Tag: Johnson (paternal)

To say I’ve been struggling with Mary Johnson’s story would be an understatement. Since I returned to writing the blog, I’ve been taking a much more relaxed approach and just writing about what strikes me as I go along. I think researching and seeing so many sad events, it can get to you sometimes. I’ve got a few drafts that I’ve been working on but the last few weeks I just keep returning to Mary. That’s how I knew maybe I was ready to share the latest on her.

Waiting for New York

Last year, I updated about my Johnson research in a post, Spent My Weekend with the Johnsons. I mentioned it was 2 years and counting on waiting for that Mary Moore death record from New York State. Guess what? I’m still waiting. I’ve created a Google Sheet where I am tracking which records I’ve ordered and which ones I want to order. Mary Moore is now 877 business days and counting. 😂

A few months ago, I decided it was time to take the advice of fellow New York state researchers and request the same record from the town of death.

Ordering from the Town of Marcy

6 business days. S.I.X.

I want that to sink in. It took six business days for that record to reach me. I feel a little foolish for taking so long to request it if I’m honest.

Digging Into the Information We Received

I want to go over how I analyzed a lot of the information we got on this certificate.

36 Years, 10 Months, 28 Days

At the top of the certificate, right under Marcy State Hospital, is a calculation of how long Mary has been in the hospital. 36 years, 10 months and 28 days. My obvious next step was to calculate when her admission date would be.

Wow. 1908. There is one thing that immediately pops out to me. I know my Mary was enumerated with her family at 838 Hendrix Street in the 1910 United States Census¹. Am I searching the wrong Mary?

Residence

I’m going to set aside that piece of information to come back to later and look at what else the certificate is telling us. It tells us that her normal residence was Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. That is true for our Mary too, when she disappeared from our records at least. From Robert J. Moore and Mary’s marriage in 1896, they lived in Brooklyn, New York. In 1945, our Mary’s sons were living in New Jersey and her daughter was living in Queens.

Event	Our Mary	New Mary
1910 Residence	838 Hendrix Street	Inferred Marcy State Hospital	⛔
Usual Residence	Brooklyn, NY	Brooklyn, NY	✅

Vitals Statistics

Her birth year is listed as 1873 with an age estimated at 71². This fits with my Mary³. I haven’t been able to get a birth record for her but funny enough, all her census data is pretty spot on for a December 1873 birth date except for the 1910 census. In the 1910 census her age calculates to an estimated 1876 birth year⁴. Which isn’t crazy for a census difference, but it’s interesting that the one census year we are looking at as conflicting with our timeline is the one that also isn’t quite right.

Her birthplace being New York State fits with our Mary being born in Babylon, Long Island, New York⁵. Her parents were born in Ireland, just like the death certificate⁶. The death certificate says Unknown for their names so that doesn’t help us verify our Mary. We know our Mary was born to Arthur Johnson and Ann Moffott⁷.

Her marital status being a widow of Robert J. Moore is a perfect fit for our Mary. Our Robert died in 1925⁸. He moved from Brooklyn to Caldwell, New Jersey either right before or right after his father’s death in 1923. I know this because his son, my great-grandfather, is mentioned in my great-grandmother’s diary for the first time on October 9, 1924.

Event	Our Mary	New Mary
1910 Residence	838 Hendrix Street	Inferred Marcy State Hospital	⛔
Usual Residence	Brooklyn, NY	Brooklyn, NY	✅
Birthdate	circa 1873	circa 1873	✅
Birthplace	New York	New York	✅
Parents Birth place	Ireland	Ireland	✅
Parents Names	Arthur Johnson Ann Moffott	Unknown Unknown	⛔
Marital Status	Widow	Widow	✅

Informant

Quite possibly the most important information on any record, is the informant. We need to know who is giving the information so we can determine how reliable that information may be. In this case, it’s hospital records. Now a lot more becomes clear. If they are using information given at the time of admission, then it’s already 36 years old. We don’t know what records they are using but we know most likely her husband, Robert, was part of the admission process and he would have been listed as the next of kin. After his death it most likely was one of the children.

Place of Burial

This was probably the piece of information that I was most hopeful would come in clear. Of course it did not. I know from my own family records that Mary was buried in Evergreens Cemetery in the family plot. The death certificate says Richmond Hill.

