New York City Marriage Records: Application, Affidavit, and License for a Second Marriage

When the New York City Marriage Index was published online (thanks to Reclaim the Records), I requested copies of the Application, Affidavit, and License for two couples.  Records from 1928 for the first couple, Robert Paul Shaw and Jane Louise Sonntag, arrived a few weeks ago.  The genealogical gem contained in these records, and not contained on the marriage return, was that the whereabouts of the bride's father were unknown.

Records for my great grandfather's second marriage in 1928 just arrived, three weeks later than the first request, perhaps because more documents were included.

The Affidavit provided a line for the bride's occupation.  "Swimming instructor" was Fiorita's occupation.
(When she testified for her soon-to-be husband's divorce, her occupation was "the wire act on a bicycle.")
The marriage certificate did not ask the bride's occupation.

Howard Lutter and Fiorita Lorenz married in New York City on October 10, 1928.  This was a second marriage for both of them after divorcing their first spouses.  The packet from the New York City Municipal Archives included copies of the divorce decrees of both parties.

Howard Lutter divorced Laura (Ethel) Winterton in 1927.  The testimony of Fiorita Lorenz and other witnesses painted Laura as disinterested in her husband, children, and housekeeping duties.

Fiorita Lorenz was still married to James Howard Winnie when Howard Lutter and children moved into the Winnie home in Bloomfield, New Jersey.  In 1928, Fiorita divorced James for adultery.  The divorced was finalized September 6, 1928 in Essex County, New Jersey.  Fiorita sailed to France and returned to New York on October 9, 1928.  The next day she married Howard Lutter.

I still need to track down copies of the divorce testimony for Fiorita Lorenz and James Howard Winnie.  The divorce records for Howard Lutter and Laura Winterton can be found on DropBox along with the additional New York City marriage records.

An Exact Match for ODonnell Y-DNA

My ODonnell cousin has an exact match for his Y-DNA test at the 37 marker level at FamilyTreeDNA.

This surname of this Y-DNA cousin is not ODonnell or a variant.  FamilyTreeDNA provides a "Tip" report, estimating the chances that these two individuals share a common paternal line ancestor as we go back through the generations.  By the time we go back seven generations, there is a 95% chance that the lines will have merged.

This match can trace his direct paternal line back about two hundred years to the Isle of Bute in Scotland.  I can also trace back two hundred years, but land in Donegal, Ireland.  These two locations were near enough to be accessible around the year 1800.

If someone is knowledgeable about traveling in Ireland and Scotland in this time period, please weigh in.

Francis Patrick ODonnell was born about 1856 in Killybegs and came to New Jersey, United States, before 1880.  So the lines were separated by an ocean for three generations.  If they arise from the same ancestor, this merging will be found in the early 1800s or 1700s.

If this 37 marker Y-DNA match is related within seven generations, he may share autosomal DNA with any of my ODonnell relatives.  He has not done this type of DNA test, though.

My ODonnell cousin has thousands of matches in his Y-DNA results.  Even an exact match may not be a match at all because of convergence.  Markers change over time.  These two people may not be recently related, but rather their marker values could have mutated towards the same values and are now identical.

So far, there is only one ODonnell match at the 111 marker level.  This is the same person who was the initial top match at the 37 marker level.  Both testers upgraded to 111 markers and still match very closely, 106 out of 111 markers.  Two hundred years ago his ODonnell ancestors were in Boston, Massachusettes. 

Without other ODonnell cousins with similar Y-DNA markers, we cannot be secure in our placement as an ODonnell line based on markers alone.  In an upcoming article, I will demonstrate the necessity of using the markers of multiple distant cousins with my Duryea line.

Photographs in a Series Reunited

A cousin kindly sent me some more family photographs.  (Thank you D.W.!)

A snow scene caught my eye.  My aunt had given me a similar picture a few years ago of a couple standing in snow, the woman holding a snowball.

These people are still unidentified.  Based on who inherited these pictures, they come from the Walling and Winterton branches of the family tree.  They lived in the Keyport area of Monmouth County, New Jersey.

In an earlier article, I compared an identified photograph from a cousin to unidentified photographs I received years ago and determined that they are from the Walling and Winterton branches.

The pictures and heirlooms handed down through the generations are analogous to DNA.  Each child receives different bits of the parent's DNA and passes the different parts down to their descendants.

My branch received some tools from David Uhl (1834-1884), while a cousin received other tools, all marked with UHL to signify the common origin.

German Y-DNA Match

My father finally has a Y-DNA match at Family Tree DNA.

Both my father and the person who is a match tested 37 markers.  His surname is not Lutter.

(Another person tested 111 markers, but there are too many differences to qualify as a reportable match beyond 12 markers.)

