Elusive Surname: Evenshirer

Mary Evenshirer was my 3x great grandmother.  She was born in New York City around 1842.  She died in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey in 1916.  Her surname and her father are a tail end in my family tree.

Mary's mother was Rene Brewer, a daughter of James Brewer and Mary Ann Lent from Westchester County, New York.  From the newspaper The New York Sun, we have the marriage announcement in 1842 in New York City of Miss Rene Brewer to John Evenshirer, "both of this city."

By 1848, John Evenshirer was dead or otherwise out of the picture when Rene had another daughter, Letty Jane, with George W Duryea.

The 1850 United States Federal Census as well as the 1855 New York State Census list Mary Evenshirer with the surname of Rene's husband, George W Duryea.

Ancestry.com

Note the servants in your households!!!
Mary Walpole married Jacob Duryea, a brother of George.

Mary married Stephen C Duryea, a brother of George W Duryea, so she retained the surname Duryea for future records.  The age difference must have been confusing to some.  In the 1880 census, Mary's mother, Rene, was residing with Mary and Stephen in Pound Ridge.  Stephen's age was 65, Mary was 38, and "mother" Rene was 64- no, make that 84 to try to make sense of this.

Mary's half-sister, Letty Jane Duryea, married Alfred Deciplet Eyre in 1868.  Letty died in 1889 from complications of a pregnancy.  (She was originally buried in Hoboken Cemetery in North Bergen, Hudson County, New Jersey, but was relocated to Fairview Cemetery.)  Mary had been widowed in 1887.  Mary and Alfred married in 1890, combining their children into an Eyre/Duryea household.  They were not just step-siblings; they were related by blood.

Ancestry.com

When Mary died in 1916, the informant, "Mr Eyre (son)," knew of her surname at birth and attempted to include it on the death certificate.

Your author at Fairview Cemetery (Fairview, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States)
Picture by Rob Berner

Family Heirloom: Book

After discovering cousin Father Charles Leo O'Donnell, a president of Notre Dame University, I procured his book of poems from a rare book seller on Amazon.com.  The editor was Father Charles Michael Carey, a nephew of Father O'Donnell.

Charles' father, Cornelius O'Donnell, was a brother to my great great grandfather, Patrick Francis O'Donnell.  They immigrated from Ireland to the United States in the 1870s.

It is one of Charles' poems, A Road of Ireland, that provides me with a place of origin in Ireland for these two brothers: Ardara, Donegal.  The author as well as the family history contained in this book make it worthy of being called a Family Heirloom.

Poem by Charles Leo O'Donnell

AncestryDNA: Birth name confirmed

After two years, a close match has appeared at AncestryDNA for M.S., who is adopted.  This is simply wonderful!

AncestryDNA

I reached out to this person about a week ago and have not heard back yet.  If I had nothing else to go on, this would be devastating.  This situation is a bit different.

The predicted first to second cousin match has no family tree attached to his DNA results; however, his username is displayed.  From there, I obtained a short family tree he had already uploaded.  His mother's last name matches M.S.'s last name at birth!  We have the correct family, but I still need to confer with this match to figure out which person in his family may be the biological parent of M.S.- if this is possible to do.

If I have the correct birth mother identified, then M.S. and this DNA match are first cousins, once removed.  They may share DNA on their X Chromosome, which would help me further solidify this theory.  Unfortunately, AncestryDNA, unlike 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA, does not allow you to see where you share DNA with your cousins.

For background, M.S. was born and adopted in New Jersey before 1940.  This year is significant because this is when adoption records and corresponding birth certificates were sealed.  M.S. knew her original name and I viewed the adoption record at the Essex County Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey.  I requested the original birth certificate from the municipality and was told it could not be released.  I requested the original birth certificate from the state and was sent the amended birth certificate, which lists the adoptive parents as the biological parents.  (Only births through 1923 are available to the public at the Archives in Trenton.)

The problem in determining the birth mother and father is that only the "unmarried" mother was listed in the adoption papers with no age.  The surname belonged to a family in Newark of recent immigration from Germany.  This was not a small family.  Most members had multiple children and when a spouse died, the surviving spouse remarried and had more children.  I had no shortage of possible parents, either using the surname as a birth name or a married name.  It was (still is) possible that the birth mother was a visiting cousin from Germany, arrived in Newark in the 1930s, had a baby, and then went on her way- missed entirely in the 1930 and 1940 census.

Finding records on this family in Newark was not too difficult and actually dovetailed my research on my own Germany lines in Newark.  They lived and worked in the same neighborhoods and attended the same churches.  They probably knew one another and many generations later, their descendants also interact by happenstance.