WILLIAM JOHN MATHERS - #5 – 52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS

In January 2014, Amy Johnson Crow of the Ancestry blog issued the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.

The premise: write once a week about a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, a research problem — any that focuses on that one ancestor. The next week, write about a different ancestor. In 52 weeks, you’ll have taken a closer look at 52 people in your family tree… and maybe learned a little bit more about them in the process.

William John Mathers was born in 1845 in County Tyrone, Ireland. He was my Great Grandfather.  I have only one record that indicates his father’s name.  His marriage certificate dated 31 January 1864 indicates his father was Thomas and was deceased at the time of the marriage.  William John Mathers married Mary McCrudden of Sion Mills, Tyrone, Ireland.  On the marriage certificate it states his residence is in Gallony, Tyrone, Ireland.

Sometime after his first daughter, Mary Jane, was born in December of 1864, William took his family to New York.  He felt he would have a better opportunity for work in his trade of boot/shoe maker.  His wife was very afraid of the move and consulted with her parish priest who told her she had to stay with her husband.  I have not found them travelling from Ireland to New York but find them in Manhattan when their first son is born.  James was born 31 July 1868 in Manhattan.  They lived at 357 7^th Avenue at this time.

He and his wife Mary continued to have children, 9 in all.  Two children died when they were young. Thomas died when he was 11 and Elizabeth when she was 15.  The other children married and had many children.

The children are

• Mary Jane who married  Joseph Flanagan and had 13 children.
•  James who married Cecelia O’Brien and had just one son. 
• Catherine who married Patrick Morris and had 2 daughters.
• Ellen (Nellie) who married William Hickey and had 6 children
• Ann who married William White and one daughter
• Theresa (Tessie) who married William Rudolph and had 5 children
• William Joseph who married Mary (Mamie) McGuigan and had 4 children

I have several city directories showing him as a boot maker and all of his census records have him working as a boot/shoe maker in Manhattan until his death. I was very curious about how his shop might have looked and how it serve customers.  I found a movie made in 1954 about a boot maker in 19th century England that gave me the answers I was looking for.  The movie was "Hobson's Choice".

I had a very hard time finding out when and where William John Mathers had died.  Over the years the Mathers family name was changed (not legally) but just for convenience of spelling I think.  It was Mathers, Mathews, and Matthews.  In Ireland the spellings were interchangeable and so it also happened in the United States.  Every time I would search data bases for a death for William John Mathers I would use all 3 spellings.  After many years of on and off searching I came across a William Matthers that looked promising. It was a certificate dated 27 February 1902.  I sent for the document and it was him.  It gave his address which was the same as on the census for 1900.  It also listed his occupation as shoe maker.  I was pretty sure it was the right person.  I then contacted Calvary Cemetery where it stated he was buried.  I was given the plot number and the names of others buried there.  The two children Thomas and Elizabeth were buried with William John Mathers. 

I have a lot of information on all the family members here in New York but would love to find more information on his life in Ireland.  He was an only child according to several family members I have contacted.  I will have to find church records in Ireland to find out about his family there.  I have searched in the data bases that are available in Tyrone but I think his parish also included part of County Donegal and will have to look at churches in that County.

His adventure from Ireland to New York turned out to be for the best and we are all very happy he made that decision.

THOMAS NICHOLAS MURPHY - #3 52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS

In January 2014, Amy Johnson Crow of the Ancestry blog issued the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.

The premise: write once a week about a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, a research problem — any that focuses on that one ancestor. The next week, write about a different ancestor. In 52 weeks, you’ll have taken a closer look at 52 people in your family tree… and maybe learned a little bit more about them in the process.

I have taken the challenge and this week I am talking about my Father-in-Law, Thomas N. Murphy. 

Tom Murphy was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1909 to Thomas Murphy and Florence McDonald. He was the second of four children, John born in 1906, Virginia in 1911 and Eileen in 1913.

He originally worked for the NY Parks Department but when World War 2 came he started working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  He was not eligible for service because he was blind in one eye. 

He married Mary Glessoff also of Brooklyn in 1935.  They had one son.

In his early 20's he participated in the Golden Gloves in Brooklyn.  It was a great organization for young men.  They had competitions all over the New York City area.

Tom was a very social person; he loved to get people together for a party.  He, after moving to Hicksville with his family, became the founder of the Millwood Gate Civic Association.

Another love he had was coaching Little League Baseball.  His team of neighborhood boys had several winning years.   Tom also had an unusual gift for math.

While living in Hicksville he was a truck driver for Tidewater Oil Company.  He worked nights delivering to many of the gas stations on Long Island. 

He was  a truly great person. We lost him too early at 51 years old.

MAMIE MC GUIGAN - REMEMBERING GRANDMA

In January 2014, Amy Johnson Crow of the Ancestry blog issued the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. The premise: write once a week about a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, a research problem — any that focuses on that one ancestor. The next week, write about a different ancestor. In 52 weeks, you’ll have taken a closer look at 52 people in your family tree… and maybe learned a little bit more about them in the process.

