Driving and Automobiles

Two of our grandsons are 16 years old this year. Actually Ryan turned 16 in April and Shawn will be 16 in July. When teenagers turn 16 their plan is to get their drivers permit. I think my grandsons would probably not believe that I can remember when I turned 16 and got my driving permit. Some things just stick in your head very clearly. My father started teaching me in his car. It was a little hard because it was a standard shift so you had to learn that first and then you could concentrate on the road. This was in my Junior year of high school. During my Senior year I took Drivers Ed. After finishing the course I took my drivers test, and failed. When you took the test it wasn't like today where they tell you right away whether you passed or failed. You had to wait a week or two until they mailed you the results. So back to practicing. During one of my practice driving sessions with my father we had a incident. I believe I showed my father I could handle myself in an emergency. There was smoke and flames coming out from under the hood. I very calmly pulled the car over and we all got out. At this time there were no cell phones. On the light poles on corners there were fire alarms that you pulled. My father did that and very shortly the fire department showed and put out the fire. I' m sure my brothers, who were 7and 5 at the time and with us in the car, thought it was the most fun drive they ever went on. There was a time period before you could apply again, so it was after I graduated that I could take the test again . When that day came my Father had to work and Tom had to work so my future father-in-law offered to take me. He worked nights so was available in the afternoon. When we got there he got out of the car and I started my test driving down the road and around the corner. It then started to rain, I didn't panic just pulled over to turn the wipers on. This was a very new 1960 Pontaic Ventura and I had no idea where the wiper knob would be found. The inspector had no clue either so we hunted around until we found it. Meanwhile Tom's father is waiting in the pouring rain. I had a very short test and returned to pick him up. I thought for sure I failed again, you really should know your car very well. I did pass!! So some tips for the new drivers. First practice, practice, practice. Try to take the test with a car you have driven many times. Do not text or talk on the phone while driving. Always keep two hands on the wheel.

Memorial Day 2012

Today we remember all who have served in the Armed Forces to keep our country free.

Our family has many who served -

The most recent Kevin M. Mathews, my brother, in the 1970's in the Marines.

Before him in World War 11 were his father James R. Mathews who was in the Navy (1941-1945) out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn.
Two brothers of James, Thomas and William Mathews also served in WW11.
Thomas was in the Army and mustered out from Camp Upton in Yaphank, NY.  His brother William also served in the Army out of Fort Totten in Bayside, Queens, NY.  I am sure many of their cousins in the Mathews line also served in WW11.

The Mathews family came to America in the late 1860's and were not involved with the Civil War and were too old or too young to participate in WW1.

Our Moore family was in Mobile, Alabama at the time of the Civil War.  Horatio N. Moore was part of the British Brigade.  This company of foreigners policed the docks on Mobile Bay during the Civil War and didn't have any battles.

Another line in the Moore family, the grandfather of Thankful Foster Moore, Benjamin Foster of East Machias, Maine. was involved with The Battle of Machias (also known as the Battle of the Margaretta). It was the first naval engagement of the American Revolutionary War. It took place on June 11–12, 1775, in and around the port of Machias in what is now eastern Maine, and resulted in the capture by Patriot militia of a British schooner.

The Murphy family arrived here in the 1870's and didn't to my knowledge have any military members early on.  During WW1and WW11 grandfather Thomas was too old as shown in the draft cards.  His son, Thomas had insufficient eyesight to become a service man but spent his time during WW11 working in the Brooklyn Navy shipyard.

Remember all who served and gave their all for this country.

Getting Ready for the 1940 Census

I am still getting ready to view the 1940 census that will come out on April 2, 2012.  The census will not be indexed by name for awhile so to find a family you will have to have the Enumeration District number.  To find the ED district I have to look through all my files to find address' for 1940 or anything close before  and after.

I was looking at the family history of our Murphy's in Brooklyn and found that Thomas J. Murphy and his wife Florence (McDonald) lived a block away from her sister and her husband.  My next plan is to map all of these addresses.  I hope it will give some insight to how families interacted with each other and possibly how the children met their spouses.

