Final Journey from Queens to Westville?

Microfiche copied at New York State Archives in Albany

According to the New York State Death Index, Coe D Jackson died 18 July 1888.  [Middle name is Downing.]  This date is consistent with online transcriptions of his gravestone at the Jackson Family Cemetery in Wantagh, Nassau County (was Queens County in 1888), New York.  (Thank you Dyane for posting pictures of these stones!)

The problem is the location:  Westville.  There is a town called Westville in Franklin County, New York, near the Canadian border.  All of Coe's life events took place in Queens or Kings Counties, New York.  Coe's wife, Sarah Duryea, died two years earlier in Far Rockaway, Queens County, and Coe's estate was settled in Queens County.  What was he doing 350 miles away in Franklin County?

Queens County was not part of New York City in 1888, so deaths in Queens were reported to Albany.  My other thought is that Westville was a neighborhood or area in Queens whose name fell out of use.  Yet I cannot find any mention of such a place in Queens in the 1880s or 1890s.

If Coe died in Franklin County, this information can lead us to locate additional records and family that we never suspected.  We shall see where this trail takes us.

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.

Geographical Genealogy: Germany

I have a few German lines that are quite short in my trees- only a few generations- because tracing ancestors back in Europe can be difficult.

I have been playing with a website, GeoGen, that offers surname searches in a geographical genealogical context.  You type in a surname of interest and the website generates a map showing areas of Germany where the surname is concentrated today.  This can help guide you on where to look for records, but is not proof that any of your ancestors lived in any particular place.

Let's take Clara Patschke.  She first appears in the 1870 United States Federal Census in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, age 29, born in Prussia.  Prussia does not exist anymore.  As Clara was leaving Prussia to come to the United States, it encompassed a large area of land along the North and Baltic Seas.  In the 1880 Federal Census, Clara provides a bit more detail about her origin:  Saxony.

1880 United States Federal Census
Newark, Essex County, New Jersey

Someone kindly sent me an 1877 baptismal record for a daughter of Clara, listing Clara's origin as Zeitz, Saxony.  There is a town called Zeitz in the Burgenlandkreis district of Saxony-Anhalt, which is next to Saxony, about 100 miles north of the modern border between Germany and Czech.

So we can plug in the surname Patschke at GeoGen to see where the geographic distribution of today's Patschkes.

GeoGen
Geographical distribution of surname Patschke

If we look at the area where Zeitz is located in Saxony-Anhalt, we see a concentration of Patschkes.  This is where we would hope to find a lot of people with the surname.

Next we can look for variants of the last name using the Name Graph feature.  Patschke was spelled differently on every record I have found so far.  Seeing additional alternate spellings can help me uncover more records.

GeoGen
Name Graph for Patschke