“She won’t be long after me.”

March 14 — Newsmakers? Did you have a female ancestor who made the news? Why? Was she famous or notorious? Did she appear in the social column?

The Emmens (or Emmons, depending on who you ask) branch of my family show up almost daily in the Brooklyn Eagle. They threw parties, raised money for Cuban refugees and the Red Cross (two of the Emmens daughters married Cubans – one being my great great grandfather), and generally made news just by the fact that the family lived in the same section of Brooklyn for over 50 years. Henry, the patriarch, is affectionately referred to as the “mayor” in his obituary, so you can kind of get a feel for the family’s notoriety. They were locals in a small town that seems utterly foreign to me, having spent time in the bustling borough that is Brooklyn today.

There are a lot of great newspaper articles featuring the Emmens, but by far the most interesting is Catherine (Killeen) Emmens’ obituary.

Catherine was born in Ireland September 19, 1826 to James and Catherine Killeen. The family immigrated to New York around 1841 (I haven’t been able to find records of this, so I’m not sure which family members immigrated). September 1, 1847, Catherine married Henry Emmens in Brooklyn. They had at least 12 children and seemed to live relatively comfortably. I always have the impression that they were “rich,” but I’m not sure if that’s factual, or if it’s due to the juxtaposition of the rest of my family tree, which is composed of poor immigrants living in tenements. Either way, I’m pretty sure they were well-to-do. My grandmother’s cousin, Noreen, says that Emmons Ave was named for the family, but I’ve never looked into it.

Anyway, back to the obituary.

Henry died on December 19, 1899 of pneumonia. Being locally famous, his obituary shows up in a lot of papers. Catherine died shortly after her husband on January 26, 1900. Her obituary shows up frequently as well, both for her popularity, but also due to the cause of death attributed by her physician.

Headline of Catherine’s obituary in the New York Post

From the New York Post, January 28, 1900:

In a quiet corner of Greenwood Cemetery there is this morning an open grave. But a short span away there is a mound, the sod of which was laid but six short weeks ago. Before dusk to-night all that remains of Mrs. Catherine Emmens, seventy-four years of age, of No. 114 Second place, Brooklyn, will be lowered into the open grave by six sorrowing sons, who six weeks ago performed the same sad office for their father. The physician who attended Mrs. Emmens says she died of a broken heart. The death certificate states in a matter of fact way that it was pneumonia. Mrs. Emmens had been united with her husband for fifty-three years of happy wedded life. They were separated only six weeks by death.

Mrs. Emmens was born in Ireland on September 19, 1826, but she came to New York city when fifteen years old. When she met Henry Emmens only two years older than herself, they fell in Love at first sight and were married.

The couple celebrated their golden wedding on September 15, 1897, and a year later Mr. Emmens celebrated the semi-centennial of his business career. At their side during these happy events were six sons and three daughters, nine children living out of thirteen born to Mr. and Mrs. Emmens.

It was only six weeks and three days ago that Mr. Emmens contracted the cold which developed into the pneumonia that caused his death. He had frequently said that he wished his wife would die first, and almost on his deathbed he told one of his daughters, “She won’t be long after me.”

Mrs. Emmens took her husband’s death much to heart. Before that she had been ailing only with the troubles common to her more than three score and ten years, but immediately after the funeral she began to droop. Day by day she pined away and, a slight cold settling in, developed into the same disease that parted her husband from her.

I saw one of the daughters in the Second place home last night.

“I suppose that mother had pneumonia,” she said, sobbing, “but the doctor said that she died of a broken heart. After father’s death we had to carry her downstairs every day to the parlor, where the large picture of father hung, and when she would look at it and say ‘That’s Henry’ the sight would comfort her. She wanted to go to him and died.”

Crossing the Irish Sea

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!

As you might recall from this post, I have a bit of Irish ancestry running through my veins (93%!). Most of my direct ancestors are Irish and those who weren’t often married an Irish man or woman. As such, today has always kind of been a big deal for my family, heritage wise. I am named for an Irish county, after all!

March 13 — Moment of Strength: share a story where a female ancestor showed courage or strength in a difficult situation.

