Goodbye Brickwall, hopefully

Marriage Record for Robert J Moore and Mary E Johnson

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!

I Love Technology

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.

Ordering records has gotten a lot easier in recent years. The last time I ordered a record from New York City, I filled out the form (I love forms), sent away for it, and waited the few weeks. I really do love sending for records. Then I remembered, I don’t have any envelopes… or stamps… or checks… Which means I’d have to find a time to go and get a money order, which isn’t easy to time.

It was then I saw on the NYC Records form that there was a place to order online. Online! Now the last time I ordered a record, ordering online was very expensive.

This time however, it was the same price! Ordering by mail was $15.00 (for the record/search), $2.50 (for shipping). Online ordering only added an extra $1.00 surcharge from what I could see! So my order is placed from the comfort of my pajamas, without going out to town, without the risk of my crazy new allergies flaring up. I’m sure it’ll still be 4-6 weeks for delivery but it would probably take me up to 2 weeks to get everything together to order. I really do hate going to town if you couldn’t tell. Of course not all areas have this option available, or at the lower price, but it’s certainly nice to find. Especially since I have quite a few New York City records to gather eventually.

Order your own New York City Records

I can’t wait to get this record, if they find it that is. I ordered the marriage certificate of Robert J Moore and Mary E Johnson. If you’ve been keeping up on my Moore adventures, you’d know that I’m blocked on Robert’s mother and Mary’s parents (their names!). Maybe this record will give me something good, maybe it won’t, but I’d at least have a date for their marriage!

I’ll keep you updated when the record comes in.

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.

GEA: Brooklyn Cemetery

It’s been quite awhile since my last Google Earth Adventure. I really love playing in Google Earth so I really need to make the effort for more of these!

Today’s adventure came about because I am in the midst of trying to plan a Genealogy trip. My first ever. I did make a trip to the Ohio Historical Society once, but technically my Mom has planned all those trips and I’m never quite prepared for being at these very helpful places. So I’m going to try my best to prepare. If anyone wants to leave tips for me, they would be most welcome! I’m probably going to spend a lot of time Googling.

One of my biggest “wants” is to visit the cemetery in Brooklyn where William H Moore is buried. I’m hoping that will verify some dates for me at the very least. Not to mention, I think it’s been awhile since they’ve been visited. So they’re do for some attention from family.

First thing I have to do is take my cemetery deed and locate where the graves are located. The cemetery in Brooklyn is HUGE to say the very least.

Continue reading “GEA: Brooklyn Cemetery”

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.

Part 2: I love this lady

The more I research my Great Grandmother, the sadder I get that I didn’t get to meet her. Everyday her personality and character unlocks itself a bit more. This is Part 2 to yesterday’s find. If you haven’t seen that post, maybe you should take a peek at just the basics.

We’ll start off with where we started yesterday, except we’ll look at the dark colored book instead of the paper.

Turns out that my Great Grandparents were so perfect for each other because of their meticulous record keeping!

On first look, it’s impossible not to start calculating the names and relations. Mr & Mrs Joseph Schroeder would have been Llewellyn’s sister-in-law and her husband.

Mr & Mrs William Moore would be the Uncle of William (Llewellyn’s husband for the new readers). If you excuse me, I’ve just found out that William was living in Belleville, New Jersey and not Brooklyn. That would explain why I can’t find his family in the 1930 census. I’ve got to go check that out…

Oh boy, this page is a doozy! The Loves, Leonards, Wambaugh’s are all Llewellyn’s Aunts and Uncles through her mother, Jennie Love.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, the best part of this find is the addresses listed for each person. Some of these people I couldn’t find for whatever reason. There are so many hidden family members in this book, I can already tell.

Oh look, it’s the extra Loves from yesterday! With these addresses, I’m going to research these guys backwards and see how they fit into the Love tree! So much progress in one Sunday afternoon, I could get used to this!

Treasure Chest Thursday: Cemetery Deeds

If you told me 10 years ago that I would come to look at pieces of paper as treasure, I would have thought you were crazy! Sure I was curious about all this family tree stuff then, but not to the extent I am now. Reflecting on the great experience I had a few years ago, I decided I was going to do another Find a Grave photo request. However, I didn’t want to send someone into a Brooklyn cemetery blind. I knew I had the deed somewhere, which will give the plot number. It’s the least I could do, right?

In my quest for the Brooklyn Cemetery Deed, I found the one for Prospect Hill Cemtery in Caldwell, New Jersey.

Right next to the Prospect Hill deed was a big, thick envelope for The Evergreens in Brooklyn. In it was this transferred deed from William H Moore to his daughter Mary J Moore. William H Moore being the first Moore I know of in America.

Along with the original deed. What comes next is the great part apart researching my Dad’s family. My Great-Grandparents were probably the best record keepers in the world.

There is a remembrance card for Robert J Moore, Jr; William L Moore’s brother.

There is numerous correspondence between William L Moore and Chester Schmaeling. They were discussing the care and payment for the cemetery in Brooklyn. Chester being the brother of Gertrude, who married William L Moore‘s brother Robert J Moore, Jr.