First off, lets all admire the distraction free map that I customized and made on MapIt. It might be hard to tell without clicking the image to zoom it out to full size. Richmond Hill is a neighborhood practically next door to the cemetery. Walking from one point on the map to the other is about 5 to 6 miles. Depending on which route you take. I could just be trying to confirm my own theory at this point, but I really think the death certificate was using the field of Burial, Cremation or Removal Place to denote that she was transported to a funeral home in Richmond Hill. If you have ever done research in New York, or even talked to anyone in New York City or State, you know these are two separate entities for pretty much anything. It’s not just a locals tradition, legally they operate as two separate governing bodies. So NYC and New York State vital records are kept completely separate. This is like when my Grandpa Moore passed away in Washington, DC but we needed to transfer him back to Maryland for cremation. We had to wait for the proper permits and sign offs from DC before that could happen.

Long story even longer, this means that I don’t feel put off by the fact that it says Richmond Hill instead of Evergreens Cemetery. The one thing that I am kind of put off by is that it says the burial date was September 8th. My cemetery paperwork says that she was buried on September 7th. I’ve emailed the cemetery to confirm the burial details of that plot.

Event	Our Mary	New Mary
1910 Residence	838 Hendrix Street	Inferred Marcy State Hospital	⛔
Usual Residence	Brooklyn, NY	Brooklyn, NY	✅
Birthdate	circa 1873	circa 1873	✅
Birthplace	New York	New York	✅
Parents Birth place	Ireland	Ireland	✅
Parents Names	Arthur Johnson Ann Moffott	Unknown Unknown	⛔
Marital Status	Widow	Widow	✅
Informant	We would expect one of her three surviving children.	Hospital Records	⛔
Place of Burial	Evergreens Cemetery	Richmond Hill	⚠️
Date of Burial	September 7th	September 8th	⚠️

Lets go Back to the Census Discrepancy

One of the first things people tell you about genealogy research is to make sure that you track the family through the census because it can show you where and when they move around. I looked up Marcy State Hospital and they didn’t actually open until 1922⁹. This makes it impossible for Mary to have been there since 1908. That means we will have to backtrack through the State Hospital system until we get to 1908.

1940 – There are two Mary Moores at Marcy State Hospital for the Insane. One born about 1874, married, born in the United States and one born about 1894, single, born in New York. Both women are listed as being in the same house in 1935.¹⁰

1930 – Only one Mary Moore is there in the 1930 census. She was born about 1874, married, born in New York. There is a column on this census for the persons age at first marriage. The New Mary has her age listed as 23. Our Mary listed her age as 22 on her marriage record. While yes, Robert J. Moore has passed by this point. Mary being listed as married in the census still doesn’t shock me. It’s entirely possible… that the institution was unaware of Robert’s passing. I will get more into this in the wrap up at the end. Lets just continue with the analysis for now.¹¹

Event	Our Mary	New Mary
1910 Residence	838 Hendrix Street	Inferred Marcy State Hospital	⛔
Usual Residence	Brooklyn, NY	Brooklyn, NY	✅
Birthdate	circa 1873	circa 1873	✅
Birthplace	New York	New York	✅
Parents Birth place	Ireland	Ireland	✅
Parents Names	Arthur Johnson Ann Moffott	Unknown Unknown	⛔
Marital Status	Widow	Widow	✅
Informant	We would expect one of her three surviving children.	Hospital Records	⛔
Place of Burial	Evergreens Cemetery	Richmond Hill	⚠️
Date of Burial	September 7th	September 8th	⚠️
Age at first marriage	22	23	✅

1925 – New York has state censuses! Mary Moore is living in Utica State Hospital. She is listed as born about 1873 in the United States. State censuses don’t always give us much information but its a nice check in spot between federal censuses. Marcy State Hospital was first created as a division of Utica State Hospital in 1922 and then in 1931 it was made into its own entity. So Mary being listed at Utica first makes sense for a long-term patient completely.¹²

1920 – We need to remember now that Marcy is not open yet. So we checked Utica State Hospital. No Mary Moore there. We know that Mary was in facilities since 1908 though. To move forward, we need to think about the information from the death certificate. Mary’s last known address was in Brooklyn. That means, if she is not in Utica State Hospital, she might be in a state hospital closer to Brooklyn. The most likely facility is Kings Park State Hospital in Suffolk County, New York. It was created to handle overcrowding happening at Kings County Asylum¹³.