Told you I’d be skipping around with these prompts haha. Anyway, today I’m writing about my 3rd great grandmother, Bridget (McGovern) Kiernan. Regretfully, I don’t know much about the Kiernans. That branch of my tree has always remained elusive to my amateur sleuthing skills (plus, you know how it is with Irish records). Her daughter, Kate, my 2nd great grandmother, has been easier to trace. She lived in New York and can be found with her husband, a lawyer, who shows up in the paper from time to time. Poor Bridget, though, cursed with a common enough name (an Irishwoman named Bridget!) and no relatives to help pin point her. I haven’t been able to trace most of her children either, with the exception of Kate.

The one thing I do know about Bridget, however, is the story of her immigration, which has been passed down to me. In 1987, my Pop Pop (Charles Wills) was visiting Ireland and wanted some information about his family before he went, which a distant cousin in Florida happily supplied. Below is an excerpt of the letter:

They came from Barru (phonetic) in Cavan in what is now Eire. It was there that Philip and Bridget (McGovern) lived with their eight children: ANN; MARGARET; BERNARD; ALICE (my grandmother); KATE (CATHERINE) (your grandmother) and JAMES (twins); ELIZABETH (LIZZIE); and PHILIP.

As is the Irish custom, the family farm had gone to Philip’s older brother, Owen. Philip was a blacksmith, and skilled in making things of forged iron. It would appear that he had a fair education, at any rate he was literate. Every one of his children went to school in Ireland, and the older ones completed their education before coming to America. In the late 1850s when they came to America, Dickens had a great vogue, and they had read all of his that had been published up to that time.

Philip had his own business, and their comfortable home had a lovely garden (when Aunt Kate was an old lady she described it – there was a well and tiger lilies grew around its base. It was so lovely when they were in bloom that people used to come to look at it.) Philip began to ail. When he realized it was terminal, he talked to Bridget and they agreed that when he was gone, she would sell out and with the proceeds take the children to America. Philip died and Bridget carried out his wishes.

By this time, two of her children were already in America. Ann, the oldest, had accompanied Bridget’s mother when she went to join two of her children in New York; and Margaret who had married one Fitzpatrick, a tailor by trade. They had left their little son, who was called Feefee (Philip) with her parents, when they set out for America.

So Bridget with the six of her children that remained in Ireland and little Feefee crossed the Irish Sea, and sailed from Liverpool. They did not go steerage, and had a reasonably comfortable voyage. At any rate, Grandma Alice had a pleasant time, for when they were nearing the port of New York, the ship’s doctor proposed, but she declined.

It’s always remarkable to me that, in the wake of her husband’s death, Bridget had the strength to pack up all the kids and make the journey across the ocean to America.  To be sure, it was easier knowing family would be there to greet them. Still, it couldn’t have been easy leaving everything you’d known for a new life. Perhaps one day I’ll discover where life took her once she reached America?

Eight lives for the men and nine for the women

I’ve talked about this before, but genealogy has the misfortune of often being male-focused. Blame it on our fascination with soldiers added to the unique privilege men enjoy of never having to change their last name. Take this blog, for example: I’ve almost exclusively talked about my male veteran ancestors (and not on purpose!).

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because March is National Women’s History Month and The Accidental Genealogist has some great prompts to encourage you to write about your female ancestors. March is also Irish American Heritage Month, so I’m thinking I might try to focus on my Irish American female ancestors, if I can help it. Obviously, I’m already a bit behind (what with it being March 8), but there’s no sense in not trying! I’ll probably pick and choose prompts, anyway.

On to the post!

March 2 — Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

I’m going to cheat a bit and combine this prompt with the March 3 prompt (Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors?), because the person applies to both:

Meet Ann Cecilia Connell, my great great grandmother. This picture was taken for Ann’s Confirmation; the dress was most likely made by herself, as Ann was an “excellent dressmaker and sewer,” according to her granddaughter, Noreen. Indeed, she’s listed on several censuses as a seamstress, so the sentiment probably isn’t far off the mark.

Ann was born May 1, 1865 to John and Maria (Scully) Connell. Her parents were both Irish immigrants, but met and wed in New York City. Ann married my great great grandfather, James Nolan, in February of 1890 at St. Mary’s Church in lower Manhattan (which still exists today). The two had nine children, though three died very young.

I’ve passed by it a few times while I’ve been in the city, but have never gone in. I really should someday.

James is an interesting character: an Irish immigrant who was in the ice business before becoming obsessed with cars, thus altering his career path for the rest of his life. That’s a story for another day, though.

Ann died on November 22, 1937, sixty years to the day before my youngest sister would be born. I don’t know much about Ann beyond the facts, but I’d like to someday.

