Funeral Card Friday: Katherine Powers, died 1952

My maternal grandmother, Jeannette ODonnell (1920-1993), saved this funeral card for Katherine Powers, died September 22, 1952.  Jeannette's family is buried at Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey.  No record for Katherine was found at Holy Name.

I was going to feature this funeral card for a Friday blog post and leave it as a mystery, until I remembered that death certificates can be searched for the year 1952 at the New Jersey State Archives.  Glad I looked.

Death certificate for Katherine Powers, nee ODonnell
(See FindAGrave memorial)

My grandmother held onto this funeral card because Katherine was her paternal aunt.  Katherine's last definite sighting was in the 1930 federal census in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey.  She lived with her father, Patrick; brother, Joseph; and niece, Jeannette (my grandmother).

Katherine was born on March 5, 1904 in Bayonne.  She was the seventh and final child of Patrick ODonnell (1856-1931) and Delia Joyce (1862-1929).

Katherine is buried with Maurice Powers (died 1981) at Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, Bergen County, New Jersey.  (See Newark Archdiocese Find a Loved One search.)  This is also the name of the informant on Katherine's death certificate.

More Morris County, New Jersey DNA

A connection was solved with a DNA cousin at 23andMe.

This match stood out because the shared DNA was 1.57% over a single segment.  This placed the match among my father's closest family, where it sat anonymously for over a year.

A name was finally revealed this week and I found the person on FaceBook.  She accepted my request to "share" on 23andMe and provided the names of her four grandparents so we could figure out the precise relation.

Her grandparents were from New Jersey, which is where we needed to be geographically.

The FindAGrave memorial for her grandfather, Charles Graner (1924-1985), included a note about the 1920 federal census in Denville, Morris County, New Jersey.  Her grandfather was living with Cooks.  My paternal grandmother was Beulah Cook (1921-2003), descended from Cooks in Morris County.

After reviewing the Cook branch, Charles Graner's mother was determined to be Lena Cook, a daughter of Charles Cook (1859-1921), granddaughter of Henry Cook (1828-1902), and a great granddaughter of Stephen H Cook- my ancestor.

Thus, our most recent common ancestors were Stephen H Cook (1797-1853) and Elizabeth Vanderhoof (1799-1878).  This DNA cousin is related to my father as a fourth cousin, once removed, and to me as a fifth cousin.

Below is the shared DNA reported at 23andMe between this Cook/Vanderhoof cousin and my father, his siblings, and a third cousin of theirs.  All five have the exact relation to the newly discovered cousin- fourth cousins, once removed.  Note that two of them share only one small segment.

Almost all of chromosome 10 remained intact for my father and one of his brothers.  Total length was 116 cM and 21,000 SNPs for my father.

For the next generation, comparing what my father passed on to my sister and me, I inherited the entire segment while my sister received half.  Amazing that this whole segment survived six generations down to me.  We do not know if the segment is from Stephen H Cook or Elizabeth Vanderhoof.

For fourth and fifth cousins to share such a long segment is an outlier in expected amount of shared DNA.

These are pictures of photographs housed in the Denville Historical Society and Museum.  Henry Cook (1828-1902) and Emiline Young (1834-1906) were the third great grandparents of this latest DNA cousin.

Digitized New York Newspapers Database

Thanks to Barbara over at Barb's Family Stories for alerting us to a great (and free) searchable resource for New York State newspapers, HRVH Historical Newspapers.  You can also edit the transcribed text, if you wish.

I found another mention of the deaths of Abraham Lent Brewer and Fannie Duryea, husband and wife, who died within hours of each other in 1901 in Ramapo, Rockland County, New York.

Abraham (1826-1901) was the brother of my 4th great grandmother, Rene Brewer (1824-1904).

Fannie (1830-1901) was the sister of my third great grandfather, Stephen C Duryea (1814-1887).

The Brewer Fire Engine Company in Monsey is named after Abraham.

Abraham and Fannie died without living descendants.  Abraham's estate passed to Fannie and then to Fannie's family a few hours later when she died.  Fannie's full sister and the children of Fannie's deceased full siblings inherited Abraham and Fannie's estate.  Abraham's side was cut off from any inheritance.  Fannie's nieces and nephews by her half-brothers also inherited nothing because whole-bloods inherited to the exclusion of half-bloods under New York law in 1901.  (That took years to figure out.)