We do find a Mary Moore, born about 1874 in the United States, married¹⁴. This is part of what has held me back from sharing Mary’s story, because I don’t know if this is even my Mary at this point. It’s likely yes. Researching these institutions is really hard. I’m not even talking about finding records which is extremely hard. Learning about what went on in these places is very upsetting. Knowing what I know now about mental health and what I know about Mary’s childhood, to think that this is how she might have ended up makes me very upset every time I talk about it. Which is why it’s still taking me so long to research it.

1915 – In Kings Park, there are two Mary Moores this time. One born about 1864 and one born about 1874¹⁵. The 1864 Mary has a middle initial on her name which is either an R or an L. The Y in Mary above it kind of writes over it making it a bit hard to decipher. Being a state census there isn’t much more information to use. Both Marys are US Citizens and usually reside in Brooklyn.

1910 – Here we are back at 1910. We know our Mary was enumerated with her family, so lets look for the New Mary and see if we can find her.

There it is. Mary Moore, born about 1873, married, 3 children, born in New York, parents born in Ireland.

Event	Our Mary	New Mary
1910 Residence	838 Hendrix Street	Kings Park State Hospital	⛔
Usual Residence	Brooklyn, NY	Brooklyn, NY	✅
Birthdate	circa 1873	circa 1873	✅
Birthplace	New York	New York	✅
Parents Birth place	Ireland	Ireland	✅
Parents Names	Arthur Johnson Ann Moffott	Unknown Unknown	⛔
Marital Status	Widow	Widow	✅
Informant	We would expect one of her three surviving children.	Hospital Records	⛔
Place of Burial	Evergreens Cemetery	Richmond Hill	⚠️
Date of Burial	September 7th	September 8th	⚠️
Age at first marriage	22	23	✅
Children	3 Children	3 Children	✅

1910 New Mary and Our Mary fit. I was confused what to do next and then I started searching the newspapers to see if I could find any notice of a hearing where she would have been institutionalized but so far I’m coming up blank. Searching for such common names in Brooklyn at that time is very tedious, so I decided to search for their address and see what I could find. Legal notices or funerals most likely would have an address listed.

What I ended up finding in the October 10th edition of The Chat was this classified ad. Looking for a housekeeper¹⁶.

The housekeeper ad would have appeared in the local paper 3 days after New Mary was placed in the first state hospital. Our Mary was already out of the house by the 1910 census.

My Conclusion for Now

For now, I am fairly certain that the death certificate belongs to my Mary. I don’t want it to be my Mary. I don’t want to think of her in mental institutions for almost 37 years. There was never any mention in my family about this. In fact, the Moore side of my family was rarely talked about at all. I don’t know if it was on purpose or just lack of knowledge of the circumstances. My Grandpa Moore would have been 15 years old when his grandmother died. He never once mentioned her though. I remember him talking about his maternal grandmother. Never his paternal grandmother though.

The 1910 census discrepancy I think has something to do with the stigma attached to mental health. I think they told the census taker that Mary was still living in the household, that’s why her details are all a little off. The oldest of Mary’s children was 10 years old in October of 1908. I don’t think the children had many memories with their mother to share with the later generations. My great-grandfather was only 6 years old when this happened.

I think about this picture of Robert, his 3 children and one of the Moore cousins. This is years removed from 1908, I’m not sure how many years, at least 5 I think. The Moore cousin it lists on the back was born in 1910 and she is at least 3 years old there I think. The children were so young when they lost their mother.

I mentioned earlier in the post that I would talk about the marital status discrepancy through the census analyses. My current thinking is that since her husband died in 1925 and her children were so young when he died. They might not have even been aware right away that their mother was moved to new institutions further away. They might not have known they needed to update the records office that she was now a widow. These are all things I want to answer but might never know the answer. I’m going to try and see if I can get the admission records to Kings Park.

One thing I know for sure, I’m not giving up on trying to find Mary’s full story.

