Collateral genealogy: A case study

Tucked away in an 1867 Blackfriars edition of Shakespeare’s complete works, I discovered an old photograph of a man holding a young child. The book’s provenance, the photo’s time period, and the man’s cheekbones suggest that he could be grand-uncle John. Since John died in 1941, my aunt didn’t remember anything about him except that he drowned. Her cousin Florence’s neatly drawn family chart, however, indicated that John had married Mae and had a son William who died as an infant.

Over the years I have pieced together some of John’s life, except his marriage. Mae was only a name, no details, not even dates. I decided to spend a few hours online, using Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, to see how much I could learn about grand-uncle John’s mysterious wife and marriage.

The first step was to find a marriage certificate at FamilySearch.org. In 1912, a few days shy of his 24th birthday, John married 17-year-old “Mary” in a Catholic church in his hometown. With her parents’ full names and her approximate birth year, I tried to find Mary’s birth certificate, but had no luck. The details were not specific enough, since I didn’t know where she was born. But I did find her parents’ marriage record in Boston, showing John S. was from western Massachusetts while Bridget was an immigrant from Ireland. Could it be the same family?

Then I found an Ancestry.com Member Tree with a “Mary Agnes” born in 1895 to a John and Bridget. Mary Agnes and her siblings have no data beyond the 1900 and 1910 census—except for the youngest sister who marries into the main branch of the poster’s family tree. The mother, Bridget, didn’t have a maiden name in the tree, but the attached 1910 census, two years before John and Mae marry, is in the correct town. I think I have a match.

With the first flush of success, I excitedly send an email to the tree poster, asking if she has more details on Mary Agnes. I mention that I think she married my grand-uncle. But the poster only says, “No, sorry I don’t. Good luck.”

Making Sense of the Census

I follow my hunch that Mae and Mary Agnes are one and the same, figuring I would track down the clues from Mary Agnes’ family in the censuses until either the data proved or disproved that she married my John. 

The 1900 census shows Mary Agnes’ father John was born in Massachusetts, her mother Bridget in Ireland, agreeing with the Boston marriage certificate. Her three older brothers were born in Rhode Island, while Mary Agnes and her younger sister were born in Connecticut. Since the 1900 census asked for month and year of birth, I know Mary Agnes was born in December of 1895. Although the earliest vital records for Connecticut start in the 1630s, statewide registration started in 1897 (two years after Mary Agnes’ birth) and was not fully implemented until 1915. It’s possible that Mary Agnes and her younger sister were born in the same Connecticut town where they are listed in the 1900 census.

By 1910, Mary Agnes is 15 and living in the same New Jersey neighborhood where she’ll marry her future husband two years later. By 1920, I don’t find John and Mae in the census. (My family, I already know, evaded the census taker that year. I have searched page by page and tried all sorts of name configurations—but only John’s married sister shows up.) In the 1930 census, John is living with his parents, married but with no wife listed in the household. At this point, I’m suspecting cousin Florence’s inkling of a divorce in the family may be correct.

Tracking the Collateral Lines

Since I couldn’t find Mary Agnes in the 1920 and 1930 censuses, I started to track down her siblings, one by one. From the 1900 census, I knew the three older brothers’ birth months and years, and all three were born in Rhode Island. It wasn’t difficult finding their draft registration cards—all were born in Pawtucket, but now I had street addresses and occupations.

At Ancestry.com, I do a general search on oldest brother John, and find a Michigan death and burial index that not only matches his birth date but agrees with the parents’ names on Mary’s 1912 marriage certificate. I trace him through the censuses, unsuccessfully search for a marriage or obituary, and find no sign of a sister Mary.

So I continue with the next brother. I find Thomas and his wife, in Pennsylvania, living with his widowed mother Bridget and sister “May,” age 24, single (and using maiden name) in the 1920 census. By 1930, Bridget is living with her third son Thomas in the same town where John and Mae married, but Mae is missing.

Widening the Search

Using her birth year, birth place, and parents’ names in the Ancestry.com search engine, I come across a Mary Agnes who died in 1982 in California. Could it be my John’s wife remarried? I couldn’t find an obituary and I only had the city and a new last name as found on the California Death Indexes and Social Security Death Indexes. But it was worth investigating.

