Cemeteries of Millerton, New York

 Does anyone have information on cemeteries in Millerton, Dutchess County, New York?

I continue searching for information on the death of Catherine Donnelly, my third great-grandmother. She was born around 1833 in Ireland. With Michael Preston (1813-1904), she had at least six children and lived in Pine Plains, Northeast, and Stanford in Dutchess County before relocating to Independence in Warren County, New Jersey in the 1880s.

No death certificate has been located in New York or New Jersey for Catherine. I figure she died around 1900, when she was last seen in the federal census. Her husband was seen twice; once with her and once as her widower.

While reviewing Preston death records, I noticed a death certificate from Independence in 1896 for a baby named John H Preston, son of John Preston and Bridget.

John H Preston died November 8, 1896
in Independence, Warren County, New Jersey.
Age 1 year, 5 months, and 7 days.
Parents- John Preston and Bridget.
Burial at Millerton, New York.

John Preston (1857-1928) and Bridget Sheehy (1857-1916) were my second great-grandparents. In 1879 they named a son John David Preston. He did not die until 1922. I think it's strange that they would name another baby John in 1895 when they already had a child by this name.

1880 United States federal census
John D Preston, age 23; farm laborer.
Bridgett Preston, age 23; wife; keeping house.
Michael Preston, age 2, son.
John D Junior Preston, age 1; son.

Baby John was buried at Millerton. This is difficult to discern at the bottom of the certificate.

I hoped (and still do) that this is a clue as to the burial location of Catherine, circa 1900. Upon looking up cemeteries in this area, I found four in Millerton:

Irondale Cemetery

Saint Patricks Roman Catholic Church Cemetery

Spencer's Corners Cemetery

Winchell Mountain Burying Ground

I was able to make contact with one, Irondale. Staff kindly looked into the Preston and Donnelly surnames and found no matches to my people.

So, fellow researchers, if anyone is near Millerton or has access to records for cemeteries in Millerton, I would be most appreciative for some checking.

Thank you!

Anna Preston 1890-1921

November 22, 1890 was the birthdate of my great grandmother, Anna Preston. She was the mother of my maternal grandmother. She died May 10, 1921 at the age of thirty. I remember my grandmother telling me stories about Anna's early death. My middle name is in honor of Anna.

I have no pictures of Anna, unfortunately. I have documents instead.

Anna's death certificate lists the cause of death as otitis media followed by mastoiditis. Meningitis was contributory. An operation was performed six days before her death. 

My grandmother's family was very good about putting full names of parents on records.

Transcription of obituary:

Mrs Anna ODonnell died yesterday at her home 162 Orient street, after a brief illness. She had been a resident of Bayonne for over 21 years and was very well known in the Point section.

Mrs ODonnell leaves her husband, Frank ODonnell, five children; a father, John Preston; four brothers, John, George, Walter and Henry of Newark; three sisters, Mrs Mary Late [Lake], Thomas Burns [Hannah Beirne], and Miss Catherine Preston.

Funeral services will be conducted Friday morning when a solemn high mass will be celebrated at St. Andrew’s R. C. Church at 10 o’clock. Interment in family plot in Holy Name Cemetery under directions of Thomas M O’Brien.

  

Anna's obituary states that she died at home, 162 Orient Street in Bayonne, New Jersey. Note that the death certificate states that she died at Bayonne Hospital. She was survived by seven siblings- two had predeceased her.

Anna was the eighth of ten children born to John Preston (1857-1928) and Bridget Sheehy (1857-1916). I did not find a birth certificate for her, but she was probably born in Independence, Warren County, New Jersey. The family relocated there around 1884 from Stanford, Dutchess County, New York.

The day before Anna turned 21, she married Francis Patrick ODonnell (1888-1959) at Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Bayonne, November 21, 1911.

Their first child, John Edward, was born in 1912. Four more children followed:

Rita Ann, 1914

Francis Leo, 1916

Claire Veronica, 1918

Jeannette Elizabeth, 1920 (my grandmother).