March 3 — Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern. If not, then list the most unique or unusual female first name you’ve come across in your family tree.

My first name comes from County Kerry, the homeland of my paternal great grandfather. It’s unique – I haven’t run across another family member who shares it.

My middle name, Ann, however, is somewhat of a family heirloom. Several of my female cousins share the middle name Ann, as does my mother and all three of her sisters, and my great grandmother, Margaret (Ann Connell’s daughter). There might be more that I’m not aware of too. I’m not really sure why we all share this name, or why our ancestors saw fit to name so many of us after the first Ann. Why has no one ever had that as their first name? As always, so many questions and few answers.

So, there it is: Kerry for my ancestral county, Ann for my great great grandmother.

Effects of The Great Depression

I was going back over some census records recently (this is a good practice – if you’re anything like me, the first time you look at a record you’re so overwhelmed by the excitement of it that you miss half the details). My family tree is pretty bare compared to a lot of my friends’ genealogies, but they have the luxury of descending from richer stock, while I am mostly the product of poor, 19th century immigrants (the tenements in New York City are known for a lot of things, but record retention is not one of them). Since I’m limited in my ability to build backwards, I spend a lot of time fixating on and fleshing out the members of my family tree that I do know. It’s kind of nice, in a way, to get to know my ancestors as people. That’s really what this blog is about, sharing my ancestors’ stories.

You might recall that last time I posted (forever and a day ago, it seems), it was about my great grandfather, Frank Erlanger. I think a lot about Frank (almost as much as I think about his grandfathers, the Civil War vets). He is such an enigma to me, what with the name changing and various other details that family members have graced me with (perhaps subjects for future posts?). It was his census records that I was perusing for more information.

One thing I’ve always known about my dad’s family is that they were never particularly wealthy. The Germans came in the 1850s and the Irish even later and, like I said, the tenements in New York City were known for a lot of things, not many of them positive.

Overcrowding? Yes. Poverty? Check. An overabundance of opportunity? Not so much.

What I’m trying to get at, I guess, (and being very long winded about) is that when I looked at the professions column on the censuses, I expected to see what I already knew about Frank: that he had worked as a janitor in a school. It’s the same as when I look at occupations on my mom’s side of the family (who’s opportunities were a bit more plentiful, way down in Brooklyn) and expect to see lawyers and politicians. My mom’s family has been in this country longer than my dad’s and so their foundation is a little sturdier. They’ve had more time to adapt, I suppose.

Anyway, what I didn’t expect to find in the census is what I actually got:

Frank’s occupation in 1920

In 1920, Frank (still Sussman) was 18 and a runner for a stock company.

Frank’s occupation in 1925

In 1925, he was a bank runner, which I imagine was pretty similar to his job in 1920 (and in fact, it might have been the same job, just a difference in semantics between the census takers). By 1930, Frank was a clerk for a brokerage office, of which I wish I knew the name.

Frank’s occupation in 1930

As we all know, though, the 1930s weren’t really a good time for most industry, let alone banks/stocks. And, I suppose, there’s a reason why no one in the family had ever thought to bring up (if they had ever even known) that Frank worked in a brokerage office at some point in his life. Frank seemed to be on the cusp of a promising career in 1930, so what happened?

Three words: The Great Depression.

Frank’s occupation in 1940

Like so many others after the stock market crashed, Frank was probably laid off from his job. As a father and husband with mouths to feed, he was probably forced to take any job he could get, regardless of previous aspirations. It makes me sad to think his life was so hard. I think about it a lot, maybe more than I should, but I suppose that is the price you pay for caring about the dead as if they are living.

I know one of my dad’s relatives has a picture of Frank at the school where he worked. I’d love to see it one day.

What’s in a name?

For a long time, I was having difficulty tracing my German ancestors. I had always known my grandpa’s parents were Frank Erlanger and Agnes Heffernan (who, as her name suggests, was certainly not German, but rather Irish). I was told Frank began his life Jewish, but at some point in life had converted to Catholicism. Agnes’ family had apparently not been too happy with the fact that their good, Irish Catholic daughter was marrying a German Jew; they had disowned her for it (although later I found out that might have had something to do with the fact that she was pregnant with my grandpa before the two were married, but that’s a story for another day). I assumed Frank had converted to Catholicism for his wife, but that is of yet unproven and not really important to the story. The point is, this is more or less what I had to go on in terms of searching for my ancestors. Not a lot of information, but it was something.

