Today is one of those days where I’m really glad I have a blog category called Family File Hijinks. It makes it all sound more interesting than what it actually is. I’m writing today to update about my progress in two areas. One being my family file clean up and two on the new website progress.
It came yesterday! Well technically it came on Saturday. We usually get Saturday’s mail when we’re out getting Sunday’s paper. It’s just the way we work it. I can’t believe this baby was in the mailbox all night and I didn’t know it! I ordered this record online on August 1st. I was prepared to wait 4 to 6 weeks like normal. I can’t believe it’s already here.
I have to move past that though and actually look at the record. It was two pages. In fact I was very familiar with the format of it because I’ve been transcribing some marriage records like this for FamilySearch indexing in my spare time. The first page was a bit harder to read but it does give me a few things. It gives me the marriage date of 23 Apr 1896. So now I know that Robert married just 6 months before his mother passed away. It also gives the witness to wedding, one Sarah T Adams. Since the person marrying Robert and Mary was named J S Adams, I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say Sarah was his wife.
Now onto the page pictured on the left. The address of 1845 Broadway is actually new. I hadn’t seen that one. Looking it up on Google though, it’s not out of the circle that the Moores lived in during their time in Brooklyn and it’s almost right next to the cemetery where they would bury Robert’s mother in 6 months. Robert’s occupation as an Insurance Agent is nothing new to me. He definitely did that for awhile. Father was William H Moore. Still all good information. Oh wait, there it is. Mother’s Maiden Name. I won’t keep this from you. When it comes to finding out this woman’s maiden name I have the worst luck in the world. When I got the record out of the envelope, I was so scared to even look for this section. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t blank! It’s always blank! Not this time though. Looks like her maiden name was Starret. I could be wrong but it’s definitely a starting point!
Now lets move onto Mary E Johnson. The only things I’d known about her was what was listed on censuses and William’s (her son) birth certificate. The residence of 196 Macon Street, Brooklyn definitely gives me a starting point for her. Imagine looking for Mary E Johnson in Brooklyn, with parents born in Ireland. Now we move down the record to her parents. Oh! Oh! I’m just going to cry now, both her parents are listed. Arthur Johnson as her father and Annie Moffot (?) as her mother! Of course, if anyone has better ideas for the mother’s name, just let me know. I’m open to discussion.
I did a quick search of Arthur Johnson with a wife Annie. Believe it or not, the best matches came to a family living in Babylon, New York in 1870 and 1880. I want to look in the New York State Censuses before I rush to judgement though. I especially want to look in the 1892 one. That would be 4 years before this marriage, so I would imagine that would be my best chance of a good match!
It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Google Earth Adventure. They’re fun, I need to make more time for them! I’m still in the process of collecting my data for the Menzies family. Just when I thought I was at a stopping point, I found another lead this morning. Never ending! I just have to say I love the FamilySearch indexes. Sure I can’t confirm until I set eyes on the record myself, but since I knew the maiden name of Jennie Menzies-Love’s mother I’m pretty positive about what I’ve found. So thank heaven for the California Death Index listing the mother’s maiden name! Since most of my Dad’s family stayed in New Jersey, I fretted over ever getting my hands on more records. Little did I know a bunch of New Jersey people headed west to California in the 40’s!
Anyway, back onto the Google Earth part. I found that John Menzies and Jane Ferris’ first five children were born in Scotland before the family went south to Liverpool, England. I plugged some search terms into FamilySearch’s Scotland Birth and Christening Records. Voila! I have a place! Morton by Thornhill, Dumfries, Scotland, UK. All five children born in Scotland have Christening records there and John and Jane have a marriage record there. In fact I think I found John’s birth record there too 😉 The only problem I had was that there was no Morton on any maps I looked at. I’ve run across this in the United States though, so I don’t fret too bad.
Continue reading “GEA: Thornhill, Scotland”I’ve been hard at work tracing down my Menzies ancestors. I thought I didn’t have much on this line of the family. Then I found a few things that helped me over a brick wall. So now I’m trying to go slowly and search out these families. For anyone keeping count, though I don’t know why ^.^, my new family-file is up to 270 people. This is all sourced information without me going bonkers on the “allied families”, so this is a big accomplishment for me. It’s so hard for me not to go crazy collecting relatives.
I thought I’d share one of my interesting finds with Mary Menzies-Winters. Mary is the sister of my 3rd Great Grandmother, Jennie T Menzies-Love. She was born around 1840 in Lancashire, England (most likely Liverpool). According to a listing I found on the Love-Menzies Family Outline, she married a man with the surname Winters. So that was my first step in locating her after she disappears from her family household. I found her in 1870 in New York City living with her husband Jacob Winters and their 6 children. By 1880, Jacob was gone and Mary had remarried a man named Theodore Thomas. When I went to the 1900 census, I’ll be honest, I did I quick search for a Mary Thomas, but nothing came up. So I just set out to find her children. My reasoning was, if her children were centrally located, most likely that’s where I’d find Mary.
Let me be up front. My usual operating procedure is I get really excited about something, spend all my time on that one thing, then I lose steam. I’m working on spreading myself out a little more in all aspects of my life. I really don’t multi-task well is what I’m getting down to. So we’ll see how my new outlook affects me in August.
Website Re-Design: This is still in the works. I haven’t given up on it or my previous design. I just want to tweak it a bit more. I’ve also decided to actually learn the coding I’m using instead of just trying to manipulate things from a ready-made template. I’ve been much happier with my TNG websites after I ditched the templates and made my own design. I’m hoping the same goes for WordPress. I really want a better integrated website. I’m good with HTML and CSS, so I just have to learn what I need to about some WordPress coding to make my designs work.