FamilyTreeDNA did not report this new person as a match at the 37 marker level.  When I compared the actual numbers, they have five differences out of 37.  The values are off by only one for each difference.  Without testing additional cousins from these lines, we have nobody else to compare to determine if this man and my father might share a common direct paternal ancestor.

This other person has roots in Germany.  He can trace his direct paternal line to about 1830, which is how many years back I can get on my Lutter line.  His line originated in Treppeln, Brandenburg.  Mine was from Scheibe, Thueringen.  Treppeln is a few miles west of the current border with Poland and is about 180 miles northeast of Scheibe.  If I have the correct Treppeln.

Family Tree Repair: O'Donnell, Part Three

The revision of the ODonnell branch of the family in Indiana tree continues with the acquisition of death certificates.

Here are some pictures of this branch to be shared with the world, courtesy of an ODonnell in Ireland.

Rose and Agnes ODonnell were first cousins of my great grandfather, Frank ODonnell.

Father Charles Carey was the son of Agnes ODonnell.

He edited the book of Father Charles ODonnell's poems.

Using the entries for this branch at FindAGrave.com, I requested the death records for the couple Neil (Cornelius) ODonnell, died 1909, and Mary ODonnell, died 1924, from Howard County, Indiana.  Neil's record was found; Mary's was not.  As I was preparing this article, Ancestry.com published actual images of Indiana state death records with an index.  Mary's state record of death was in this collection.  Neil's was also found, but his name was mangled in the index as "Damerell" instead of ODonnell.

Please note that Mary ODonnell's parents are listed as Peter ODonnell and Margaret Gallagger [Gallagher].

This is consistent with the records of Mary's siblings, Rose and Patrick.

John James ODonnell (1882-1914), a son of Neil and Mary, is featured at FindAGrave with a former date of death of 1930.  The current administrator of his page corrected the year of death to 1914 at my bequest.  John was an acrobat in the circus.  He died in Warren, Warren County, Pennsylvania.  Ancestry.com has a collection of Pennsylvania death certificates and John's match beckoned to me as a quivering leaf in Family Tree Maker.

[This is the second person found so far who worked in the circus setting.  My great grandfather's second wife, Fiorita Lorenze (1890-1969) did "the wire act on a bicycle."]

"Circus acrobat expires.  John O'Donnell of the Wallace-Hagenbeck Shows died in P[ennsylvania]."

A search of the Indiana death certificates reveals one for a man named John ODonnell who died in 1930 in Kokomo, Indiana and was buried at Crown Point Cemetery.  But he was not the John ODonnell who was the son of Neil and Mary.  This illustrates the perils of working with common names.

The online family trees have corrected some errors but not others.

We now know that Mary was herself an ODonnell.

Her mother was Gallagher.

If only New Jersey would place its death records online . . .

NYC Marriage Records: 1908-1929 Application, Affidavit, and License

New York City marriage applications, affidavits, and licenses 1908-1929 became easier to obtain with the recent release of indexes and their subsequent publication online thanks to the group Reclaim the Records.  These documents are separate from the Certificate and Record of Marriage and can be obtained via mail service through New York City Municipal Archives.

About six weeks ago I requested through postal mail the application, affidavit, and license for the couple Robert Paul Shaw (1904-1964) and Jane Louise Sonntag (1911-1975).  They lived at 23 Appleton Place in Montclair, Essex County, New Jersey, but were married in 1928 in New York City.  (This is not unusual.  If you cannot find a marriage in New Jersey, check in New York City.)  Below is the marriage record.

Both bride and groom were easily identified in the images of the index for the year 1928.  The indexes are browsable by year, not searchable with text.

Below are the four pages I received pursuant to my request.

The additional records were ordered because Jane Sonntag's parents are confusing.

Jane's mother was Annabel Birney, born about 1865, probably in Westchester County, New York.  Her parents were Charles Hanfield Birney (1814-1893) and Mary Lennon (1827-19??).

In the 1930 census for Verona, Essex County, New Jersey, Annabelle Day is age 52 and widowed.  With her is daughter Jane, Jane's husband, and their new baby.

Annabel died February 16, 1944 in Montclair.  One death certificate was incomplete and filed under the surname Day with "Sonntag" in parentheses.  The other was completed and filed under Sonntag with "Day" in parentheses.

Annabel's entry in the 1910 census is elusive.  She may have been living with Arthur Sonntag in New York City.

In the 1920 census, Annabelle may be enumerated as Ann I Birney, age 48 and married, residing at 247 West 44th Street in New York City, living and working at a furnished rooming house.  With her is daughter Jane L Birney, age nine years and 1 month.

