The material on this blog will still be here, but I won’t be updating it.

My new blog is All The Old Stories. Feel free to come on over.

Margaret (Deasy) and John Hegarty. Probably taken for their 50th wedding anniversary, at which time they renewed their vows.

I had a few days off work due to Hurricane Sandy, though, so I spent some time playing with Ancestry.com’s Facebook app. I had been hesitant to try it for fear it would be creepy, but it wasn’t that bad. At least it didn’t post random things to my facebook page.

First it identified me, and then it rifled through my facebook friends and suggested connections. Confirming them was a little tricky as there was an intricate panel of dropdown menus for specifying relationships. For example, that cousin is my father’s brother’s son. Some distant relations required workarounds in that I had to specify how they were related to other relatives (chosen from another dropdown menu) to get them to connect. I ran into a few instances of confusion about where to assign children in cases of multiple marriages. (People on Facebook don’t generally specify “step” when they name their relatives because it doesn’t sound warm. Also, subsequent spouses often adopt children of previous marriages.)

Death record for Richard Black

But I had never heard of Miller’s River. Turns out I had never heard of it because the river had been filled in as industry in Cambridge waned. Millers River is now just a small waterway between Cambridge and Charlestown, around the Zakim Bridge. Mark Jaquith at Cambridge Community Television has a great article and slideshow about Millers River.

Prior to being filled in, Millers River was heavily polluted by local industry, particularly by the Squires slaughterhouse where some of my relatives worked. The pollution and smell were so bad that it is supposed to have inspired some early Massachusetts waterway regulations. I wonder if poor Richard fell in or if it was so hot in August that he went swimming in the polluted water.

Clare research

I found a civil death register at Newfoundland Grand Banks that included the death of my great-great-grandfather John Clare in Harbour Grace in 1892. The register also gave his age which allowed me to figure his birth date as about 1836. Best of all, the register included his place of birth as ENGLAND. I don’t know where in England, but at least I have traced another Newfoundland ancestor back to Europe. I remember my grandmother telling me that her grandfather had come from England. Often family stories end up as just stories, so I was pleased to see that one work out.

Gaule research

Another researcher contacted me on Ancestry.com to insist that my great-grandmother Anastasia Gaule had a sister named Anne Gaule who also emigrated to Cambridge, MA. I had heard this rumor before, I think back in my days on AOL, but I had dismissed it because the names seemed too similar and I thought my father would have heard of a whole group of relatives living so close. However, this researcher had lots of matching info about Anastasia’s parents whom she claimed were also Anne’s parents. I managed to find a marriage record for Anne on AmericanAncestors.org that gave her parents’ names, which matched, so now I’m convinced. I added Anne into the Gaule family.

Hegarty research

There was a family story that my great-grandfather John James Hegarty served in the British Army before emigrating to Massachusetts in 1890. He was supposed to have served in the Boer War with the Royal Munster Fusiliers, but the dates that the RMF were in South Africa didn’t work with John’s age and emigration dates. Recently, though, Ancestry.com turned up a record for a Private J. Heggarty serving with the Royal Malta Artillery in the Sudan, with dates that actually work. I am supposing this is him, since it’s a Royal M-word regiment and it’s in Africa. If I find better or different evidence going forward, I’ll revise. Meanwhile, here is a photo from Wikipedia of the campaign medals John would have received after the Suakin Expedition, though his medals would likely not have had a date.

I found Bernard Costigan, Patrick Costigan, and John Costigan all boarding on Princeton Street in East Boston and working as fishermen.

1920 census, Boston Ward 1, Suffolk County, Massachusetts (Princeton Street)

Unfortunately, this census says they are from Nova Scotia, and has switched Patrick’s and John’s ages, but I am willing to chalk that up to enumerator error. My grandfather lived in and around Princeton Street for decades; these are his stomping grounds, those are his brothers’ names. Ancestry.com has indexed the household as the Cannons, but I think the handwriting is bad and it actually says Gorman, a prominent name in Harbour Main. So they are probably boarding with friends of friends from home.

Except that surely friends of friends from home would have known that they were from Newfoundland and not Nova Scotia. But who knows. I still felt good about it until I started attaching the census to my Ancestry tree pages for Patrick and John.

That’s when I saw that I already have a 1920 census for John Costigan, only he’s living in Seattle.

1920 census for Seattle, King County, Washington State

No one really knows what happened to John. There were vague rumors that he had died at sea, but I could never find anything concrete. I was really excited when I found this census, because it lists Simon Costigan as his brother, and my great-uncle Simon definitely lived out in Seattle. So this must be my great-uncle John, right?

So then why did people think he was dead instead of just in Seattle? Unless he died in Seattle?

And who was the John staying on Princeton Street in East Boston?

Is it possible there is another group of Costigan brothers with the same names and ages from Nova Scotia?

I will try to figure it out tomorrow.