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.
 |
| Dr. John Warren |
What kinds of records can you
find if your ancestor was in the medical profession?
In many ways, physicians are
public figures, well-known in their communities. You'll find them listed in
city directories, featured in town histories (the so-called mug books), and
mourned in their obituaries. They may have advertised their services in local
newspapers, published scholarly articles on their research or medical cases
(perhaps in the New England
Journal of Medicine,
first published in 1812), lectured at medical schools, or kept detailed
journals. Their medical records may have been deposited in archives, from local
historical and genealogical societies and museums to medical associations, hospitals,
and universities.
Finding the Degree
Not all doctors, nurses,
midwives, and others in the medical profession attended medical schools. Some
were apprentices, sometimes taking over their mentors' practices. Over time,
the barbers and bonesetters became degreed medical professionals.
Massachusetts is home to four
medical schools: Harvard Medical School, founded in 1782; New England Female Medical College, founded in 1848, which became Boston
University School of Medicine in 1873; Tufts University School of Medicine, founded in 1893; and University of
Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, founded in 1962. Look for school histories, alumni
directories, yearbooks, reunion records, and archival holdings.
AMA Directory
The American Medical Association
(AMA) was founded in 1847. At the turn of the 20th century, the AMA started to
collect information on physicians nationwide, whether or not they were AMA
members, and compiled its first American
Medical Directory in 1906. Information
on each doctor was kept on 4 x 6” index cards until 1970, when the AMA started
to use a computer database to track doctors instead. The cards of physicians
who died prior to 1970, now called the AMA Deceased Physicians Masterfile, became part of the AMA Archives. In
1993, the AMA printed the two-volume Directory
of Deceased American Physicians 1804-1929, with biographical profiles. It
is available as part of a paid subscription on Ancestry.com. A finding aid for the Masterfile is available online, to help you find
doctors who died between 1906-1969 within the 87.5 linear feet of original
documents. FamilySearch has images online.
Seventy-two years after a United States census is taken, it is released to the public. Today, April 2, 2012, at 9 a.m. ET, the 1940 census became available to genealogists everywhere. But this release is new and different because it's the first time that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has uploaded the census pages online (all 3.8 million of them!).
Instead of visiting a NARA branch to scroll through microfilm, like we did 10 years ago, now we can see the images on our computers, for free, thanks to a partnership between NARA and Archives.com (a subscription site).
With the excitement generated by the 1940 census release, NARA has had technical difficulties "due to extraordinary demand." The web site is undergoing updates as I type. But in the meantime, if you haven't done it already, you need to know the addresses and enumeration district (ED) numbers to find your families in the 1940 census. Why? Because there's no index to the names yet. However, countless volunteers are working together to create an index through FamilySearch Indexing. Read my article about volunteering as an indexer.
Look for old address books, city directories, phone books, letters, and whatnot to find street addresses. In addition, subscription site Ancestry.com is offering free access to 1 billion U.S. 1940s-era records to help. This offer is good through April 10, 2012, at midnight ET. Records include the 1930 census, city directories, World War II draft cards, school yearbooks, obituaries, and much more.
Other 1940 Census Projects
Besides the official 1940 NARA site, other genealogy sites such as Ancestry.com (subscription only) and FamilySearch (free) received the files to upload at 12:01 this morning. As the day progresses, you'll see updates on their web pages to see how far they've gotten in uploading all these images.
It looks like a lot of genealogists will be up all night doing research!
In December 2008, FamilyTree Magazine included the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston on its list of “9 Genealogy Libraries to Visit Before You Die.” The article cited NEHGS (or HistGen as it’s frequently called) for its “impressive manuscript collection dating back to the 13th century, …unpublished genealogies, Bible records, family associations’ papers, diaries, journals, photographs, cemeteries, and other rarities.”
Founded in 1845, NEHGS is the oldest genealogical society in the United States. Although its collection does focus on New England and New York, the library also includes many local history books, genealogies, censuses, maps, newspapers, and vital records from across the country and around the globe.
Even if you don’t live near Boston and cannot make research trips to its renowned library, becoming a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society has many advantages. Members receive the New England Historic and Genealogical Register (a quarterly scholarly journal, with peer-reviewed articles); American Ancestors (a quarterly member magazine); and discounts on books and other products. The society offers tours and seminars throughout the year.
But the reason why NEHGS is so popular with the online community is its nearly 3,000 online databases available to members only. Some of the titles are:
- Massachusetts vital records 1841-1915 (including images!)
- Massachusetts vital records to 1850 (the tan book series)
- Boston births, baptisms, marriages, deaths, and burials
- Great Migration profiles
- back issues of leading genealogy journals, including New England Historic and Genealogical Register, The American Genealogist (TAG), Connecticut Nutmegger, Essex Antiquarian (MA), New Netherland Connections (NY), and The Virginia Genealogist
- Cemetery transcriptions
- Abstracts of New York wills
Membership also includes online access to premium databases (19th Century U.S. Newspapers; Marquis Biographies Online) and the American Jewish Historical Society—New England Archives (AJHS-NEA) Digital Archive.
NEHGS continues to post Bible, cemetery, census, church, court, immigration, military, probate, school, town, and vital records; newspapers and periodicals; diaries and journals; and genealogies and biographies. New online databases are added weekly.
Located in historic Back Bay in Boston, the library itself is home to 28 million items, including books, microforms, and an outstanding manuscript collection.
Individual memberships are well worth the price.