So what became of Arthur Sonntag, the father of Jane?  Jane was under 18 years old when she married Robert Shaw, requiring parental consent.  On the Certificate of Consent, Annabel B Sonntag wrote, "Father whereabouts unknown for past 14 years."  This makes the 1920 census entry for Ann I Birney more appealing as the correct Annabel.  She may have separated from Arthur Sonntag around 1914, when Jane was a toddler.

Certificate of Consent

New York City Municipal Archives

Various candidates for Arthur Sonntag are under review.  In the New York City marriage index, I do not see any marriages for Annabel Birney.  She may have married twice; first to Arthur Sonntag and then to John Day.  The plan is to check for these marriages in New Jersey, which requires a trip to the Archives in Trenton.

Lillian Winterton (1873-1918)

Lillian Winterton (1873-1918) was a sister of my great great grandfather, William Walling Winterton (1863-1932).  I realized that her burial had not been posted to Find A Grave when I visited Green Grove Cemetery in Keyport, Monmouth County, New Jersey, a few days ago.  The prior post examined Sophia, a sister of Lillian and William.

I wish I had a picture of Lillian herself and not just her gravestone.

Lillian was born in Keyport in 1873 to John Winterton (1831-1890) and Sophia Walling (1835-1906).  Her grave marker is shared with her parents.

In the New Jersey State Census for 1905, Lillian is enumerated with her mother in Monmouth County.

I had her death certificate, but had not posted it to the family tree.  Often we forget to pursue siblings of our ancestors, especially when they had no offspring.  But they, too, influence our family history.

According to Lillian's death certificate, she died at the Home for Incurables in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey.  The doctor, Sarah R Mead, attended Lillian from 1909 until Lillian's death in 1918.

A book had a description of this institute for the care of women with incurable diseases.  Lillian's death was caused by endocarditis, myocarditis, and arthritis deformans.  Dr Mead was a visiting physician.

The Home for Incurables at 102 Court Street in Newark was enumerated in the 1910 federal census.  "Ellen Winterton," age 36, was a patient.  This is probably Lillian.

Winterton Ellen, Patient, Female, White, age 36, Single.

By the 1905 New Jersey state census, Lillian's brother, William Winterton, had already moved to Newark.  Perhaps the death of Lillian and William's mother in 1906 necessitated Lillian moving into a facility to care for her physically and since brother William had already relocated to Newark, Lillian moved there as well.

We don't know much about this Aunt Lillian.  We can only have a glimpse of her through scant documents to formulate an idea about her life with "incurable" illnesses and the effect on her and the family.

Walling Winterton Photographs

A cousin sent me a photograph that he found.  The back of the photo identifies the people as Joe, Sophia, and Wilbur Walling at 76 South Mentor Avenue in Pasadena, California in June of 1920.

Wilbur Clarence Walling (1891-1963) was the son of Joseph Walling (1859-1957) and Sophia Winterton (1869-1931).  Wilbur married Jennie Terhune Almond (1891-1953) and moved to California from New Jersey.

Wilbur's sister was Mildred Esther Walling (1895-1919).  Perhaps after the death of their daughter, Joseph and Sophia decided to move to California to be with their remaining child.

Sophia Winterton's parents were John Winterton (1831-1890) and Sophia Walling (1835-1906).  I do not know how Sophia's husband, Joseph Walling, was related.  But Sophia's and Joseph's families were living next to each other in the 1880 federal census in Holmdel.

Having an identified picture for Walling and Winterton is very exciting because I have a supposed Winterton Family Album of mostly unidentified people.  A potential match caught my eye.

Could this be Joseph Walling (born 1859), Wilbur Walling (born 1891), Mildred Walling (born 1895), and Sophia Winterton (born 1869)?

Is this an earlier picture of Joseph Walling (born 1859)?

Is this Joseph Walling (born 1859)?  The woman is not his wife because the eyes are too light.

Comparison of the three proposed matches to the identified picture of Joseph Walling.

Comparison of the woman from the older family picture to the identified Sophia Winterton, wife of Joseph Walling.

Is the boy Wilbur Walling?

This postcard from Aunt Sophia was among another photo collection given to me.

It was addressed to William Winterton of Keyport and mailed from Pasadena in 1930.

The sender is probably Sophia Winterton, the sister of William's father.

Mildred Esther Walling (1895-1919)

Daughter of Joseph Walling and Sophia Winterton

Yesterday I returned to Green Grove Cemetery in Keyport, Monmouth County, New Jersey.  One of the Winterton lots was cleaned up.  I found the gravestone for Mildred Walling.  It had been obscured by a large bush.  (There is still a stone face-down.)  Mildred's parents and brother are buried in California.