Source Citations

1. 1910 U.S. census, Kings County, New York, population schedule, Brooklyn borough, Ward 26, Assembly District 22, enumeration district (ED) 985, sheet 01-B, dwelling 13, family 14, Robrt Moore household; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 Feb 2024); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T624, roll 979. ↩︎
2. Oneida County, New York, death certificate no. 202 (1945), Mary Moore; Marcy Town Clerk, Marcy. ↩︎
3. 1900 U.S. census, Kings County, New York, population schedule, Brooklyn Ward 26, Election District 22, enumeration district (ED) 476, sheet 04-A, dwelling 57, family 64, Robt. J. Moore household; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Mar 2024); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T623, roll 1065. ↩︎
4. 1910 U.S. census, Kings County, New York, population schedule, Brooklyn borough, Ward 26, Assembly District 22, enumeration district (ED) 985, sheet 01-B, dwelling 13, family 14, Robrt Moore household; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 Feb 2024); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T624, roll 979. ↩︎
5. Brooklyn borough, New York, birth certificate no. 2360 (1898), Mary Florence Moore; digital image, NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records (https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/ : accessed 28 Feb 2024). ↩︎
6. 1880 U.S. census, Suffolk County, New York, population schedule, Babylon village, enumeration district (ED) 311, p. 19-B, dwelling 418, family 454, Arthur Johnson household; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Nov 2024); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T9, roll 934. ↩︎
7. Brooklyn Borough, New York, marriage certificate no. 2606 (1896), Moore-Johnson; digital image, NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records (https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/ : accessed 28 Feb 2024). ↩︎
8. New Jersey Office of Registrar of Vital Statistics, death certificate 221 (1925), Robert J. Moore; New Jersey Department of Health, Trenton. ↩︎
9. https://findingaids.nysed.gov/do/14b2d198-fd95-58b7-ac7a-28013e069b44 ↩︎
10. 1940 U.S. census, Oneida County, New York, population schedule, Marcy township, Marcy State Hospital, enumeration district (ED) 33-30, sheet 30-A, Mary Moore; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Mar 2026); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T627, roll 2700. ↩︎
11. 1930 U.S. census, Oneida County, New York, population schedule, Marcy township, Marcy State Hospital, enumeration district (ED) 177, sheet 09-B, Mary Moore; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Mar 2026); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T626, roll 1620. ↩︎
12. 1925 New York State Census, Oneida County, New York, population schedule, Utica, Utica State Hospital, p. 23-A, line 29, Mary Moore; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Mar 2026). ↩︎
13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_Park_Psychiatric_Center ↩︎
14. 1920 U.S. census, Suffolk County, New York, population schedule, Smithtown, Kings Park State Hospital, enumeration district (ED) 137, sheet 23-B, Mary Moore; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Mar 2026); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T625, roll 1269. ↩︎
15. 1915 New York State Census, Suffolk County, New York, population schedule, Smithtown, Kings Park State Hospital, p. 74, line 13, Mary Moore; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Mar 2026). ↩︎
16. “WANTED,” The Chat, 10 Oct 1908, p. 18, col. 1; digital images, Newspapers.com (http://www.newspapers.com : accessed 3 Apr 2026). ↩︎

In my previous post, Word of the Day: Avoidance, I lamented that I have never really made progress with my Johnson family. I found a new to me resource that gave me the push I needed to go ahead and see what I could find.

NYS Historic Newspapers

I am loving the efforts of libraries and archives to make their collections more accessible. They are already fighting such a battle daily for funding and support, so anything that ends up being online, and free (!!) is an amazing accomplishment. I sent a donation by the way, because this site is truly amazing.

The NYS Historic Newspapers website is honestly really amazing. You can choose by county and then it will show you all newspapers they have and what years they have. My interest is Suffolk County for the Johnson family. I really want to know what was going on in Babylon, New York. My luck was on my side as they had South Side Signal which was a paper in Babylon from 1869 through at least 1920. 1920 being the last year they have issues online for.

Once you choose the paper you want to look at, you can then search the entire paper for something, which I believe is OCR searches. (I might be wrong, wouldn’t be the first time. 😅) When you go into month, you can also just search the month. Unfortunately for me, there was an advertisement for a Dr. Clark Johnson’s medicine. So my search results are a mess, I probably should learn the tricks on how to exclude those. If possible anyway.

