Choice of Wedding Venue

Microfiche copied at The New York State Archives in Albany

The entry for this marriage is interesting.  This is the New York State Marriage Index for 1938.  New York City maintained its own records at this period of time (and still today).  Yet the marriage of Joseph Leary to Regina Engman was recorded at the state level with New York City as the location.

Also note that this is an unfortunate indexing system for marriages, especially because you do not have quick access to the actual marriage certificates.  Only one party to the marriage is listed.  You can order the certificate for a fee and wait to see who the other person is.  Otherwise, you need to know the last name of the other person in order to verify that you have the correct people.  In this particular situation, I had the name Joseph Leary, son of Jacob Leary and Mary Sanderson.

1940 United States Federal Census
Ossining, Westchester County, New York
Ancestry.com

Jacob was 23 years old in 1940.  His wife, Regina, was 25, and they had a one year old child.  So we would look for a marriage from 1940 backwards.  December 4, 1938 fits well for this time frame.  The index entry for this marriage does not provide us with the name of Joseph's bride.  We only have Regina's first name from the 1940 census.  So how did I find Regina's corresponding entry?

I found Joseph Leary's exact day of birth in the New York State Birth Index:  February 2, 1917.  I plugged this date into my Family Tree Maker software.  Up pounced new, little, shaking leaves.  I found a family tree giving Regina's last name as Engman.  I located a Regina Engman in the index with the same date of marriage, location, and certificate number as Joseph Leary.  A match!

Then I sprinkled that family tree online with the exact date of marriage and the certificate number.

Amanuensis Monday: Two Babies

Part Three in the transcription of hand-written notes found in the Bishop family file at the New York State Library in Albany.  This one is a little sad- two babies lived but a day.

Florence A Barker, born May 17, 1877.

Married Nov 12, 1902

William A Shaver, born May 13, 1872.

Pearl, born Jan 8, 1910.  Died Jan 8, 1910.

Boy, born July 6, 1911.  Died July 6, 1911.

Receipt from N. C. Edmed of Four Corners, Greenfield, Mass.  Automobile Repairing and Adjusting.

Location, Location, Location! And the Name.

I made a connection at 23andMe, the genetic testing site that provides you with oodles of people who are related to you- somehow.  The irony is that this person is not related to me.

We found each other through a common surname, Puterbaugh.  She is a Puterbaugh descendant and I am not.  I listed the name as a collateral line.  William Puterbaugh married a distant cousin of mine, Mary Duryea Cornell, in the 1860s in Illinois.  I had high hopes for this branch because Mary's father, James S Cornell, was instrumental in the founding of Yorkville in Kendall County, Illinois.  His story is portrayed in history books and the ancestral angle is portrayed by genealogists.  A win-win situation.

This Puterbaugh descendant provided me with a listing of her Puterbaugh line, complete with names, variant spellings, and most importantly- locations.  Darke County, Ohio stood out for its name alone.  No Puterbaugh-Cornell marriage appeared in her direct ancestral line, though.  I realized that I had little about Mary's husband, William Puterbaugh, so I looked at Find A Grave to see if a descendant or kind soul had featured the man.  I knew I had the right guy when I saw the specifics of his birth:  1840 in "Dark Co., OH."

So we now had Puterbaughs in the same location at the same time.

A few family trees and researchers later, I was able to decide that William Puterbaugh was a second cousin to my contact's great grandfather.  Her cousin had married my cousin.  This does not make us related, but it is funny that we connected through a genetic genealogy website.