Tombstone Tuesday: Love

If I can get enough time this week, I will be doing a Surname Saturday post on the Loves this weekend. This would be the tombstone of William Wallace Love and his son Percy Everett Love. Thanks to Great-Grandma Llewellyn’s Diner Tree, William is no longer my first known Love. I’ve got droves of them now. I’m working on adding more of them to the website today, then tonight, more design work on the new and improved design!

Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging theme of GeneaBloggers.

Surname Saturday: Thorward

THORWARD

The first Thorward I have on record is George Thorward (b. 1852 d.1940). He was born in 1852 in Obberstetten, Germany [1. George Thorward Obituary]. I have conflicting dates for his immigration. In the 1900 United States Federal Census, his year of immigration is listed as 1867. In the 1910 US Census, it is listed as 1860. I have searched for his point of entry into the country, but so far I haven’t found it. My first choice was New York, but now I’m unsure if it was. I’m going to try Philadelphia next. I think I found him in 1870 living next door to his future wife, Josephine Doremus. The only problem is he’s listed as George John. The name of Thorward wasn’t even mentioned. He is however a cigar maker’s apprentice, which fits in perfectly with my George, who was in the cigar business for 50 years. George married Josephine in 1872 and they had three children (Frank, Lewis, Dora).

The great thing about researching the Thorwards is that they pretty much stayed in Caldwell, New Jersey for the next few generations. George and Josephine’s oldest child, Frank Springsted Thorward, married Katherine Lindsley and they had two sons, Raymond and Robert. The youngest of George’s children was their only daughter, Dora Thorward. She married Leslie Jacob Plume and they had one daughter, Vivian, who married into the Westervelt family. The Westervelts and the Plumes had a long history in Essex County, New Jersey. Rumor has it that the Plumes are distantly related to Stephen Crane and Robert Treat Paine. [2. A Fagan Genealogy] I haven’t proved this yet as I’m still verifying my Grandmother’s version of her family tree.

My great-great Grandfather, and George and Josephine’s middle child,  Lewis Thorward also stayed in Caldwell for most of his life. He briefly lived in Hudson County and worked on the railroad. When he came back to Caldwell, he became a partner in the Thorward and Van Duyne’s Market. Lewis married Jennie Viola Love in 1898 and had two children, Llewellyn Josephine Thorward (my great grandmother) and George William Thorward.

You can see what photos I have uploaded so far in the Thorward Family Album at the main website but here are a few of my favorites.

Things I Wonder About the Thorwards

  • Where is the rest of George’s family? He seems to have kept his family pretty close. He made a few visits back to Germany in the 1890’s, maybe to visit parents?

What are my next steps?

  • Like the Moores I want to collect the birth, marriage, and death records for the other children in the main families. New Jersey is a bit difficult to get records for, so I think those are an in-person thing to be less of a hassle.
  • I need to track down when and where George entered the country for the first time. I’m hoping this will give me a better idea of which part of Germany he is from.
  • This isn’t a Thorward step exactly, but I would like to delve deeper into the connected families. This seems to be a very big immigrant side of my family and I’m interested to see all the places they came from.

Surname Saturday is a daily blogging theme from GeneaBloggers.

What I Do and What I Use

Thomas MacEntee over at GeneaBloggers started a new meme today. This is meant to help everyone know what kind of technologies are out there to aid in Genealogy research. Here’s my list.

Hardware: Dell XPS 400. Intel® Pentium® D CPU 2.80GHz/2.79GHz / RAM: 4 GB / Second Hard Drive: 1.5 TB Western Digital | Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop

External Storage: Western Digital 1TB My Book | 4GB Data Traveler Thumb Drive

Online Storage: I back some things up to Mediafire, but I need to check out other options.

Backup: Right now, I back up all my digital files to CDs periodically

Firewall: Norton 360 Smart Firewall

Virus Protection: Norton 360

Spyware: Norton 360, Ad-Aware (free version)

File Cleaner: Norton 360, Ad-Aware (free version), CCleaner

Printer: Kodak ESP-3 All in One (Print, Scan, Copy)

Phone: LG enV Touch: Verizon Wireless

Mobile Media: Laptop/Phone/ iPod Nano 4th Generation

Music Player: iPod Nano 4th Generation

Car Audio: Toyota Factory Installed CD Player

eBook Reader: Don’t have a portable. Use my computers. (Kindle for PC, Microsoft Reader, Adobe Digital Editions)

Browser: Firefox (Default), Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer (only to test websites)

Blog: WordPress and sometimes Windows Live Writer

RSS: Google Reader

FTP: SmartFTP (licensed version)

Text Editor: Notepad; HTML: CoffeeCup HTML Editor (free version)

Graphics: Adobe Photoshop CS4

Screen Capture: IrfanView

Social Media: Facebook | Twitter

Social Bookmarking: None

Social Profile: Facebook | Twitter

URL Shortener: Tiny URL

Office Suite: Microsoft Office 2007

Email: Gmail | Mozilla Thunderbird. On Thunderbird, I use the IMAP option so that both the web mail and the mail on my hard drive are identical.