My love of the history of families has me ask one of my favorite questions  "how did you meet your husband/wife"? 

Tom and I met in High School and my parents met at work.  I'm not sure how Tom's parents met, I never asked that of them.  I think they lived and hung out in the same neighborhood.  I should be able to see if I'm right when I map out their addresses.

I did ask Tom's Aunt Florrie (Florence Glessoff).  I was surprised to find out she met her husband Frank Wipf through an ad in the personals section of the newspaper.  Before the 1970's the classified section of the newspaper was divided into different sections, help wanted male, help wanted female, personal, real estate etc.

The way Aunt Florrie told me started out with her telling me where she worked.  She worked in a travel agency, she would sign people up for train and cruise ship travel.  This was in the late 1920's.  They would check the newspapers everyday because there was a section that listed people who had just arrived on ships to the New York harbor.  It also listed people leaving.  I don't know if her office supplied names of people or not but it was part of their business to know what ships had come in.

One day while checking the newspapers her boss saw ads in the personal section for people asking for dates and he dared her to put one in because she was still single at 26 years old.  So she did and went on a blind date.  The two of them (Florence and Frank) both took measures to be safe by meeting in a public park.  Frank got there very early to be able to see Florence before they met.  I guess he liked what he saw because they married soon after and were married for 58 years when he died. 

So I guess there is nothing new about meeting new people it started a long while ago just different ways for different times.

A NEW YEAR 2012

It is a new year and I hope to have more news on the genealogy of our family.  This year the 1940 census will be available for all to see.  This is great news for all of us searching for information on our families.  The census is the one document that puts complete families together at a particular time in history.  This census for me will be very interesting because it will have many of my relatives that I personally knew and know now.

There are always some people in a family that no one remembers what happen to them.  I have several but one in particular that I would love to find more about.  His name was William (Willy) Mathews, he was a first cousin of my father.  He supposedly was a dancer on Broadway and spent most of his time around the stage in front and behind.  I found him in the 1930 census and hope to find him in this 1940 census with a more definite occupation and residence so I can research him further, possibly in newspapers.

Most of the big research databases on line are with Ancestry.com, Familysearch.org and a couple of other small sites.  They are planning on indexing every name in the 1940 census but they can’t start until April 2, when it will be released by the government.  So, those of us who can’t wait until it is indexed can used a method created by Steve Morse at his web site stevemorse.org using the address in the 1940’s.

All genealogists should be making a list of all the address’ of people they want to find in the census and using Steve Morse’ site find the Enumeration District for the address. An Enumeration District is a defined area in a town over which a person, the enumerator, collects information for the census. When the census is available they will be able to go right to the correct Enumeration District for either the city or town and page through to find the right family.

Using the census records is very helpful in learning when people might have died, married, had more children, changed occupations and moved.  When looking at the census pages you should look not just at your family but the families who lived in their neighborhood.  You might find other family members.  When immigrants travel to other countries they would most likely settle in an area already settle by members of their nationality and even members of their town in the old country.  If you follow the family in several census records and find the next door neighbor is always the same family, it is a good bet they are related in some way, or came from the same area of the old country.

I have a friend who is looking for the place of origin in Ireland of her Grandmother.  All of the documents found already for her and her family just say Ireland.  We are now looking at a family she lived with when she first came to New York City.  One family member was also a witness when she married, all indications that they were very close.  The questions we now have are; are they related and are they from the same area? 

We have found the family she stayed with in several later census’ noting when the parents are not present anymore, indicating when they might have died.

We have found death dates in the indexes that might be her and her husband.  After sending for them and reviewing all the information to confirm that they are the correct people, we hope it might indicate where in Ireland.

We have also decided to send for the birth certificates of their children who are listed in the census at the time the Grandmother lived with the family.  We hope on their birth certificates there is mention of a place of origin for their mother or father.

So with these two research problems you can see how helpful the census records are and why the genealogy world is very excited to have another being released to the public.