Putting my Chicago Ancestors in their Historical Context

I have often read this advice in genealogy literature: go beyond putting names and dates on your ancestors by digging into history to put them into the context of their times. What occupations did they have? What was their socio-economic level? What was going on in their neighborhoods, in America, in the world? And that’s what I wanted to answer for my Chicago ancestors.

Attribution: Flanker, wikimedia

My great grandfather, Henry Kreis, was a teamster in the late 1800s in Chicago. But what did a teamster do in these early pre-highway, pre-eighteen wheeler truck days?

I did a google search on the “history of teamsters in Chicago” and came up with a reference to Dr. Liesl Miller Orenic, a professor at Dominican University in Chicago, who is working on a history of Chicago’s Teamsters Local 743. I hoped that Professor Orenic might be able to steer me towards some sources on early teamsters in Chicago, so I e-mailed her:

“I am a genealogist and recently found out that some of my Irish ancestors were teamsters in Chicago in the 1880s. I have tried looking for definitions of "teamster" in the 1800s but can only find very general meanings. On the a3 Genealogy blog, I found this definition: "The Online Etymology Dictionary states a teamster is “a person who drives a team of horses, especially in hauling freight.” Can you direct me to any… information on teamsters in early Chicago?”

I wanted to find answers to these questions: What was a typical day like for a teamster? What skills did a teamster need? What kind of living did a teamster make?

I am always amazed by the kindness and willingness of people to share their knowledge. Professor Orenic suggested a book by Dr. David Witwer, Corruption and Reform in the Teamsters Union; a preview of the book is also on-line.

 

In the first chapter of Professor Witwer’s book, “Building a Teamsters Union” p. 8, he explains the impact of the urbanization of America in the late nineteenth century on the occupation of teaming:

“By the end of the nineteenth century, commercial growth had transformed American cities, in turn fueling dramatic changes in the teaming industry. As railroad traffic increased and cities expanded, the business of hauling goods grew in size and scale. Teamsters formed both the first and the final links in the transportation chain. They brought goods to and from railroad depots, freight yards, and shipping docks; they also ferried people around the growing city. Most urban residents were too poor to own and maintain their own carriages. They depended on teamsters to transport them to locations not served by public transportation…. The 1860 U.S. census listed seventy-seven thousand teamsters nationwide…by 1900 more than a half-million men worked as teamsters.3” (footnotes not given in books.google.com preview)

On pages 9-10, Professor Witwer gives a detailed description of how many hours a day a teamster worked, what he did during that time, and how much he was paid:

“The hours were long because a teamster was responsible for maintaining his horses and outfit (wagon and harness) and because he worked for as long as there were deliveries to make. Typically, he would arrive at the stables by 5 a.m. to water, feed, and hitch the horses. Deliveries were made all day, and then at the end of the day he returned to the stable, where, before leaving, he watered, fed, and groomed the horses. Often a teamster would not get home until 9 or 10 at night….A teamster worked such hours six days a week. On Sundays, when there were no deliveries, the teamster came in to clean and oil the harness, grease the wagon axles, and, once again, feed and water the horses. For all of this he received between $8 and $12 a week.”

On pages 8-9, Witwer outlines the tasks teaming required, thus refuting the claims in the 1860 US Census and elsewhere that teaming was an unskilled endeavor:

South Water Street, NARA, wikimedia.net

“The census, along with many observers, described the occupation of teaming as unskilled. Those more closely connected to the working life of a teamster, however, questioned such a classification. As one team owner noted, “To drive such a team through the labyrinths of other teams, and among the cars in winter weather and escape crash and wreck requires capacity.” In fact, teaming demanded both craftlike skills and clerical abilities. A good teamster knew how to manage horses. He could get his team to pull heavier loads and deftly maneuver them in the most difficult situations. “The man who can take a team of horses and get the work out of it while at the same time keeping it in good condition and spirits, and keeping clear of accident in the crowded streets of the city deserves commendation,” observed one team owner. “He will,” the owner continued, “have his hands full.”5 When he was out making deliveries, a teamster served as the main contact between his employer and the customers. Thus he often had to be able to read and write. In many cases he served as a combination record-keeper and salesman. He built the business up by bringing in new customers, and he smoothed over day-to-day problems to keep old customers happy. 6” (footnotes not given in the books. google.com preview)

Now I had my answers. I know what my teamster ancestors did on a typical day. I have put them into historical context.