There is a newspaper clip for a pilot who went missing during WWII. At first it’s unclear on why this is thrown into the mix.

Then I read that it was actually Marguerite Wambaugh’s (she’s Llewellyn’s cousin) husband. I’m going to have to research this further, because I don’t know if he ever made it home or not!

There is a big packet of papers pertaining to the Brooklyn plots. Including a funeral card for Marion Moore-Schroeder.

When I say that my Great-Grandfather was a very good record keeper, I wasn’t exaggerating at all. He was an accountant for AT&T. This was just what he did.

Always the accountant, William couldn’t help but figure out how exactly his money was being spent.

This is what I love. In this letter William inquires who all is buried in the cemetery plot in Brooklyn.

This is scribbled in pencil on the back of the deed. I’m unsure if this was done before William had a response from the cemetery. Maybe he was trying to figure it out for himself, or maybe he went to the cemetery and transcribed the tombstones. I can’t be sure.

I definitely don’t blame him though, because I wanted to know too! I called the cemetery and they gave us a count of 9 people and 8 plots. One of the people being a baby with no other information. The cemetery office said they couldn’t tell us over the phone anything other than the names of the people. We understood that, but this is the plot I’m going to see if someone can fill my photo request. I’m very curious about this cemetery. One day I will get to Brooklyn to visit it myself, but until then I hope this can give me something.

Treasure Chest Thursday is a daily blogging topic I got from GeneaBloggers. To participate in Treasure Chest Thursday simply create a post with the main focus being a family treasure, an heirloom or even an every-day item important to your family.

Tombstone Tuesday: Kindess

This Tombstone Tuesday I’m going to share a tombstone picture and a story of kindness.

As I often complain about, I live in Maryland while many of my roots are in other states. Due to limited means, I can’t really travel. So getting to cemeteries where my relatives actually are is very difficult. That’s why I love the Find a Grave website so much. They have Photo Volunteers on there. I am now one of them, but I haven’t been fast enough to fulfill a request yet! Anyway, I sent out a photo request for some tombstones that I had been to before in my Dad’s hometown, but didn’t have a camera at the time. What I got in return for one photo request was an amazing experience.

I didn’t know at the time how abundant our family was in that cemetery. I was just looking to get my Dad’s grandparents. I knew it would be awhile before I’d see New Jersey again. (I was right by the way. This was in December of 2007 and I still haven’t been there.) So I filled out the Request a Photo form, and I waited. It wasn’t very long before someone “claimed” my request. The hardest part of anything to me is the waiting. Whether it be for records by mail, photo requests, or in the line at Wal-Mart. I hate waiting. It was such a surprise when my request was filled so quickly. The request was filled by John. We actually emailed back and forth for a bit before he could get out to the cemetery. He had run by really quick to check the lay of the land but didn’t have his camera. He went to the office and got all the information from the stones for me to tide me over. It was such a kind gesture. He even saw that William L Moore was buried in a Thorward plot and when he caught sight of yet another Thorward plot, he noted down the names to check later. That’s when he found moore-mays.org and saw that they were all indeed my family.

Then the pictures started coming in…

William and Llewellyn Moore (My Great-Grandparents)

Jennie Love (Llewellyn’s mother)

Lewis Thorward (Llewellyn’s father)

He took pictures of everything in William’s plot.

Then when he’d done that he took pictures of all the other names he’d found on my website. I can’t even picture them all here. They include Thorward, Lindsley, and Bush family plots. To this day I still remember John and how nice he was to take these pictures for me. Even though we weren’t related he’d found a great sense of history through my family ties to Caldwell, New Jersey. Even getting excited to see the old building the Meat Market was housed in. In his own words, “I’ve driven past this building a hundred times. Never really noticed it until last week.” I don’t know if John still visits this site, but I hope he knows how much I appreciated all the help he gave me.

This is why I love genealogy and the people who make it possible.

Memorial Day

I have indeed made it home from the quickest trip to Ohio in the world. I even managed to get some mountain driving practice in. I just wanted to take the time out to acknowledge our troops and all they’ve done for us. I was going to find a little flag graphic to post but then I remembered the plaque we got from Grandpa Moore when we took ownership of the van. So I figured why not. It’s a phone camera picture, so it isn’t great but it’s the subject that matters, not the quality. Also, feel free to ignore the mess of my desk. I am in coming home from a trip chaos.

I’m hoping next Memorial Day I can post a listing of a bunch of my ancestors who have served their country. There were definitely a lot of those.

Today I plan to do my usual Memorial Day routine, though because of the trip it might not be as productive. Memorial Day is usually my day to pop in my Band of Brothers DVDs and do genealogy all day long. I work best when I have things going on the TV that I don’t have to pay attention to because I’ve seen the good parts already. Usually I just keep everything off and enjoy the moment, but for Memorial Day/Veterans Day/D-Day, really just the military days, I like to add Band of Brothers into the mix.

Just for fun I’m going to throw in a picture of my father when he entered the United States Marine Corps.

So please enjoy the last day of the Holiday weekend and remember all our troops and their families have sacrificed. They are special people!