The 1920 census was the last in which Anna is enumerated. Frances and Anna were living at 140 Lord Avenue in Bayonne with four children. Their final child, Jeannette, had not yet arrived.

142 Orient Street was the address of Anna's father, John Preston. Perhaps the family moved in with him when she became ill?

Nine months after giving birth to Jeannette, Anna was dead. She was buried in the ODonnell plot at Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.

Baby Jeannette moved in with her paternal grandparents, Patrick ODonnell (1856-1931) and Delia Joyce (1862-1929). They were also buried in this plot.

I always wished for a picture of Anna. I wondered if Jeannette had a picture of the mother she lost so early, depriving her of a memory. A cousin sent me pictures of Anna's parents.

Happy Century, Jeannette

Today would have been the hundredth birthday of my maternal grandmother, Jeannette. She died in 1993 when I was seventeen years old.

Her stories about her family inspired my interest in genealogy.

Her secrets became the focus of my searches.

Jeannette Elizabeth ODonnell was born on July 30, 1920 in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey. She was the fifth and final child of Frank ODonnell and Anna Preston. Anna became ill shortly after the birth and died the following year. Jeannette lived with her paternal grandparents, Patrick ODonnell and Delia Joyce. Jeannette told us about Delia's blindness. Jeannette was very fond of her Aunt Kitty. Many relatives were killed in train accidents. She didn't get along with her siblings because they were raised apart.

Her best friend was her cousin, Edna. Jeannette said that they used to pay one nickel each to get a pack of cigarettes to share.

Edna told my mother and me that she promised to take Jeannette's secrets to her grave. She did. She died four days ago at the age of 98.

My mother, Judith, was born in 1950 when Jeannette was thirty years old. As a child, I didn't notice that Jeannette's stories left out the time period of her young adulthood, from the late 1930s and through the 1940s. All I remember is that she said she was a switchboard operator for the phone company. She had a switchboard plug that she said was used to connect calls.

When I began requesting family documents and photos, my mother told me that I would find discrepancies in Jeannette's story of her life and that if I ever found the truth, she wanted to know.

Jeannette may have discarded her copies of official records of births and marriages, but the State of New Jersey preserved their copies. So did newspapers. DNA testing was unfathomable until recently. That was the key to unlocking more secrets.

As I find out more about the events in Jeannette's life, I can't help wondering how she felt. She hid tragedies. I try to remember her stories for hints or clues, but I come up with no indications of what transpired in her young adulthood.

Happy 100th Birthday in Heaven, Grammy.

1959 New Jersey Death Certificates are Available

New Jersey State Archives has acquired death certificates through 1959.

The indexes for 1901 through 2000 can be browsed at a site set up by Reclaim the Records. Some years are missing as of this writing. (The work-around for the missing indexes from 1904-1919 and 1930-1948 is to look at the certificates year by year. They were filed alphabetically.)

This is the death certificate for one of my great grandfathers, Frank ODonnell (1889-1959). He was born in Bayonne in 1888 to Patrick ODonnell and Delia Joyce. His first wife was Anna Preston. She died in 1921. He married his second wife, Gertrude Farman, in 1940.

Frank died in Bayonne on Halloween, October 31, 1959. He was buried at Holy Name Cemetery (Hudson County Catholic Cemetery).

"Severe epistaxis," or nosebleed, is listed among his medical diagnoses. My grandmother used to say that her side of the family had a bleeding disorder. This could be one of the reasons why she said this.

If you order a death certificate from 1959 via mail from the Archives, please let us know if the cause of death was blocked. This certificate was copied by me in person from microfilm, thus the area containing the cause of death is not restricted.

Discovering More Relatives in Catholic Cemeteries

Holy Name Cemetery is the final resting place for many of my family. The cemetery, also known as the Hudson County Catholic Cemetery, is in Jersey City, New Jersey.