I have taken the challenge and started with Martha Anderson Moore last week.  This week I am talking about my paternal grandmother, Mamie McGuigan Mathews. 

Mamie McGuigan was born in 1875 in Middletown, Armagh, Ireland.  In 1897 she and her sister Alice McGuigan travelled to America and began a new and exciting life in New York City.

They really had no skills just as so many immigrates before them, but they got jobs in the Hotel industry.  They cleaned the rooms and had a very social life with all the other immigrants.

They left a very crowded home in Ireland.  Their mother, Ann Mallon McGuigan, died in 1883 and their father, Thomas McGuigan, remarried in 1886 to Catherine McNaughton.  In 1888 they had a son, Thomas who joined the family of 4 girls and 1 boy.  They lived in a very common house in the townland of Crossdall.  The photo below of the McGuigan farm and house was taken in the early 1900’s.

In 1909 Mamie married William J. Mathews.  They had met while working in a hotel, she was a cleaning maid and he was a hall boy.  The photo of Mamie below was taken around the time they were married.

Mamie and her husband, William (Willy) Mathews had 4 children, Thomas, Catherine, William and James (my father).  They lived in Manhattan, New York until 1933 when they moved to Richmond Hill, New York.  William died in 1943 and Mamie began to live with her children, ending up living most of the time with Catherine (Kay) Mathews Hurley. She died in May 1959 in Richmond Hill, New York.

Mamie only lived with us for a short while and I remember how she loved the soap operas on radio that she listened to faithfully while doing the ironing. 

Mamie very seldom spoke of her life in Ireland but did keep in touch with relatives there. One of her other sisters (Elizabeth McGugian Catior) came from Ireland a couple of years after Mamie.  I know of one niece who immigrated to America and stayed.  Most of the rest of the family stayed in Ireland.  Her half brother Thomas married in 1913 and had 10 children.  Peter McGugian, a grandchild of Thomas lives in the McGuigan house in Crossdall now.

MARTHA ANDERSON - #1 - 52 ANCESTORS IN 52

In January 2014, Amy Johnson Crow  of Ancestry started the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. The premise: write once a week about a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, a research problem — any that focuses on that one ancestor. The next week, write about a different ancestor. In 52 weeks, you’ll have taken a closer look at 52 people in your family tree… and maybe learned a little bit more about them in the process. 



Martha Anderson came to Massachusetts in 1718.  She married William Moore but I don't know if they married in Ireland or in Massachusetts. 


A book by Elliott Moore in 1898 ((Memorial of the Loyalist Families of William Moore, Josiah Hitchings, and Robert Livingstone) does a genealogy of the William Moore family in Moore's Mill, New Brunswick, Canada.  In this listing of families it starts with William Moor/Moore and his wife Martha. They had 7 children, George, Thomas, Allen, William, Jane, Elizabeth, and Mary.  I am the 4th great granddaughter of the son William)


I haven't been able to find anything more on her, she is not mentioned on the tombstone for William Moor but could be buried with him.  I have checked many records in the area they lived, Londonderry, New Hampshire, but have found no mention of her.  That is very common at that time period, women could not own land so would not be mentioned in court records.


Several articles have been written about William Moore and they all believe that his wife's maiden name was Anderson.


She is mentioned just as his wife Martha in his will in 1739. Two men named Allen and Samuel Anderson were the executors of William Moore's will dated 6 November 1739 in Londonderry, New Hampshire.


 In the will of Allen Anderson, Martha Moore is mentioned as his sister.


She was a brave women who left her home in Ireland and made the journey to a new world in the early 1700's and started a wonderful family in New Hampshire.  That family has spread out through the years to Canada and then back to the United States.

A New Family Found

During my researching of my family's genealogy, I have always been on the look out for a priest in the Tierney/Delaney branch of the family.  I remember my grandmother, Isabel Tierney Moore mentioning a priest but I never asked his name.  I found this priest, Thomas A. Sharkey with his family from the time he was born until his death.  I am very surprised we never met him or that he wasn't ask to be at any of our family gatherings.  It was probably because my mother died early. A lot of family gatherings just didn't include her side of the family.

I had been searching the Delaney family on Ancestry.com looking for a nephew that had appeared in the 1880 Census living with Michael Delaney and his family.  There was a document dated 1914 for the son, also named Michael.  It is a Record of Inmates at the N.Y.C. Farm Colony, Staten Island, NY. It lists his parents names, Michael and Mary Malloy Delaney and his last address  He gave a family reference as Joseph Sharkey his brother-in-law.   I had never come across that family name before.

The earliest census I had for the Delaney family was the 1880 census. In that census the children were Maggie, Kate, Alice and Michael.  I knew that Maggie married John Tierney, and Kate never married.  I never found anything about Alice, could she be the wife of Joseph Sharkey?

