West Los Angeles.”

In 1938 and 1939, he is back to “John H. Kreis”, and is listed as a “yardman” at a lumber company with “West Los Angeles” as his residence. 

Henry/John does not appear in the 1942 Los Angeles City Directory. This could indicate that he had moved or was no longer living. More research needs to be done to determine this.

While the city directories told me that Henry was living in “West Los Angeles’, they didn’t give his street address. Did he live on Stoner or had he moved? I needed another tool. Voter registration records list the street address for each voter.

The 1942 Los Angeles voter records are available at Ancestry.com under “California, Voter Registrations, 1900-1968.” If you don’t have a subscription to Ancestry.com, you can access the program free of charge at many public libraries.

I searched the database for “John Kreis” and found him on the same street, Stoner St, as he was in the 1930 US Los Angeles Census. But I was in for a big surprise. In the 1930 Census, John/Henry was listed as a roomer in the household of Lily Fields. But in the 1942 voting registration list, Lily Fields had become “Lily Kreis”! Yes, Henry had married for the third time.

I didn’t find John or Lily in the 1952 or 1954 California Voter Registration List. I have more digging to do to find where and when my great grandfather,  Henry/John died. I am looking forward to the quest.

As you can see from this project to find Henry's whereabouts in California, I had to consult several sources. If I had stopped after only one, I would have missed so much. Instead I'm celebrating my new found knowledge.




Categories: census, genealogy tools, document types