From the New Jersey Records Preservation Group,

"The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark has made a small (but extremely significant!) improvement to their searchable database of burials (www.rcancem.org/find-a-loved-one-search). The database includes burials in some Catholic cemeteries within the Archdiocese of Newark (including Holy Name in Jersey City, Holy Cross in North Arlington, Holy Sepulchre in East Orange, and several other Catholic cemeteries in Essex, Bergen, Morris, and Union counties).

Until recently, a search for an individual in the database brought up the name of the deceased, the burial date, and the plot number. However, there was no way to search by plot number or to see who else was buried in the plot with that individual. The recent addition, a small magnifying glass to the right of an entry, generates a listing of individuals buried in the same plot with the person whose entry is listed. This is an extremely valuable tool for genealogists, who may find parents, children, siblings, and other extended family members buried in the same plot. There are still burials being added to the database, so it is an ongoing project.

This change was implemented following input and a suggestion from the New Jersey Records Preservation Group (www.NJRPG.org), who urged the Archdiocese to come up with a solution to help researchers determine who else is buried in plots with their loved ones."

Below are plot listings of people with no gravestones. Being able to view all the people in the plot is leading to new discoveries.

Edward Preston (1885-1903) and Michael Preston (1882-1918) were grandsons of Michael Preston (1813-1904).

Edward drowned after diving from the pier off 49th Street in Bayonne.

Michael was killed by a train (or murdered) in 1918.

Who is Edna Staley, died 1977? I have no idea.

She may be the Edna Mary Staley who appears in the Social Security Applications and Claims Index, born in 1921 in Schenectady, New York to Harry Staley and Edna Gallagher. I see no obvious connection to these Prestons.

Margaret Donovan (1855-1906), wife of John Coughlin (1854-1906), was a paternal aunt of little William.

William Donovan (1896-1900) was the son of Lawrence (or Laurence) Donovan (1862-1944) and Mary OReilly (1870-1944). Lawrence and Mary are buried in Block V, Section AA (see below).

I had no idea who else was buried with Margaret and William. Now I have two additional names, Eliza OLeary and Patrick Thompson, but I do not know how they relate. I will copy their death certificates on my next trip to the New Jersey State Archives.

As discussed above, Laurence Donovan and Mary OReilly, died 1944, were the parents of William, who died in 1900 and was buried with Laurence's sister Margaret in a separate plot.

William Donovan (1831-1897) and Ann Daly (1838-1893) were the parents of Laurence. They were from Skull East in Cork, Ireland.

Annie Esker, died 1895, was a surprise. Using the indexes of New Jersey marriages and deaths, she may be Mary E Esker, a baby who died in Bayonne a day before burial at Holy Name. Her parents could be William Esker and Margaret Dailey, who married at Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Bayonne in 1894. They could have some relationship to Ann Daly, which would be great, because I have nothing on Ann's ancestors.

Again, I need copy the records for these people to figure out the connections.

Marriage Record Connecting a Person to a Place

Bridget Sheehy (1857-1916) was my great great grandmother.

With John D Preston (1857-1928) she had at least ten children born in New York and New Jersey.

Bridget's death certificate listed her parents, Edmond or Edward Sheehy and Bridget Frawley. A couple by this name lived in Amenia, Dutchess County, New York after leaving Ireland. Nothing definitively linked Bridget to Amenia.

Until now.

Find My Past expanded its collection of Catholic marriages and baptisms for New York.

Bridget Sheehy and John Preston have an entry for their marriage in 1877 in Amenia at Immaculate Conception. This is the same church used by Ellen Sheehy (1866-1938) and Thomas Culligan (1863-1937), the original clue for Bridget's family of origin.

In the transcripts of baptisms are four children of Bridget Sheehy and John Preston at Immaculate Conception:

-Michael, born 1878
-John, born 1879
-Mary, born 1881
-Catherine, born 1883

DNA of Preston Sheehy Descendants at 23andMe

Another Preston/Sheehy cousin tested his DNA at 23andMe.com. K.J. is the father of D.J., who tested four years ago. D.J. was the first relative I identified from my DNA pursuits.

Below is the family tree of the descendants of John Preston (1857-1928) and Bridget Sheehy (1857-1916) who tested at 23andMe.