On the 1940 California census, I found a Mary Agnes with her husband Frank, two sons, and Irish-born mother Bridget—all the details fit, including her 1895 birth in Connecticut. But here was the clincher: Mary and her family lived in Long Beach in 1935, but her mother Bridget lived in New Jersey in 1935, in the same town where daughter Mae married my John 23 years before.

Narrowing a Time Frame

Not surprisingly, I didn’t find a divorce record for John and Mae online. Nor did I find a marriage record for Mae and her second husband Frank. Checking the city directories, published every two years, I followed both John and Mae’s families from 1911 to 1931. In 1917, “Mrs. John” is listed separately from John, who lived a few blocks away. In the 1919 directory, his mother-in-law “Bridget, wid[ow of] John” removed to another city 80 miles away, probably taking Mae with her. Based on the 1940 census, Frank and Mary Agnes’ son was born in 1932 in the same state where Mae lived with her brother in 1920. So she probably didn’t return to the old neighborhood. Mae packed up her bags and headed west.

And as for baby William in cousin Florence’s family tree? Well, there’s only so much research you can do online before needing to visit record repositories and relatives.

For privacy reasons, no surnames were used in this case study. All of the data mentioned has been cited in my database. Ancestry.com is a subscription-based web site while FamilySearch.org offers free access to genealogy records.

Finding romance in genealogy

Do you know your parents’ or grandparents’ love story? How they met and where and when? Did they ever take you on side trips to show you the memorable places and events in their lives, such as where they went on a first date, where they became engaged, where they were married, where they first lived as newlyweds?

To me, it’s a mystery how my parents met, since my father was a few years older and they attended high schools in different towns. Although I don’t know the stories, I have snapshots and memorabilia from those early days, lovingly placed in a scrapbook my mother made. The Broadway playbills, the cocktail napkins from jazz clubs, the movie tickets, even a bar of soap from their honeymoon hotel—all of these cherished items create almost a timeline of their first years together. Flipping through the pages gives me a totally romantic, even glamorous vision of their lives, before children came into the picture.

Maybe you don’t have a scrapbook that tells the story. But if you cannot ask the actual couple—or the people who knew them—look for other sources. Maybe you’ll find a stack of Valentine’s Day, holiday, anniversary, or birthday cards wrapped in a ribbon. Or, better yet, old letters. John Adams (1735-1826) and his wife Abigail (Smith) Adams (1744-1818) wrote more than a thousand letters to each other. You can read them on the Massachusetts Historical Society web site. Even if you’re not related to the president’s family, you can glean much about family life, politics, history, and amour of the times.

If you or your relatives don’t possess the actual pages, you can look for letters, day books, journals, diaries, postcards, photographs, ephemera—even oral histories—at libraries, historical societies, museums, private collections, and even eBay.

Sometimes, romantic or familial thoughts come when envelopes and stationary are not available. One of my collateral great greats wrote a short family history in his old account book, the text of which appeared in the History of the Town of New Marlborough, Massachusetts by Harry D. Sisson (1937). Apparently, in 1859 his aunt was visiting from Michigan and Noah Gibson wanted to scribble her stories somewhere handy before he forgot. Unfortunately, Aunt Alice gave a romantic twist to the family history, turning my 6th great grandfather into an immigrant sea captain (two things he was not) and his son into a minuteman tragically dying at the Battle of Lexington (he died a few years earlier, in 1757 to be exact).

Don’t overlook the possibility that someone published something your ancestors wrote. For instance, when Judge Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) wrote in his diaries, he had no idea people would be reading them hundreds of years later. His writings say much about his love for his family and the little details that made up their everyday life. As a widower, he even shared in his diary his attempts to woo a lady—and her eventual rejection.

People don’t have to be famous to be published either. Soldiers from Massachusetts who fought in the Civil War often had their letters to parents, siblings, sweethearts, and wives published in the local newspaper, The Quincy Patriot. Numerous soldier letters have been printed or are available online.

Speaking of newspapers, you may find a treasure trove of love stories, from golden anniversary articles, mentions in the local gossip column, and obituaries to letters, poetry, and stories. And if you descend from high school or college sweethearts, look for yearbooks and alumni publications.