Frank and Agnes (right, standing) and their children celebrating the engagement of their oldest son, Joseph (my grandpa) to Mary Lynch (my nana).

Frank and Agnes were easy enough to find in the 1930 census, but everything before that was a complete mystery. Frank Erlanger, for having such a unique name, seemed to vanish when it came to any sort of paper trail before he married his wife. My dad had said they lived in New York their entire lives, but perhaps he had been wrong? I widened my search parameters, but still nothing came up. I was at a loss.

Eventually I became more knowledgeable about this whole genealogy thing and ordered Frank and Agnes’ marriage record. One of the great things about marriage records is they often include parents names, which would be critical in discovering Frank’s whereabouts pre-1930. After a few weeks of waiting, I was rewarded for my patience: Joseph Erlanger and Isabella Tobias. Finally, the mystery could be solved!

Or so I naively thought, anyway.

I began amassing census records for Joseph and Isabella Erlanger: 1920, 1915, 1910… all the way back to 1860 and their own parents, Frank’s grandparents. I now had a bunch of names and dates for family I had spent years wondering about. There was only one problem – no Frank.

Joseph and Isabella had a son, Susmann (named for Joseph’s father), who matched up nicely with Frank, but there was seemingly no way for me to determine whether or not they were the same person. Considering that Joseph and Isabella Erlanger were literally the only Joseph and Isabella in the entire country, though, I was content to believe it might be true. After all, Frank had converted to Catholicism. Couldn’t he have taken a Catholic name to better fit in with his new religion?

Still, the lack of proof nagged on me, and it wasn’t until Ancestry recently indexed the 1925 NY Census that I was able to prove my assumption correct.

In the 1920 Federal Census, Susmann is listed as living with his mother and three brothers, Harry, Edward, and Julius. Next door lived their sister, Evelyn, and her husband.

Susmann and his family in 1920

No new information there. However, in the 1925 NY Census, I was able to locate another sister, Nettie, living with her husband, Timothy Shannon, and their children. Included in their family household are three in-laws: Isabella, Harry, and Frank Erlanger.

The Shannons and Erlangers in 1925

I now had proof of Frank Erlanger living with the same brother and mother Susmann Erlanger had lived with 5 years earlier. Same relationships, consistent aging, different name. I was ecstatic. There definitely had been a name change, but it was before marriage and his presumed conversion to Catholicism. So why did Susmann change his name if not to win the approval of his wife’s disapproving family?

The answer I came up with was a sobering one (and purely my own opinion, though I think it’s a good contender for the truth). Susmann changed his name (and his religion) sometime between 1920 and 1925. Or, if we look at it another way, only a few years after the end of World War I. The interwar period. Germany had just lost to the Allies and there were a lot of negative feelings swimming around mainstream American opinion: anti-immigrant, anti-German, anti-Semitic. Though born and raised in the United States to parents who were also born and raised in the United States, Susmann Erlanger couldn’t hide what his unique name so clearly spelled out: He was German, he was Jewish, and at one point or another his family had immigrated here. Perhaps brother Harry could get through life without much hassle, but with a name like Susmann? You’re going to be noticed.

So what do you do about that name? In the days before intense background checks and several forms of ID, you simply wake up one morning and change it.

Frank-formerly-Susmann and his youngest daughter, Kathy.

The interesting part about this is that my Uncle Frank is named for his grandfather Frank, who, it ends up, wasn’t Frank at all. Although I suppose Grandfather Frank did choose that name himself, so that has to count for something.

After all, as Juliet so poignantly put it to Romeo, what’s really in a name, anyway?

Mapping My DNA

There’s been a ton of buzz for the last few months about Ancestry.com’s new DNA testing, which maps your ethnicity and matches your tree to others who have taken the test. I, of course, signed up right away. I’ve always wanted to try DNA testing, but have never been able to justify the cost. Ancestry’s $100 seemed like a pretty good deal to me, so why not?

The test was pretty simple: spit into a tube, discover where your family lived 1,000 years ago. I sent it away with romantic daydreams of getting something back that I wasn’t expecting, Middle Eastern, Scandinavian. (A lot of people who have taken the test have been shocked to receive a high percentage of Scandinavian DNA when none of their documented ancestors have been Scandinavian. It ends up that those ancestors thousands of years ago were Vikings who settled in their conquered lands. Pretty cool, right?) Mostly, though, I was hoping for confirmation of the random Jewish and Cuban heritage that’s snuck into my Irish Catholic lines.