Calendar: None

Accounting: Microsoft Excel 2007

PDF Generator: None

Genealogy Database: Family Tree Maker 2010 | Roots Magic 4 | TNG 8.0 (Website)

Genealogy Tools: Google Earth | Microsoft OneNote

Other Tech Stuff: TweetDeck (updates Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace all at once)

Treasure Chest Thursday: Wamboughs

This is one of my treasures. This is a piece of music written by John and Tony Wambough. They are related to me through the Loves. John’s mother Agnes Love was sister to my Great-Great Grandmother Jennie Love-Thorward. Even though it’s not a direct relation, this is probably where my sister gets her musical talent. She played in band all through high school, and she could pick up any instrument you threw at her. I know she dabbled in writing her own music, so I can’t wait to show her that someone in the family actually did!

Treasure Chest Thursday is a daily blogging topic from GeneaBloggers.

Treasure Chest Thursday: Great Grandpa

Have I ever mentioned I’m a Genealogy Hoarder? Oh right, I suppose I have. Have I mentioned that my Great-Grandparents were also meticulous record keepers, who never threw out things that might later be important? Oh, I suppose I’ve told you that too.

Here’s one of my “treasures”, it really gave me a glimpse into the early life of my Great Grandfather, William Lawrence Moore. This is a resume he had from the late 1920s.

Treasure Chest Thursday is a GeneaBloggers daily blogging topic.

Follow Friday: Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online

When I was thinking this morning about something to highlight for Follow Friday, there was one thing that stuck out among many. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. My father’s family may be from Ireland but they spent a good 40 years in Brooklyn. This site is probably the best find I’ve ever made. It’s also the only reason I’m not crying like a baby that my local library changed it’s policy for using NewspaperArchive.com.

It’s a project that’s run by the Brooklyn Public Library. The years cover 1841-1902! Those are wonderful years because it encompasses the big Irish immigration. Those years make me giddy just looking at them.

Continue reading “Follow Friday: Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online”

Tombstone Tuesday: Thorwards

Today I’m choosing to highlight the first known Thorward and his wife. I know that George Thorward immigrated to America very early in his life. There is a family legend that his brother also came over, but that they never spoke. I’ve never found any evidence of another Thorward, but that doesn’t mean one or both of the boys didn’t change their name.

George and Josephine Doremus

Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging theme from GeneaBloggers.  To participate in Tombstone Tuesday simply create a post which includes an image of a gravestone of one or more ancestors and it may also include a brief description of the image or the ancestor.

Surname Saturday: Moore

My big spring/summer/winter cleaning of my family file and my website database is going very well. Once I made my last decision, it’s been smooth, tedious sailing. I love it. I ended up starting with my father’s side since I pretty much have it sourced correctly. It’s just making everything uniform in my file that is the tedious part. I’ve always changed my mind about how I wanted things on the website site too, but I think my problems came from importing the file over and over again. So now that I’m hand entering things, it’s looking very good!

I’ve now finished cleaning up my Moore sources, so I figured it was a good time to do a Surname Saturday post.

MOORE

The first known Moore in my family tree is William H Moore. I have his birthdate as Jul 1836. In all the censuses from 1870 through 1920, he lists his birthplace as Ireland. Based on census information , he immigrated to America sometime between 1858 and 1859. I’m unsure of where exactly in Ireland he came from or where he went to when he got here.

The first census appearance William makes is in 1870. He is living in Chicago, Illinois with his wife (Mary ?) and three children (Mary J, William H, John R). All three children are listed as being born in Illinois, but in all other census years Mary J lists her birthplace as New York. It could be either one as far as I know, but I’m leaning towards New York for her birth. Sometime after their fourth child (my 2nd great grandfather, Robert James Moore) was born in 1871, they packed up and moved to Brooklyn, New York.

The family would stay there for the next 30 years. William’s wife died in 1896 from a lingering illness. Unfortunately, whoever filled out her death certificate didn’t know anything about her parents. This means until I find a marriage record for William and Mary, I won’t know anything about Mary before she married. Their eldest child and only daughter, Mary J, would live and care for her father until his death in 1928. By 1920, William and Mary moved to Caldwell, New Jersey. It was in 1926 when William H’s grandson, William Lawrence Moore, would marry Llewellyn Thorward. Llewellyn’s family has a long, many generations history in Caldwell.