Using the one trick I do know, I searched for Arthur, just to see if I could narrow down my results and I did! I want the 1880s so that left me with one result. Well, better than zero. Maybe the 1890s will be helpful too.

This is my one result from the 1880s, which is announcing Arthur’s death. I’m not sure who the Arthur Johnson is in the 1917 articles, but I will have to keep it in my pending folder for another day. Right now, I’m trying to focus on Arthur and his family. Always in the back of my mind, I have the one clipping on Newspapers.com as well.

This is a few years before his own death so this made me naturally curious to see if the South Side Signal would have mention of the deaths or even obituaries. There were 135 results for Johnson on my search results and the majority of those were for Dr. Clark Johnson. 😐 Never fear, I have Spotify and a healthy patience for paging through newspapers. I will side note here…

Side note: I understand that I need to look at each page of the paper, and see if there are other mentions. However, this paper has a section for birth, marriages and deaths reported in the town. In fact, they put instructions for it on the front page of the paper regularly for a very long time. I made a decision for this task, I was just going to check the one section for anything for my Johnson family to at least establish a clearer timeline for events. Some issues of the paper are very hard to read and faded, so it was really an eye strain issue in the end, but also I hope it was a practical one and not just lazy on my part.

There is a state wide death index for New York that spans 1880-1956. I decided to use FamilySearch to narrow some Johnson results by Babylon in the 1880s. Again, I’m just trying to narrow things down here. The plan was to hit the results of the index search and then go through the time frame needed page by page. I could be doing this the hard way or the wrong way but it’s definitely my way. 😂

My Results

I worked first from this index, then I’ve paged issue by issue from the papers first issue. Which was July 7, 1869. I’m up to 1885 now. 😂 Still going as I write. Of course all this is not written in permanent marker, but now I have certificates I can order, which will take me awhile, because New York State is currently backlogged by 4 years. 😅

This is where I currently stand with the Johnson now. Some of the announcements did specify some of the children as child of Arthur and Ann Johnson. Others did not. Mary’s a little trickier. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on the blog before, probably I did. She disappears from her husband’s household after the 1910 census. In 1915 and 1920 the children are at the same address (838 Hendrix Street, Brooklyn) as before with their father. In 1920, her husband Robert Moore is even still listed as married. However, his 1925 death certificate, with his oldest child as informant, lists him as a widower. Then the 1926 Caldwell, New Jersey city directory, listing Robert’s death also shows a Mrs. Robert Moore living at the household. This is almost a decade before Robert Jr. will be married and he lists that 1933 marriage as his first. Then in the Moore family plot records for Evergreen cemetery it lists Mary Moore as being buried in Brooklyn on September 7, 1945. This is 20 years after Robert Sr.’s death.

So just color me confused. 😂 I’ve ordered the death certificate for a Mary Moore who is the right age, died September 4, 1945 in Marcy, New York. This happens to be the same location as a State Hospital. Is it a shot in the dark? Yes. Did I send the request 2 years ago? Yes. Am I still waiting? Also yes. Like I said New York State has a backlog. I’m about halfway through my wait allegedly, but at this point, I’m hesitant to send anymore requests. Its really a crazy thought process. I’m hesitant to send when I don’t even know if I’ll receive the first request, but I also feel the need to get the long wait started. For now I’ll sit and ponder it some more.

Anyway. Long story even longer. This was my weekend spent with the Johnsons. 😂

It’s not fair of me to call Mary contrary. I don’t even know Mary. However, her blood is running through my veins. Maybe that gives me a little wiggle room to be a little cross with her for being so hard to track sometimes. The funny thing about Mary is that before my Genealogy Do-Over, I didn’t even think Mary was that contrary. It’s all these new rules I put in place for myself. They keep me second and third guessing everything!

Records of Mary’s life

Mary E. Johnson is the first time that my Genealogy Do-Over has made me sweat. It would be easy to just add in the family I believe to be hers and continue working off that assumption. The problem with that being, can I prove that is actually her family? The answer to that is nope, not even a little bit. It’s going to be so bad of me to admit what I thought before, but I have to do it. That’s the whole point of starting fresh.

The following record is the first record I am able to use to see into Mary’s life before she married. My great-grandfather’s birth certificate just gives her maiden name, which helped, but doesn’t say anything about her parents.

Continue reading “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” →