52 Ancestors 52 Weeks - In The News

My husband’s Great Grandfather, Owen J. McDonald made the newspaper on  4 April 1883 in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York.

Owen J. McDonald born in 1850, was a butcher with a shop in the Washington Market.  The article says that on the morning of 25 February 1883 he left his residence at 163 Nineteenth St., Brooklyn, NY to go to his office to do the accounts.  

The police put out a search and found that he did go to his shop and did the accounts as he indicated was his plan.  He then went to a bar close by and had one beer, which people said was very unusual for him. After that he was found to have gone for lunch and the next and last time he was seen was at the waiting room of the Pennsylvania Railroad Depot in Jersey City.  The article gave a description of him and the clothes he was wearing.  This was a great find because we haven’t any photos of the man.

When the newspaper reporter spoke to the family, they said there is insanity in the family and maybe that is the cause of him wandering.

This was a very long article on 3 pages with lots of detail.  It mentions his wife and one of his daughters, Nellie.

I have not found another article that indicates that he was found.  I do have his death certificate dated three years later, 28 November 1896, he died of  Emphysema in Bellevue Hospital, New York City. I have come to the conclusion that he had the beginnings of Dementia at that time.  In the 1800’s they had no idea about the disease and thought the people were insane. 

 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks - Birthdays

Birthdays are so important to us now but in the past they weren’t celebrated as we do and they had no need to remember the date.  No drivers licenses, social security application, credit card applications.

My Grandmother, Mamie McGuigan Mathews, came to Ireland when she was about 20 and married. She never celebrated her birthday.  Her husband, William Mathews, was born in 1884, in New York and never celebrated his birthday either.

My other grandfather, John Moore born in Savannah, Georgia 1889 never celebrated a birthday.

Not until I was working on our family history and looked up the documents did I know when any of these relatives were born.

We found Mamie’s birth date when her daughter, Catherine (Kay) Mathews Hurley, sent for her birth certificate from Ireland so she could apply for social security under her late husband.  It turns out the husband and wife were both born on July 3, one in 1875 and the other 1884. There is still some question as to what year William Mathews was born, it was always July 3 but in the baptismal record in was 1884, in the WW1 draft record it was 1882 and his WW 11 draft record it was 1883.  They could have celebrated together all those years.

John Moore’s birth date was July 2, 1889.  The document never came to be because Savannah, GA did not require any documentation until 1919.  I found his date from the Social Security Application he filled out in 1936 when they became available.  I did eventually find his baptismal record to confirm this date.

We make birthdays real special these days, which I am very happy about.  It is an important date in our lives.