I looked at the 1900 census for the Delaney family and found that Alice was missing and figured she must have gotten married between 1880 and 1900.  I did look for marriage records during that time frame but could not find anything in Brooklyn where the Delaney family lived during that time.  I looked for a Joseph and Alice Sharkey in Brooklyn in the 1900 census and didn't find them.  I did find a Patrick J. Sharkey with a daughter Alice at 10 years old, with brothers Thomas, Joseph, and Frank.  They also were living with cousins Albert and Mary Ann Summer.  In the same household were other cousins Catherine and Mary Ryan and an Uncle Thomas Sharkey.  I began to think that Alice Delaney Sharkey died and the family was living with relatives.  I wasn't sure this family was connected though.

I then checked the 1892 census to see if I could find Joseph and Alice Sharkey with a family.  I found a Patrick J. Sharkey, wife Alice with daughter Alice 3 year old and Thomas age 1 with father of Patrick, Thomas aged 64.  Could this Patrick J. also be Joseph?  I think so.

I couldn't find a marriage record so I got the birth record of the child Thomas.  He was born 16 February 1891 of Alice F. Delaney and Patrick Sharkey.  They lived at 142 16th St., Brooklyn, NY.  The youngest child in this family was Frank and he was born 14 May 1894 at the same address.  Unfortunately the 1892 census doesn't give addresses so I couldn't verify that this is the same family but I couldn't find another family in Brooklyn with the same family members.

I then searched for a death record for Alice Sharkey.  I found she died 21 April 1896 of heart failure at 142 16th St., Brooklyn, NY.

I am sure that the family in 1900 living with the Summer's family is the family of Alice Delaney.  I will keep looking for the marriage record for her and Patrick J. Sharkey to confirm her parents names.

I have followed the Patrick J. Sharkey family through the years with census records, birth and marriage records and newspaper articles.  Thomas A. Sharkey entered the priesthood in 1915 and became Rite Rev. Monsignor Sharkey by the time he died in 1965.  He was the pastor of several parishes in Brooklyn and was the first pastor of the Seminary in Huntington, LI, NY.

There came about several family connections in all the researching I did following this Sharkey family.  I will continue with that story in the next post on this blog.

Inventions

I have been researching the Moore family in Savannah, Georgia.  Horatio Nelson Moore is my 2nd great Grandfather.  I have followed his path in life from his 1825 birth in Moores Mills, New Brunswick, Canada, marriage in 1850, the births of his children, and his move to the south of the United States.

I believe he relocated in the South because of work opportunities.  His sister Emily and her husband Charles Williams moved down first and started a business.  I don't believe Horatio was much for any kind of hard labor but he was always involved  with music.  He first worked with a brother in his piano making business in Canada mostly in the tuning of the pianos.  He was also teaching singing in choirs.

Horatio lived in Mobile, Alabama at the start of the Civil War and was part of the Alabama Volunteers guarding the Mobile docks.  After the war the opportunity to move to Savannah arrived and he took it.  He began to work for the Chickering Piano Company of Boston, Massachusetts.  It is in this capacity that I found several inventions he had patented.  He patented 3 different inventions starting in 1890 and ending in 1894. Two were all in his name and the other one with another gentleman named John W. Brackett of Boston.

The patent numbers are #444,041 dated 6 January 1, 1891, #493,172 dated 7 March 1893 and #512,206 dated 2 January 1894.  Below is the first page of the Patent of January 1894.

 

 

Several census records indicate that his occupation was piano tuner.  I have some letters his sister wrote to folks back in Canada where she mentions Horatio's love of music and that he was working for the Chickering Company.  His brother John Warren Moore of St. Stephen, Canada became quite a famous furniture and piano maker.  Many of his furniture pieces are displayed in Fredericton, New Brunswick at the Kings Landing Historical Settlement. I believe Horatio learned his love of the piano and its making from his brother in Canada.

 

My grandchildren must have received their love of music and their gifts of playing instruments from the Moore family of Canada.

Cremation Records

I recently learned that the German Genealogy Group helped the Fresh Pond Crematory index all their records.

I didn't think I would have any relatives that were cremated years ago with most of them being Irish Catholic.  On my husband's line there was an Uncle of German heritage.  I found the Uncle's father in the index and requested the record.

Each record requested costs $36.00 and the Crematory couldn't tell me exactly what would be included.  I sent in my check and request on April 22 and received the record on May 10.  I received 6 pages of information.  The first page was a cover letter with the identifying information of Adolf Wipf.  It gave his age and occupation and where he was born.  It also gave me his birth date and death date.  His last residence was given and the place where he died.

The next 2 documents are letters from the funeral director to the Crematory indicating that they are authorized to handle the remains.

The last 3 documents are the Official Burial (or Removal) Permits. This document indicates where he died and what caused his death. On the last 3 documents there is a copy of the death notice from the newspaper.  Unfortunately, the name of the paper is not indicated.

I had looked for his death certificate in the New York City area but couldn't find it.  He lived most of his life in Ridgewood and Glendale.  He died in Central Islip State Hospital.  I am thinking he was put in that hospital because, as the records indicate, he was on welfare.

The only relative mentioned in the record was his son who paid for the service.