John Edward O'Connor and His Siblings

There is not much known about the ancestors of John Edward O'Connor. We know that John Edward was born around 1865-1868 in Co. Kerry, Ireland and immigrated to Yonkers shortly thereafter with the rest of his family. Or so we thought. According to the irishgenealogy.ie website, which has digitally archived all records from the RC Diocese of Kerry, there are a few more siblings of John Edward than was previously thought:

Cornelius O'Connor, born in 1847

Mary O'Connor, born in 1860 (possibly died in infancy)

Joanna O'Connor, born in 1865 (possibly died in infancy)

Now, we look at the 1870 U.S. Census, which shows the O'Connor family (incorrectly transcribed as the Connin family) living in Yonkers:

Father: Daniel, born in 1825, employed as a laborer

Mother: Annie, born in 1822, works at home

Son: Jerry, born in 1852, employed as an apprentice to a machinist

Daughter: Norah, born in 1854, works at home

Son: Michael, born in 1858, works in silk shop

Daughter: Ellen, born in 1862, and at school

Son: John, born in 1865 and at school

Now fast forward 10 years and in the 1880 census, the family is still shown in Yonkers, living at 16 Irving Place. In the same building lives their newly-married daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas (Nora) Ball. John and Ellen are shown as working in the carpet factory (most likely Alexander Smith & Sons), while Michael and Daniel are shown as laborers and Annie is keeping house. Jeremiah is shown living with his wife Ellen and children Charles, Mary and John on Park Hill Avenue.

Now, this is where the trail ends for Jeremiah, Michael and Ellen. Ellen most likely got married, but I haven't found anything yet which gives me a lead on her possible husband. Jeremiah seems to have left Yonkers, as did Michael, as neither of them appear in city directories in 1890 or in the census in 1900.

The research never ends!

Check Out the O'Connor Family Reunion Website

Hi everyone:

Check out the O'Connor Family Reunion website when you have a chance...we held the reunion this past summer and it was great!

https://sites.google.com/site/oconnorfamilyreunion/

Check back soon for a blog post.

Amazing breakthrough today

Today was a great day for the BRETTEL side of my family genealogy. The BRETTEL side of my family came from Germany and settled in Brooklyn in the 1880s. They stayed there for 20-30 years until my great-great-grandmother, Rosa BRETTEL, and her brothers Herman and Charles BRETTEL, moved from Brooklyn to Yonkers, while my great-great-grandmother's sisters Louise (Brettel) LUTZ and Lena (Brettel) BOPP moved to Long Island along with my great-great-great grandmother Elizabeth BRETTEL. The rest of the siblings (Josephine (Brettel) HARTMAN, Max BRETTEL, Emma (Brettel) BRANDT and Annie (Brettel) DAUENHEIMER) chose to stay in Queens/Brooklyn for the time being.

Anyway, my great-aunt Catherine (Bloomer) DOSIN, who is the source of knowledge for all things relating to this side of the family, has told me all about her grandmother's sisters, but could not recall when they died or where they were buried.

So, for the past four years, I have been searching for the date of death and burial location of my great-great-grandmother's five sisters. I know where she is buried (Mount Hope Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson) as well as where her two brothers, Max (also Mount Hope) and Charles (White Plains Rural Cemetery in White Plains), are buried.

Today I was looking through fultonhistory.com, which has an extensive collection of searchable newspapers, including the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. This database goes much later than the one the Brooklyn Public Library has online on their website. Lo, and behold, as I was searching, I found the death notice for Josephine HARTMAN. She died November 2, 1947 and was survived by three sisters (all except Rosa) and her brother Herman. She was buried in St. Michael's Episcopal Cemetery in Queens. I couldn't believe my luck! I called the cemetery and confirmed that she was indeed buried there, along with her husband who, I found out, died in 1904.

Hoping my luck would continue, I searched the newspaper for DAUENHEIMER and came across a death notice for Florence DAUENHEIMER, mother of Edward DAUENHEIMER. My great-great-great aunt Annie was married to an Edward, so I read further. This Mrs. DAUENHEIMER was buried in Lutheran Cemetery in Queens. So, I decided to call Lutheran and see if, by chance, Edward had chosen to have been buried in the same place as his parents. Lutheran performed the check for me over the phone and found them to be buried there; Edward in 1962 and Annie in 1963.

Today was an amazing day for my BRETTEL family research. Hopefully, I will be able to find the whereabouts of the two remaining BRETTEL sisters soon. I plan on visiting St. Michael's and Lutheran this Saturday, so stay tuned for pictures and details of the trip!

The Blog will be Back!

Hi everyone:

The blog will be making a comeback in the near future. Hopefully before December 1, I will have a new post.

Thanks!

Visiting Cemeteries

Well, today was a day off due to the holy day, and, as such, I spent a good portion of it in a cemetery. However, first stop was to the local Home Depot, where I picked up 15 small Christmas trees for some of the family graves.