Below is the chromosome browser view of the shared DNA between K.J. and his three second cousins. Note the wide variation in the amount shared from 195 centimorgans (cM) to 364.

Also important is that the amount of shared DNA drops when we shift from father to son. The amount was not halved; it was quartered. (This is why it is best to test members of the oldest living generation whenever possible.)

23andMe has an "In Common With" feature. This list shows DNA testers who match you and a target person. In the scenario below, I looked for relatives in common with my mother and K.J. Sharing the same DNA indicates that the DNA tester is likely from their shared Preston/Sheehy lines. One DNA tester, R.S., could be a viable lead.

R.S. shares a segment of DNA with the oldest generation of Preston/Sheehy descendants. The chromosome browser reveals that my mother shares the longest segment and this segment broke in the middle. My uncle received one piece while K.J. and my mother's first cousin received the other piece.

R.S. has no family tree offered through 23andMe. This is a common problem with matches at 23andMe- the lack of genealogical information and interest.


The other observation to garnish from this information is that the amount of shared DNA skews greatly beyond the parent - child relationship. In groups on FaceBook, I often see people trying to determine generations or half relationships based on the amount of shared DNA of people well beyond a sibling relationship. You simply cannot do this based on shared DNA alone.

Please see the latest Shared Centimorgan Project by Blaine Bettinger for the ranges of DNA shared by relatives up to a fourth cousin. The numbers found in my cousin comparisons fall within these expected amounts.

Preston DNA Double Match

A new DNA cousin appeared among my matches at Ancestry.com.

He also matched two known Preston cousins at this site.  He displayed his name, which is unusual, so I was able to identify him as a descendant of Hannah Preston (1888-1935), a sister of my great grandmother, Anna Preston (1890-1921).

Ancestry enables people to link their DNA profile to a person in a family tree.  This DNA match did not do this, but his non-DNA Ancestry profile page offered a link to a small tree.

I started with the one person in the family tree who had a name.  I quickly uncovered that the mother of the only identified person was Jane Pearl (or Pearl Jane) Preston, born around 1903 in Kentucky.  This is not where I expected the match to be.  I followed this line over many generations through Virginia to Philip Preston (1711-1774), who came from Staffordshire, England, according to his Find A Grave page.

I saw no intersection with my Preston line from (County Wicklow?) Ireland to New York and New Jersey.

The family tree of this DNA match can be extended to include Prestons on two separate branches.

We need more research and more DNA comparisons to decide where the shared segment of DNA came from and if these two Preston lines arose from the same ancestor.

Preston DNA Puzzle Piece

Michael Preston and Ann were my fourth great grandparents.  Their existence is seen only in the death certificate of their son, Michael Preston.  He was born about 1820 in Ireland and died in 1904 in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey.  His first appearance in the United States is the 1850 federal census for Pine Plains, Dutchess County, New York, where he is single, residing with the Thomas family.

Michael's death certificate does not provide a surname for his mother.

In the 1850s, Michael Preston married Catherine Donnell (or Donnelly) of Ireland and had several children.  I descend from their son, John D Preston (1857-1928).

I have found no one in the Pine Plains area with familial connections to my Prestons.  There was a Stephen Preston (1824-1896).  His death certificate lists his father as John Preston; mother unknown.

Then a DNA match appeared at FamilyTreeDNA to my uncle and his first cousin.  This DNA cousin's great great great grandmother was Ann Preston, born around 1827 in Ireland.  She first appeared in Pine Plains in the 1855 New York State census.  She married John Barrett (1825-1894).

The common ancestors of my uncle and his cousin were Frank ODonnell (1888-1959) and Anna Preston (1890-1921), telling us that the match will be found in this branch of the family tree.  Other Preston descendants are also at FamilyTreeDNA, but this DNA cousin does not appear in their list of matches.  This does not mean that they don't share DNA.  There are also more Preston descendants at Ancestry.com, but we cannot utilize DNA held at a different site.  If everyone could upload to GedMatch, we could check for shared segments.