But Professor Orenic had suggested another resource to give me a taste of the history of Chicago so that I might more fully understand the times my nineteenth century ancestors lived in. This program is:

Chicago: City of the Century (a PBS documentary) which gives the history of Chicago from the early 1800s to 1900. I found that you can order this program on netflix.com. It is a 4-DVD set, and what a wild and wonderful time you will have from your front-row seat, watching Chicago grow from a swampy backwater to the second largest city in America. 

The narrator tells the story of Chicago through the exploits of colorful business men and entrepreneurs, politicians, dedicated social reformers and the thousands of working men, women and children who lived, worked, and died in the city in the nineteenth century. You can find a transcript of the program online.

This experience reinforced several of the tenets of genealogy:

• To understand your ancestors, you need to go beyond names and dates. Put flesh on the bare bones.

• Find out how they lived and what the world was like during their lifetimes. Search for books and articles to find this historical context using online sources such as google.com, books.google.com, scholar.google.com; and checking out non-computer sources such as libraries and historical societies.

• Search for experts in the fields of knowledge that you are interested in. Read their books. And very often, if you contact them, they will give you suggestions and lead you to additional sources.

Categories: genealogy professional

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

Get Familiar with USCIS: home of US Naturalization Records after 1906

Usually when I want to request a naturalization record, I think of the
 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) or the state court if that is where the naturalization occurred. But as I mentioned in my last post, (July 23, 2012) since 1906 the federal government has had jurisdiction over naturalization. Even with this move to centralize the process under the federal umbrella, state and US courts

were both able to process naturalizations. Familysearch.org has a very informative wiki on this subject.

I had located my maternal grandfather’s Declaration of Intention on the Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court NaturalizationDeclaration of Intention database:

Before I knew about Homeland Security’s naturalization files, I contacted the Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD) atNortheastern University in Chicago to request a copy of Frank’s naturalization card. I talked about IRAD in my post of July 4, 2012. You can call or write to make your request. Be sure to include any pertinent information that you already have about the target person, including birth date. In just a few days, I received Frank Holub’s naturalization certificate issued by the US District Court in Chicago in 1935:

But I wondered if a file existed for Frank Holub that might have more information than just the certificate. Could there be first papers (Declaration of Intention) or final papers? This event occurred after 1906, so I knew that the Homeland Security naturalization branch, the UnitedStates Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), might have Frank’s naturalization file.


But I needed to have a C-number to request the file, as I had learned from the USCIS Historical Reference Library, when I had made a previous request (see my post of July 23,2012.) I saw the H-410 number stamped on the upper left corner of the card. But where was the C-xxx? I decided to send another e-mail message to the USCIS Historical Reference Library, asking for help once more. And as you will see in the response below, the library came through again.

Before the written message, the library attached Frank Holub’s naturalization certificate with the three numbers circled and color-coded:

“The C-number for this file is “C-3903371.”  This is the number to submit to the USCIS Genealogy Program in your “Record Copy Request” when requesting Frank Holub’s Certificate File (“C-File”).

Naturalization records have a variety of associated numbers and one must be careful to use the correct number in a given context:

1.       The Certificate number (circled in red and identified as “cn” or certificate of naturalization) is the USCIS Certificate File (C-File) number used to request the file from the USCIS Genealogy Program.  (Put a “C-“ in front of the number on the card  C-3903371).

2.       The Petition number (circled in blue) is the Petition for Naturalization number and refers to the COURT document (state, local, or federal court).

3.       The “H-410” number (circled in green below) is the Soundex code for the last name and so is associated with the index itself, not any of the records.”

After I read the message, the numbering system on the naturalization looked easy. But before the library’s explanation, it had not been simple to decipher.

To recap, check your naturalization documents. If you have ancestors who were naturalized after 1906, you may wish to request copies of their files from USCIS, no matter if they were naturalized in state or federal courts. Also, a very helpful part of USCIS is the Historical Reference Library.


Categories: US citizenship, US Agencies