NEW YEARS GOALS

 

Everyone is writing about whether they met their goal for 2011,   I could not remember if I had set any….  I checked back on my posts and found that I did not.

What does that mean?   It certainly does not mean I did not have any, it means that I had no clue what I wanted to do.   When I wrote the posts a year ago, I did not know for sure that I would be retired by now.    But I am…..I think forty two years working as a nurse is long enough. 

I made a lot of discoveries, most of them by happenstance.  I find things when I least expect it, it is that I go to search for an ancestor or something related and come up with something totally different.  This has happened the past four years of my research.

The most surprising was my sister and I went to take pictures of my grandparents graves and I found a whole branch of her family.   I had no idea that my great grandfathers siblings had moved to the USA.

My mother spoke of her Tante’s but I wrongly assumed that she was speaking of her fathers Aunts in Germany.   She also had mention family secrets that I have yet to prove and perhaps I shall never find.    What do you do with family scoundrels?   I suppose I shall not print what I have heard until proved otherwise…..I could have gotten it mixed up like the information about  her Aunts.

CHRISTMAS

 

WOW..TODAY IS MY BLOGIVERSARY.

 

It has been three years since I have started writing.   Thanks to Thomas MacEntee at GENEABLOGGERS for  reminding me and mentioning my blog. I knew the anniversary date was soon, but I thought it was after Christmas. When I started I had no clue what I was doing, sometimes I feel that I still don’t.  

Looking back I feel it is more on the order of a research summary and questions to decide how and where to proceed.   I really have learned a lot in a short period of time. 

What I have done was to find collateral families of my ancestors that I did not know existed.   I am currently trying to find what happened to them since I can not even find the Michael Downs Family in the census.

I have started to volunteer doing research at the Diocese of Pittsburgh Archives , and indexing on Family Search.   I am even getting better at reading the old style German writing script.  I would like to assist on the indexing of the Pennsylvania Deaths and Birth which now will be made public after the bill was signed into law by Governor Corbett of Pennsylvania.

I am hopeful that I will find as much more information in the next three years as I have found in the past.

BACK TO THE O’DONNELLS

 

After spending time yesterday I found the 1910 census of my O’Donnell Family in North Braddock PA.    Edward, Mary and the daughters are still living on the same street as her brother Thomas Dowd and sisters Catherine Mulroy and Norah Finnerty.

But census searches for any of the family after 1910 were negative.   One thing I did find was a application for a passport for Bridget O’Donnell.

 

From Ancestry.com

Bridget was born in December, 1889 and would have been fifteen at the time of the passport application.    My brewing question is, did they are return to Ireland?    If some family tragedy occurred I am sure some of the remaining family would have taken her in.

This case is getting quite interesting……

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

 

WEDNESDAY CHILDREN

 

 

These are only a few of the children who had died. They are the children of Katharine Rauscher Sperl and Anton Sperl.

Johann, 20 June 1888-27 February 1891

Anton F,  1 July 1890-11 March 1891

Margaretha, 10 February 1885-15 July 1892

They all died from infectious diseases.

DISCOVERY THIS MORNING

 

This morning I went to the Archives to do my volunteer work.   I usually go on Thursdays but I will be busy with Christmas preparations.

My morning was filled with searching for information of a client, which was successful. There weren’t any requests left.  The afternoon was spent looking for my own ancestors.  

I found that the previously mentioned Mary Dowd O’Donnell was indeed my great aunt.   She and her husband had only daughters.   He had emigrated in 1875, according to the 1900 census.  Edward was fifteen years older than Mary.

I did not find a marriage record for Edward and Mary Dowd but the 1900 census  they had stated they were married in 1885.   I suspect they were married at St. Thomas RC Church in Braddock, but could not find a record of this marriage.  According to the 1900 census Mary emigrated in 1882 which  was two years later than my great grandfather (Thomas Dowd her brother.)  Edward and Mary had only daughters  Margaret 1885, Catherine 1887, Bridget 1887,Annie 1889, Mary in 1892 and Norah in 1895.

I have looked for them in the 1910 census but they could not be found.   With all daughters I find them hard to search because of the change of name.

My great grandmother Bridget Naughton Dowd (b. 1868) had a sister Mary born in in County Galway, Ireland in 1865.   I found Mary, she married Michael Downs on 23 July 1882 at St. Thomas Church in Braddock PA.  

They also has daughters and one son.  Michael Downs b. 1892, Sarah Mary Downs,  Mary Downs 1884, Anna b. 1887, Margaret b. 1889, and Josephine b. 1896. 

I can not find the Downs Family in any census.   I know Mary was alive because my father, Thomas told me that his grandmother Bridget had a twin sister and he could not tell them apart.   My father was born in 1918 and Bridget died in 1939.   My theory is that he would have been somewhere between 1925 and 1939 to have remembered Mary Naughton.  

She was alive probably in that time period, but where was she?