Sharing a surname and a geographic location with the DNA match makes Preston and Pine Plains an excellent place to look for the connection.

The DNA match has a record for the death in 1892 of Ann Preston, wife of John Barrett, from the town of Pine Plains, naming her parents as Michael Preston and Ann Hadden.

Could Ann Preston, born about 1827, be a sister to my Michael Preston, born about 1820?  Maybe.

So far, I have found no connection between them.  No newspaper article mentioning cousins.  Never living together in the census.

We don't know where in Ireland Preston came from.  In County Wicklow, we have some possible matches.

In 1823 and 1826, a couple named Michael Preston and Anne baptized a son, Michael, and a daughter, Anne, respectively, in Baltinglass.  Both had a special notation- looks like Ballinarow or Barinarow.  Sponsors for Michael look like Pat Toley and Mary Reddy.  Sponsors for Ann look like Ready and Mary Haydon.

Here's the part that gets me on these Irish surnames.  In nearby Ballymore Eustace, in 1824 Michael Preston and Anne baptized a son, Michael.  Sponsors were John Burke and Anna Quirk.  Do either of these records belong to my ancestor?

Are my ancestors Michael Preston and Anna Hadden?
And were they from County Wicklow?

Did the same couple move between parishes to baptize a son (or sons) named Michael?

We need some more records before we can decide that Ann Preston (1827-1894) connects to my Preston branch as a sister of Michael, my Third Great Grandfather.

Family Tree Repair: Hyser and Preston

While working on a branch of my Hyser family, I noticed that online family trees had a different year and place of death for Adelaide Hyser, wife of Sherwood Preston.  Adelaide was a sister of my father's 3rd great grandfather, Louman Hyser (1826-1895).

In the 1855 New York State census, Adelaide and husband lived in Catskill, Greene County, with two children.  In the 1860 federal census, Adelaide was living with her father and three children, minus the husband, in Catskill.  Adelaide relocated to Jersey City after the 1870 census.

My source for Adelaide's death was from a compiled genealogy of the Rockefeller family.  In this work, Adelaide died in Jersey City, [Hudson County], New Jersey on February 6, 1907.

Online trees had the year of death as 1908.  Places included Jersey City, Union Hill in Morris County, and Union Hill in Hudson County.

The source for this date and these places of death was from an application by Irving Sherwood Preston (a great grandson of Adelaide) to join the Sons of the American Revolution under the patriot Simon Rockefeller.  In viewing the actual application [database at Ancestry.com], you can see that the date given for Adelaide's death was February 6, 1908, but no place of death was given.

The compiled genealogy and the SAR application are both derivative sources with questionable reliability.  I needed the actual death certificate.  Fortunately, I copied many years of Preston deaths because I am a Preston descendant on my mother's side of the family.  The last Preston in my line was Anna Preston (1890-1921).  I have not found a relation between my great grandmother Anna Preston and Adelaide Hyser's husband Sherwood Preston.

According to the death certificate, Adelaide M Preston, daughter of Peter Hyzer and Ella [Fritz], died in Jersey City on February 6, 1908.

Her obituary appeared in the newspaper Jersey Journal, viewable at GenealogyBank.com (pay site).  A textual search for "Preston" did not yield this result.  I searched by date.

Burial was in Catskill.  Adelaide's father, brother, and other family members were buried at Catskill Village Cemetery.  I don't see a grave listing for Adelaide online.

Matrilineal DNA, Destination Ireland

In December I tested my mitochondrial DNA ("mtDNA") with FamilyTreeDNA.  My first mtDNA test was over five years ago with Ancestry.com and is now essentially defunct.

My mtDNA haplogroup is H1au1b, which is not very common.

Well, I have four matches to work with.

This DNA test looks at a specific kind of DNA in the mitochondria of cells.  Unlike autosomal DNA in the nucleus of a cell, mitochondrial DNA does not change from generation to generation.  A person's mitochondrial DNA is an exact copy (minus some mutations) of that person's mother's mitochondrial DNA.  The mitochondria are nicknamed the "powerhouses" of cells.  Their DNA is portrayed as circular like bacterial DNA, not a double helix like nuclear autosomal DNA. 

