My Cousin Scott

I was now again at one of those research lulls, no new leads to follow up, no new information to track down, no clues to whet the appetite.  Then, out of the blue, I received the following email:

Aug 31 3:32 AM GMT

Hi, My name is Scott Glanzrock and I found your tree as a potential link to mine through Cornelius Mahoney, my great-great-great grandfather. I am logged in under a cousin and a resaerch partner for another branch of my family. If you would like to contact me, please email me at_________. I cannot message you on my free membership because it won’t let me find you. I am interested in collaboration about the Mahoneys, as well as the Lanigans. It appears that we are cousins. My great grandmother was Kathleen (or Catherine) R Mahoney. Jeremiah Mahoney and Catherine Lanigan were her parents. I am hoping to hear from you. Thanks, Scott

Scott was a descendent of one of my grandfather's sisters, Kathleen.  I vaguely remembered the name Kathleen Dooley from the cache of material for my Aunt Virginia's shoebox, and went back to look through it.  Sure enough, one of the funeral cards there was for Kathleen:

 I sent Scott a copy of the funeral card, as well as a copy of the picture of Jeremiah Mahoney and Mary (Lanigan) Mahoney, our common ancestors, that I had. 

As we began to correspond, it became clear that Scott and I had been traveling many of the same roads independent of each other.  But, let Scott tell his own story:

My Irish-Catholic Family History in Brooklyn

I grew up knowing that my grandfather, Joseph Michael Dooley was born in Brooklyn, his parents were Frank Dooley and Catherine Mahoney, and he had a sister Kathleen Dooley and a brother Jerry Dooley. However, I did not know anything about Frank Dooley and Catherine Mahoney and where their parents came from, or where they were born. When I was at a family gathering, I spoke of my interests in family history with my cousins, children of Jerry Dooley. John Dooley, Jerry’s son told me that my great-grandmother was actually Kathleen Regina Mahoney, while Frank Dooley, Jerry’s other son told me to research two additional names: Lanigan and Joyce.

As I initiated finding out about my roots in Brooklyn, I looked for a connection between the names. Through ancestry.com and other family history sites, I had found a Kathleen Mahoney in the census, whose parents were Jeremiah Mahoney and Mary A Lanigan. Thus, it seemed to me that Jeremiah Mahoney and Mary A Lanigan could be my great-great grandparents. When speaking with John Dooley again, he believed that Lanigan was the maiden name of Kathleen Regina Mahoney’s mother.

My next step was to travel to the NYC Municipal Archives to look for records. I knew that I could not easily find death records on Frank Dooley or Kathleen Regina Mahoney because they likely died after 1950. (My mother knew her grandfather and she was born in 1950) Death records after 1950 are held in the Department of Health and must be ordered and findings will be mailed in 6 to 8 weeks. Therefore, I was forced to search on Jeremiah Mahoney and Mary Lanigan before I was even sure that they were my great-grandmother’s parents.

I found the death records for Jeremiah Mahoney and Mary Lanigan which listed each of their parents and showed that they were both buried at Holy Cross Cemetery. When I went to Holy Cross Cemetery, I began looking for the grave of Jeremiah Mahoney and Mary Lanigan. It was actually easy to find and the grand stone clearly showed that I found it which also included Jeremiah’s sister, brother and father. (Where was his mother?) Meanwhile, I was not sure, but really hoping that this was my family.

My next mission was to see if there were a Frank J Dooley buried in a plot with a Kathleen R (Mahoney) Dooley. With common names as Dooley and Mahoney you cannot be sure that different people with same names got married. However, with exact middle initials, there is less of a chance that I would find the wrong people. I was given the plot where Frank J Dooley and Kathleen R Dooley were buried. This plot was a little more difficult to find, but another stone marked the location. Again, I am still unsure if this was my great-grandparents.

When I went back into the cemetery office, I asked them if there were more people buried in the plot where Frank J Dooley and Kathleen R Dooley were buried. They provided about a dozen names, most with the last name Meehan and a few with the last name Dooley. I decided that I must return to the NYC Municipal Archives to research the new findings.

However, before I left I wanted to search for a plot owned by a Jeremiah Mahoney, where a Catherine Mahoney and Edward Mahoney were buried. I believed that this Catherine could have been Jeremiah’s mother, but I did not know why she would be in a different plot and I could not find her in the 1880 census. Regardless, I could not be sure of the plot because there was about 6 -12 inches of snow on the ground, and I did not find a stone.

After searching the census and returned to the archives, I developed a theory that Michael Dooley and Ellen Meehan Dooley were the parents of Frank J Dooley, and the other Meehans were Ellen’s parents and her siblings. Of course, I obtained all the pertinent records, still without knowing if I had truly found my Frank J Dooley and my Kathleen R Mahoney.

On the last day of my trip, I went to the Department of Health to place my order. Although it seemed like everyone in Manhattan needed to go there that day, I decided to wait in line, as it turned out, close to three hours. And about two months later, the death records arrived in the mail. I was very excited with the long wait, and I was nervous because I could not imagine that after all this research, I could be completely off. After all this time, my trip was meaningfully complete, the death records confirmed that I found the plot of my great-grandparents Frank J Dooley and Kathleen Regina Mahoney. And now begins the search from Brooklyn to Ireland……..

Nothing eases the burden of a long, arduous trip than having a companion to share the load.  Scott and I had found one another along the road, and found we shared a passion and a dogged determination to find our way back to our ancestors' home in Ireland.  And we also found that even though we had been traveling many of the same roads, each of us had picked up bits and pieces of information that the other had not.  As we began to share information and pool our research, the picture began to get clearer, and the goal seemed ever more closer.  

