Sunday, May 2, 2010

Family Americana: Genealogy 101

Lillian Kearny Cuff
Both my grandmothers were already dead by the time I was born and I missed having them as a child. I used to imagine what grandmothers would be like; warm, loving women who would smile patient smiles and laugh at my antics. This is a story about my ongoing search for my paternal grandmother, Lillian; the years of searching through online records, the frustration that came with failure, reuniting of seldom or never seen cousins and the value of the tenacious expertise of a genealogist.

Lillian Kearny was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1882. I had no idea who her parents were; neither did my father. He left home at the tender age of 16, tired of bickering among his siblings and spiteful enough to brave going out into the world with little experience to know what to expect. He didn't return to New Jersey until well after he had married and had my older sister. But the things my father did tell me were stories about growing up in a house filled with ten brothers and sisters, stories about school, learning how to shoot a rifle, the Morris Canal that ran in front of their home, trapping, wanting to be a "mountain man" and his love of being by himself in some make-shift "fort" he built out in the woods. His father, Nicholas, was a tacker in a tannery, paid by the piece. Sometimes they had to tighten their belts when income was low and my father often brought home meat of the animals he trapped to put in the dinner pot as well as making some extra money for himself by selling the pelts. But the one thing he and his siblings were proud of was the story Lillian told them about the genealogical relationship to Major General Philip Kearny and his prominent family. My father was named after the General. But no one really knew how this relationship worked out nor had anyone confirmed that the claim was true. After all, I reasoned, if Lillian was from such a wealthy family, she would have never been allowed to marry such a poor Nicholas. Someone mentioned that she was estranged from her family, but no one could tell me why.

As my father grew older and I grew more curious, I started asking questions. Who were Lillian's parents? If she was a direct descendant of the General, then she would have to be a daughter of the General's only son. His well documented family tree didn't have a Lillian. The more I read about the General and his family, the more doubt I had that the story was true. So if it wasn't true, who was Lillian? What is her story?

After my father left home, he lied about his age and enlisted in the Army Air Force. Six of his siblings eventually followed, enlisting during WWII and after the war, all but one brother settled in various parts of the United States. We cousins, and there are quite a few, rarely saw one another; some I've never met. Somewhere out there someone must know something more, I thought. I found that my Texas cousin, Kathy was also looking for Lillian and from her, I got copies of the research her mother had done. She sent me copies of the death certificates of Lillian and Nicholas. The information on Lillian's death certificate was supplied by my Uncle George. He gave Roe as her father's name, but her mother's name was unknown. Roe wasn't in the General's tree, so now I knew that if she was indeed related, it wasn't directly. My sister gave me the phone number to an older cousin who had also looked for Lillian. She told me that she believed that Lillian's mother was Annie, but didn't know her maiden name. She also knew the name Roe, but thought that it might have been Annie's maiden name. She also had Annie's bible and in it was a notation that Lillian had written at her mother's death; some of it faded in an old style penmanship and difficult to be sure of the date. She graciously mailed the bible to me.

I sent a check and request to the Newark record archives to get Lillian's birth certificate. They sent me back the check; there was no record. Apparently, there had been a fire years ago and her birth record must have been destroyed. I searched Ancestry.com database without luck and learned that another fire destroyed the 1890 census, which would have shown her as a child and the names of her parents. I found only one Roe V Kearney in an 1870 US Census, but he would have been old enough to be her grandfather. Besides, his wife was Elizabeth and they had a bunch of kids, none of them Lillian. Annie didn't show up either. I was stuck. My cousin Kathy and I kicked around the idea of going to New Jersey to see what we could find there. But I was very new to genealogy, had never been to New Jersey and I lacked the confidence that I had any idea where to start once I got there.

Eventually, through Ancestry.com, I saw a page, "Hire an Expert." I figured that if I went to New Jersey I could very well just end up spinning my wheels. Maybe if I hired someone who was in New Jersey, knew how and where to search, I might find out more. I put out my project for a bid and Sheree Puccio bit. She knew of the Perth Amboy Kearnys well and it was her home town. Perfect! I gave her what I had. After years of searching off and on, putting it aside after getting frustrated from not getting anywhere, I was more than ready to give it to someone who had far more access than what I had.

Sheree went at it. With her knowledge about the New Jersey Kearney lines, where most of them settled, the families they married into, the kind of things families did in the 19th century, she began going down different avenues. But each one of them was a dead end. "Don't worry, I'll find her!" she'd write. Months went by, I didn't spend as much time on Ancestry because I thought I had exhausted all the data they had. But one day I went back and the search engine popped up an 1895 New Jersey Census that listed Roe Kearney, Annie, Lillian and Edna! This census didn't give ages, but I knew this was my family. Was this the Roe V Kearney who was married to Elizabeth? Could Roe have remarried? Running dates, all of Roe V Kearney's children with Elizabeth would have been adults. Maybe Roe was a widower.

I sent the information to Sheree. Everything started to make sense. Sheree found Roe and Annie's death certificates, dates and where Roe and his siblings are buried. She found Roe's parents which is leading us to New York to find the rest of the family. She found Annie's maiden name and her parent's names. Finally, the barrier was broken and a new light shone in not only to reveal some answers but that there is more to the story. Like why did Annie, the same age as Roe's daughters marry him? Was she destitute? Is there a love story there? I can see why Lillian would have been estranged from her half brothers and sisters; they likely wouldn't have recognized her as family. But what is Annie's story? Annie died when Lillian was a young teenager. What was Lillian's relationship like with Roe after Annie died? What happened to her sister, Edna? And where is this supposed connection to the General? We're still searching. And I think there will be quite a story to tell. Stay tuned.

I think what I have learned through all this is to write down things for future generations. Put names on pictures, record family stories and make as much of it as public as you feel comfortable with. I have already found extra hints through other people on Ancestry.com who have made their information public. I have contacted them and we've exchanged information, shared documents and shared a common link in our heritage we would never have known otherwise. It feels good.

1 comment:

Patricia Pacific Blog said...

This is such a great story! I am on the edge of my seat wanting to know the end. The "connections" and your unwavering hard work at searching for this information. We both come from eras where our Grandparents and their parents did not talk about divorce or having babies out of wedLOCK (geeezzzz... what an expression!). Not that this will be your outcome but the little I know about my family on the Kirkpatrick side it is so scandalas for them in those days that they just didn't talk about "it". Thank God we are more open these days and are wiling to tell the truth no matter the "connection". ;^}} If only they had known that we would not think bad of them. We just want to know our blood lines! I can't wait for your next installment Connie... Keep digging.