My direct maternal line is not long on paper.  I can trace back to my great great grandmother, Bridget Sheehy.  She was born in Ireland about1857.  She married John Preston (1857-1928) around 1877 in Dutchess County, New York.  The mitochondria in my cells are identical to the mitochondria that powered Bridget's cells.



Bridget Sheehy (1857-1916), wife of John Preston
Courtesy of Irene Preston

Bridget died almost one hundred years ago on 5 April 1916 in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey and is buried at Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.  Her death certificate listed the names of both of her parents, Edmond [or Edward?] Sheehy and Bridget Frawley.

There was a couple by this name living in Dutchess County, Edmond Sheehy (1825-1893) and Bridget Frawley (1826-1905).  Bridget's death certificate lists her parents as John Frawley and Mary Shea of Ireland.  I lucked out again.  The death certificate for every ancestor on my direct maternal line includes the full names of both parents up through this possible fourth great grandmother.

A wonderful clue was in a newspaper article from 1936 in The Harlem Valley Times from Amenia, Dutchess County.  [Free access through FultonHistory.com.]  The article detailed the 50th wedding anniversary of a couple, Thomas Culligan (1863-1937) and Ellen Sheehy (1866-1938).  Ellen's parents were "Edward" Sheehy and Bridget Frawley of Limerick, Ireland.

Was Ellen a sister of my Bridget?

I want to assign my Bridget Sheehy to this family from Amenia.  But there is no connection in any of the documents I found so far.  In the anniversary article above, no relatives named Preston or from Bayonne are mentioned.  The only child mentioned in the 1905 obituary of Bridget Frawley Sheehy, possible mother of my Bridget, is her daughter from the newspaper article, Ellen Sheehy Culligan.

My Bridget's first definite appearance is in the 1880 federal census in Stanford, Dutchess County, when she is already married to John D Preston and has children.  But in the 1875 New York state census is a Bridget Shehea, age 22, born in Ireland, a servant to the Bertine family in Amenia.  The next family is James Shea of Ireland, his wife, Catherine [Ahearn], and their children, Thomas, Nora, Catherine, and Margaret.

The seven year old Thomas Shea in the 1875 census is Thomas James Shehea (1867-1885) at FindAGrave and linked to parents James T Sheely (1828-1902) and Catherine Ahern (1838-1925).  This tells me that the surname underwent spelling modifications.  This family, as well as the Sheehy and Culligan families, are buried at Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Amenia, Dutchess County, New York.  Is my Bridget related to James Shehea/Sheely/Sheehy?

Consider the 1892 New York State Census.  "Edward" Sheehy and Bridget Sheehy are enumerated in Amenia.  The prior family is Mary Ahearn, age 40; she is a daughter of Edmond/Edward Sheehy and Bridget.  At the bottom of the page is a Sheehy family, unfortunately cut-off.  The male head of household is 64 years old, just one year shy of Edward Sheehy.  Could this be James Sheely/Sheehy and his wife, Catherine Ahearn?  The eleven year old child is also unviewable, but the next page has Nellie Sheehy, age 14.  Nellie was a daughter of James Sheehy and Catherine.

Were Edmond/Edward Sheehy and James Shehea/Sheely/Sheehy brothers?  Or is James a relative of Mary Shea, the possible maternal grandmother of Bridget?  Or were the names of Bridget's parents wrong on the death certificate?

To utilize my mtDNA test, if Ellen Sheehy, wife of Thomas Culligan, was a sister of my Bridget, and we could possibly find a living direct maternal line descendant of Ellen, that person's mtDNA would be identical to mine.  Ellen had one daughter, Florence (1898-1979), who had children with John McEnroe (1923-2005).  If any of those children are still alive, they could test; otherwise, the eligible candidates would be children of Florence's daughter, Eileen McEnroe (1932-2011), wife of Guenther Hans Strauss (1927-1999).