First stop was to Mount Hope Cemetery, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. This cemetery is quite old, going back to the mid-19th century and is non-sectarian. Inside the cemetery, there are large plots that have been sold to certain Jewish organizations, but are still cared for by the cemetery. The two exceptions to this are Temple Israel of New York City and the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, which run Temple Israel Cemetery and Westchester Hills Cemetery, respectively.



The office staff at Mt. Hope are usually very friendly; however, they request that you limit your research to 3/persons a visit. You can also write to them for information on as many people as you like; the only catch is that it costs money to write.



But, I was looking for information on two graves today, so I was safe. The first gravesite was for Albert Knapp, who was my great-grandmother Gertrude O'Connor's 2nd husband. He was a 30+ employee of Anaconda Wire Co. and died May 10th, 1950. Unfortunately, the cemetery told me that a stone was never put in for his grave and that there were no stones even around his plot to guide me. That was a bit disappointing. I also requested the grave location of Harold and Gertrude Jacobus. My great-great-grandmother, Katherine Tator Maund, had a sister, Grace Tator, who married Roswell Jacobus from New Jersey. Roswell and Grace had seven children, of which Harold was one. Harold died May 13th, 1976 and Gertrude died November 29th, 1993.

After walking around for 10 minutes in Section 100, I found their headstone and was quite suprised.

Not only are Harold and Gertrude buried there, but a John Jacobus is buried there as well. According to the stone, John was born in 1933 and died in 1998. Harold and Gertrude did have a son John (Jack) and I have come to the conclusion that he is the only person that this could be.

Most of my family is buried in Sec. 97, which is only a few rows down from this stone, and no one had ever seen this stone. Amazing to think that this has been overlooked for over 30 years!

I also traveled to Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers today; the writeup on that trip will be up soon.

Bryan

Stephen Johnson

Stephen Johnson was one of my maternal great-great-great-grandfathers. From the information that I have gathered about him, he was born around 1834-1835 in New York state. He grew up in Cortlandtown, New York, and married Catherine Connors/O'Connor sometime between 1860-1868. He lived in Cortlandtown until at least 1870, when he moved to Newark, New Jersey, where my great-great grandmother, Anna Johnson, was born in 1874. In 1875, the whole family moved to Yonkers, where he lived until he died.

He was a stone moulder and, I believe, he served in the Civil War. While I was just beginning this research, I came across the obituary of my grandmother's aunt, Anna L. O'Connor (my great-grandmother Gertrude Knapp's sister). In the obituary, it mentioned that she belonged to the Ewing Circle of the Ladies of the G.A.R. After doing some research, I found out that to be a member of the Ladies of the G.A.R., you had to be a blood descendent of a Union veteran. After getting more obituaries and other paperwork, I found out that Anna Johnson, Elizabeth Johnson (her sister) and Elizabeth (Waldron) Powers Linehan (the daugther of Elizabeth) were all members of this same circle.

One day over the summer, I was walking in St. Mary Cemetery when I came across a government stone. There was a G.A.R. flag holder in front of the stone and the name on the stone was "Stephen W. Johnson." Below is a photo of the stone:

For this stone being 107 years old and most likely not having people coming to visit it in 70 years, it has faired quite well. While I was at the Archives on Wednesday, I got his burial card for the Works Progress Administration and it had some valuable information. For one, it showed his date of death as April 10, 1900, not April 12 as his stone says. April 12 was actually his burial date. I went to the Library today and was able to find this write-up on his death (This is from the April 10, 1900 edition of the Yonkers Statesman):

Stephen Johnson, a member of Kitching Post, G.A.R., died at his residence, 137 New School Street, this morning of pneumonia.

Unfortunately, it isn't as long as I would have liked it to be, but it is better what I had, which was nothing. I then looked up the Kitching Post of the G.A.R. and found out that their papers are held at the U.S. Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, PA. I sent them an e-Mail request on Thursday and have yet to hear back.

That's it for now on Stephen Johnson. Unfortunately, I have almost no information on my great-great-great grandmother, Catherine. Hopefully, I can find something out on her soon.

Westchester County Archives

Well, today was another research day. I spent over three hours at the Westchester County Archives in Elmsford. The staff there was very helpful and I was able to get a lot accomplished.

I received:
- 2 WPA Cemetery Veteran Cards
- 1 Letter of Administration
- 21 Marriage Licenses

I was also able to find out 2 dates of death from the information I got at the Archives: Stephen Johnson, my great-great-great grandfather and Christine O'Connor, my great-grandmother's sister-in-law.

I wanted to look up many more wills, but did not have enough time, unfortunately. I was able to find marriage licenses for Elizabeth Johnson WALDRON, my great-great grandmother's sister, 3 siblings of my great-grandmother and many other cousins.

More later.