Well, the results are in:

Apparently my family sprung out of the ground in Ireland.

I wasn’t really expecting my results to look so… heterogeneous, but then when I thought about it, it made total sense. Of my great great grandparents, only 3 out of the 16 weren’t from Ireland or England. If the DNA test is tracing my ethnicity back 1,000 years, think of all the Irish and English people there are in my tree in comparison to the Cuban and German! If we’re looking at percentages, they’d basically be almost nonexistent. My DNA results absolutely show that.

Ancestry.com explained that the 7% Uncertain meant that those bits of DNA were too small to determine their origin. That could change with time once their DNA pool gets larger, but I’m pretty confident that’s the German and Cuban genes making an appearance. Although, who knows, maybe there’s a secret lurking in that 7% that I’m not anticipating?

Overall, I’m really glad I took the test. My family has always celebrated our Irish heritage and while I didn’t think I could feel any closer to my long ago homeland, the results of my DNA test gave me a sense of pride I wasn’t necessarily expecting, but perhaps should have anticipated.

In 2008, I was lucky enough to visit Ireland. I remember standing on the bank of some lake in the Wicklow Mountains and thinking about how my ancestors might have stood in the same spot hundreds (and now I know, thousands) of years ago and how cool that was. In America, our history is brief. The places I visit now in my every day life were only fixtures in my family tree for 200 years, maybe 300, but nothing so grand as to span the length of millennia. The tour guide on our bus in Ireland told me I looked exactly like her niece and I remember thinking that she looked like my aunts (soft features, round face, light complexion, thin hair). Now I’m better able to understand why.

Finding my roots.

Let’s not forget the women

I find a lot of times when I’m researching my family tree that I tend to focus more on the men than the women. This isn’t some subversive attempt to undermine my gender; rather, it’s a commentary, I think, on the kinds of records available. Men held office. They voted. They had jobs and signed up for wars and left a paper trail miles longer than their female counterparts. Most of the things I know about my female ancestors that I can’t learn about from family, I learned from censuses: housewife, spoke English, attended school, gave birth to 8 children and only 5 survived. Sometimes you get lucky and discover a newspaper article or two, but (at least in my case) those tend to be of the marriage announcement, obituary, what she wore to the Friday night social variety. There just isn’t as much information.

In my never ending quest to make sense of the 1940 census, I stumbled upon my great great grandmother, Adelaide (Garrison) Jeffreys, living at her home on 341 Little Clove Rd. Want a picture of great great grandma Addie? Look no further than my blog’s header. That’s her beautiful face right in the center.

And what a picture it is, hm? Addie’s in the center, holding her son, William. Seated in front of her is Robert. The girls standing are Edith (back) and Lillian (front), my great grandmother. The boys standing are Frederick (back) and Henry (front).

A distant cousin said the picture was taken late 1896, early 1897. It definitely looks it by the way they’re dressed. I’ve talked about this before (coincidentally in a post about Adelaide’s father), but I love searching pictures for the family resemblance. I look at Adelaide’s face and I see my Pop Pop, her grandson. It’s faint, but to me it’s there.

Here she is again, but much younger in 1875, all of  10 or 11 years old.

On the 1940 census, Addie is living at the home with son Henry, daughter Adelaide (not pictured above – she wasn’t born yet), son in law Robert Perry, and four grandchildren. Her husband, Henry, died only 4 months prior to the census taking.

Here are the two of then, Henry and Addie, sitting on the steps of the gazebo he built in the back of their home on 341 Little Clove Rd, Staten Island. This was taken around 1935. Don’t they look happy?

The census doesn’t tell me much about Addie. She had an 8th grade education, didn’t have a job. She wasn’t in the CCC (shocking!). Her and Henry owned their house for $6,500, which blows my mind a little bit. Imagine owning a house in New York today for that little!

I wish I knew more about her, but I suppose that’s the curse of the genealogist. The further back you go, the harder it is to find someone today who knew any of these people. Still, despite all the unanswered questions, I look at her face at the top of my blog and think  I might have liked her, given the chance to know her.

Looking very stern around 1925 with her grandkids, Charlie and Albert Jeffreys (Pop Pop’s cousins!).

It’s a family thing, I guess.