William H’s children all seemed to pick up career skills related to their father’s carpenter skills. In the 1892 New York State Census, all the boys have carpenter like jobs. Except for William Jr, who is listed as a Printer. After that, it looks like John picked up William Jr’s work and he also got into the printing business. The only difference being that William moved around a bit, while John stayed in Brooklyn. The next generation of Moores seems to have tried to improve their skills in a completely different direction. Almost all of the William H’s grandkids list their occupations as Clerks of every sort in the 1920’s and 1930’s. We have Office Clerk, Bank Clerk, Insurance Company Clerk. Most of the family also moved out of the city to Essex County, New Jersey.

Robert Moore Sr with his children and niece. 1910-ish.

Things I Wonder About The Moores:

  • Where exactly in Ireland did William H Moore originate from? In 1930, Mary J listed her parents birthplaces as Northern Ireland. That makes sense as it wasn’t until 1921 that Northern Ireland was created as a distinct country/state of it’s own. Forgive my lack of the correct terminology. I’m going to delve more into Ireland’s history the next time I’m at the library!
  • William immigrated in 1858 or 1859, many years after the Great Famine. Did a younger or older sibling come over first? Where is the rest of his family. There are too many Irish Moores in Brooklyn to ever be certain without other tangible proof.
  • Why did the family move from New York to Illinois, only to move back to New York again? Were they trying to escape from Irish prejudice in New York City in the 1860’s?
  • Which of the Moores is the one rumored to have become a potato farmer? My Aunt Lori is very emphatic about this one. Someone told her this, and given her relative collecting personality, I don’t doubt there may be some truth to it. Even if maybe it was because of the Potato Famine they immigrated to America, and that over the years it translated to one of the Moores being a potato farmer?

What are my next steps?

  • I want to try and collect all the birth, marriage and death records for the children of William H Moore Sr and Mary ?. I’m hoping to find out Mary’s maiden name and hopefully both parents birthplaces in Ireland. I’ve already tried for Robert James Moore Sr‘s birth certificate once, but Chicago records weren’t mandated at the time. So it’ll have to be parish records if there are any at all!
  • To get the marriage record from 1896 for Robert Sr and Mary E Johnson. I don’t know anything more about Mary other than her full name and that she died between 1910 and 1920. Her name is a bit generic for basic searches so I need to try and find a marriage or death record that will hopefully have her parents information on it.

This post was quite fun to write up, so I’ll definitely be doing more in the future! They’ll get better and more coherent with practice I’m sure! 😉

Surname Saturday is a daily blogging theme from GeneaBloggers.

Wordless Wedness: Moore Family Portrait

Robert James Moore Sr | Marion S Moore | Robert James Moore Jr | William Lawrence Moore | Alice Moore

Wordless Wednesday is a daily blogging theme I got from GeneaBloggers. To participate in Wordless Wednesday simply create a post with the main focus being a photograph or image. Some people also include attribute information as to the source of the image (date, location, owner, etc.). Some have begun doing a “Not So Wordless Wednesday” with the main focus still being an image but there is a backstory to the image.

Sentimental Sunday: Full Circle

I was taking pictures of something I’m going to share tomorrow when I found this gem. Since today is Sentimental Sunday, I thought it would be nice to share it today. After this discovery, there is no doubt in my mind that my Great Grandmother must have been a genealogist herself.

Here in the midst of another gem, was an unexpected prize.

At first look, it’s an old menu. It’s so much more than that! It’s actually really great to find this on the back of a menu. It reminds me of me and my Aunt Lori sitting at Diane’s kitchen table in Avoca and discussing the family history. That’s what makes it so sentimental to me. Thinking about Llewellyn sitting in a diner and discussing this with her mother, or mother’s family is just amazing.

Agnes Hamilton is the woman I believed might be the mother of William Wallace Love (first known Love), but I never had any kind of proof. Is this proof? No, but this stacks up the circumstantial evidence further in her direction. You can even see underneath Agnes a W. Love/Jennie Menzies written. That would be my William Love and his wife. I’m suspecting underneath them would have been their children’s names. Starting with Jessie and Grace. Next to W. Love is a James Love! Is this a brother? I can’t wait to look for him!

At the end of the row is a list of … Walker with many people listed underneath. This is good news because that might explain the appearance of a young Walker woman in relation to Llewellyn. I’m pretty sure she’s listed in the birthdays in Llewellyn’s journal.

At the bottom of the list is a listing of not only the children of William Wallace Love and Jennie Menzies but their grandchildren also!

I can’t wait to put this document to use. I’m also going to research how to best preserve it. I have it in a acid-free page protector right now, but we’ll see if there’s anything better.

Sentimental Sunday is a daily blogging topic I got from GeneaBloggers. To participate in Sentimental Sunday, simply create a post in which you discuss a sentimental story or memory about an ancestor, or maybe even a family tradition that touches you.