Catherine

Few of us, I think, would know the courage and desperation involved in ripping up your roots in one country, and sailing away to another country to begin life anew, yet thousands and thousands of Irish people did so in the 1800s.  Certainly, the misery and oppression in Ireland during that time provided ample incentive to leave.  For most who came, however, they found not streets paved with gold, but gutters strewn with garbage, freedom to succeed yes, but also freedom -- and ample opportunity -- to fail.  They found that they had merely traded rural destitution for urban squalor.  One can only guess at the toll it took on individuals.

My trip to the cemetery had opened up a haunting mystery: why was my great-great grandmother Catherine buried in an unmarked grave in the same cemetery where my great grandfather Jeremiah had purchased a significant family plot with impressive headstone?  Why was Catherine living alone at the time of her death, and why was she buried seemingly with no wake and no ceremony?

The first small clue came from the 1880 federal census.  There, I located Cornelius living with two of his children -- Jeremiah and Anna -- at 98 Summit Street in Brooklyn

After the column where he is described as "Father", there is a "D" marked.  According to the key, this "D" meant that Cornelius was divorced.  One could surmise that something pretty serious happened between Catherine and Cornelius, because Irish Catholics were not prone to divorce.  One could also surmise that it was Catherine who was alienated from the family, since Cornelius was living with his children and Catherine, it seems, was on her own.  There is also the added piece of interesting information that in the 1886 City Directory, Catherine identifies herself as the widow of Cornelius.

I found some tantalizing possibilities in The Brooklyn Eagle.  The Eagle was a daily newspaper that published from 1841 to 1955.  All editions from 1841 to 1902 have been digitized here, and are searchable by keyword.  When I searched on "Catherine Mahoney", I found the following articles:

August 18, 1859

October 12, 1860:

June 10, 1862:

August 31, 1869:

Now, there is no solid evidence that any of these Catherine (or Kate) Mahoneys was my ancestor, or even if any or all of these articles are about the same woman. It is true, however, that several of the incidents are very similar, and at least two occurred in or near the Brooklyn neighborhood where my great great grandparents lived later in life.

So, if one or more of these articles is, indeed, about my great great grandmother, one could probably construct a reasonable scenario which might lead to divorce.  One might also speculate if the (in)famous Mahoney temper might have been passed down through the genes of Catherine.

It is, alas, all speculation, and the mystery of Catherine will probably remain locked away from view forever.

But how I wish I could somehow find the key.

The Cemetery

The search for ancestors can become a tedious affair, particularly when it is confined to internet searches.  There are so many rabbit-holes and dead ends, excitement and anticipation when a new path opens up, then disappointment and discouragement when it leads nowhere.  For five months after my visit to the NYC Archives, I scuffled around in an internet maze, searching and researching, stumbling blindly down virtual corridors and alleyways that only seemed to lead me back to my starting point with no new information in hand. Finally, the weekend for the rescheduled poetry reading arrived, and I headed to New York, hoping that Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn might yield more information than the digital backrooms I had been frequenting.

I had my great-great grandmother's death certificate with  me, and I went to the cemetery office, showed it to the secretary there, and she found the grave site number.  I was filled with hope as I wended my way through the gravestones that at last a breakthrough was at hand.  When I got to my great-great grandmother's grave site, this is what I found:

My great-great grandmother Catharine was buried in an unmarked grave.  Another rabbit-hole, another dead-end.  Dejected, I trudged back to the cemetery office where I had left my car.  On a whim, I went back into the office and gave the lady there the names of my great-great grandfather Cornelius and my great grandfather Jeremiah.  She checked the cemetery database and told me matter-of-factly, "oh, yes, they're buried together."

 

The pictures of the grave site speak for themselves. My great-great grandfather, my great grandfather and great grandmother, my great uncle John, and my great aunt Anna (John was only a rumor, and I had never even heard of Anna before this), are all buried at the site. The fact that there was no birth date for Cornelius did little to dampen the utter exhilaration I felt.  After so much time spent chasing my ancestors through an ephemeral digital world, here was something tangible, something REAL, to connect me to them.  I stared at the stone for endless minutes, then hugged it, then danced around it.  Luckily, there was no one else in Holy Cross Cemetery on a Friday afternoon, so my antics went unnoticed by the living.

When I was finally able to tear myself away, I drove over to Greenwood Cemetery.  Whereas Holy Cross is a Catholic cemetery, Greenwood is a secular one.  According to his death certificate, this is where my great uncle Cornelius is buried. I located his grave site where he is buried along with his wife Mary, his son Harry, and his daughter Catherine Daly.

Finally, I went to the Cobble Hill neighborhood in Brooklyn where my ancestors had resided in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  I found the house at 313 Clinton Street where my great grandfather died in 1919.  

Now that I had the date of death for Cornelius from the gravestone, I was able to identify which of the death certificates I had seen in the Archives was his.  He died in 1880 at 98 Summit Street.

The house where Cornelius Jr had died -- 296 Sackett Street -- had been torn down and replaced by modern condominiums.  The house where my great-great grandmother Catharine died -- 66 Warren Street -- also no longer exists, having been removed to make way for the Brookly-Queens Expressway which now cuts through the old neighborhood.

Not bad for a day's work.  I didn't get any closer to to the information leading me back to Ireland, but I now had a real connection to all the generations that had lived here.  

There was one mystery I had uncovered.  Why was my great-great grandmother buried in an unmarked grave in the same cemetery where such a grand family gravestone was also located?