Will Those Wriggling Borders Ever Stop Moving?

 

What do you do when you only have a few days left to find the answer to a family history mystery? 

No, I won't panic, but I do feel like I'm striking out into the deep, or as if I'm searching for a needle in an enormous haystack. What I'm looking for is any indication of where Uncle John's father-in-law might have been born. In the process, I've already discovered there is one thing working against me: those wriggling, squirming European borders, which make it hard for me to pinpoint in time just where an American immigrant may have originated.

Uncle John's father-in-law had a surname which I thought would surely stand out in the field of Polish possibilities: Aktabowski. Of course, I needed to keep aware of all possible spelling permutations. I had found Achtabowski—a variation which seemed favored by those of this surname who emigrated to Chicago area—as well as Aktaboski, without the "w," and even Aktaba, dropping the typical -ski suffix.

On top of that search issue, Uncle John's father-in-law also appeared in various records with either the name Felix or Anton. Plus his country of origin was sometimes said, in American census records, to be Poland, while other times it was noted as Russia.

Yet, looking for any actual records produced nothing, even when I took the cue from that 1940 census error for his widowed wife Aniela, telling me she was originally from "Plotz." Checking the Polish website Geneteka, there were no births, marriages, or deaths for any residents with that surname for the province which included that city, Płock.

Still, I thought perhaps I could put the search engine at Geneteka through its paces, and struck out—this is the needle-in-haystack part—looking for the surname Aktabowski in each individual province. I wanted to see whether there were any regions in which the surname seemed to congregate.

There was, indeed, one province where I found several Aktabowskis listed, from the time period beginning about 1830--for possible marriages of Felix Anton's as-yet-unknown parents—through 1899, just in case some siblings remained behind when he made his immigrant leap across the Atlantic. That province, according to Geneteka, was called Kujawsko-Pomorskie—or, as we might say in English, the Kuyavian-Pomeranian province.

Or maybe that's not entirely so. Looking up the history of the province—you know I always need to do that—I discovered that it was formed by political edict on the first day of January, 1999. Not very long ago, to say the least. Certainly not back when Felix Anton was born. Now what?

I went back to Geneteka to check on the Catholic parishes listed on the readout for Aktabowskis in that province. For births—more likely, these were baptisms, despite the website's labeling as births—the page included not only the name of the church parish, but also the specific place where the parish was located.

That helps. Now I can consult a map and see where the town might have been situated, back when the borders were more like the political geography for 1863—when Felix Anton was likely born—than for 1999, when the currently-named province was established. I want to know a bit more about this region rich in possible Aktabowski kin. I certainly need to know just where the borders settled—if only for a moment—at the point at which Felix Anton's family acknowledged his birth.

Unfortunately, this needle-in-haystack method will not tell me much more than whether I have a high or low probability of finding any Aktabowskis in one province over another. Right now, at least according to Geneteka, the only province showing records for that surname would be the current-day Kujawsko-Pomorskie. But knowing that may point me in the right direction for my next step in discovering more about Felix Anton Aktabowski, and where he came from to arrive in New Jersey and raise his family in New York City. 

The Hunt and Peck Method

 

When all the usual research methods yield no answers, what's next? Two options are thinking things through, and making a methodical review of all resources already available. I call that the "hunt and peck" method, going page by page through all the available possibilities.

In the case of Uncle John's mother-in-law Aniela, I was fairly certain her maiden name was some sort of spelling variation of Zielinska. I already knew by her husband's answers to the 1900 census that the couple had been married in 1887. Since their first child, Benjamin, over the years had reported his place of birth alternately as New Jersey or New York, that answer causes us problems in trying to determine just where Felix Aktabowski might have met and married Aniela. However, second-born Bronisława, Uncle John's future wife, was born across the river in Jersey City, New Jersey, as were several others of the Aktabowski family.

I wondered whether there were any family connection to Jersey City. Was it just a job that drew Felix to move the family there, or did either he or Aniela have relatives who lived there?

I have an ulterior motive for asking such a question. If Felix married Aniela after their immigration to the United States rather than beforehand, how—and where—did they meet? The "after" scenario would also mean that Aniela would have been a single woman when she took the long ocean voyage from her native country to the New World. While there have been some exceptions, in that time period, it was far more customary for single women to travel with others, such as family members. Could Aniela have come to New Jersey with other Zielinski relatives?

I started looking in census records for Hudson County, where Jersey City is located. This is where the "hunt and peck" method comes in, because I have no idea who such relatives and traveling companions might have been. I simply entered the surname Zielinski—or, alternately, the spelling as Zelinski—and limited the search to Hudson County, paying particular attention to any families by that name living specifically in Jersey City.

Since Aniela reported arriving in America in 1886 according to the 1900 census, I was delighted to discover that New Jersey did indeed conduct an enumeration in 1895, the closest I was going to get to the date of her arrival. However, searching that record, the only name approximating her maiden name in that 1895 census was that of a Zelinsky family whose ages, best I could decipher from the record, could have made the head of household eligible to be a brother to Aniela, but without further information, it was a very tenuous link. 

The New Jersey enumeration for the next decade provided several more possible connections. There was a Zelinski family whose heads of household could well have been of an age to be Aniela's own parents. A different Zielinski couple could have represented an older brother—as could yet another couple. In fact, with a county population at that time nearing 387,000 people, with a bit over 200,000 belonging in Jersey City alone, searching for any surname by a hunt and peck method might reveal little more than vague clues, if even that.

As I stumbled along, trying to find answers from what is already available online, I did discover that the ongoing work of Reclaim the Records might have benefited me in my search for birth and marriage records in New Jersey—except that the earliest date I could find in their cache of Freedom of Information victories in that state was 1901. I'd need to push back a few years before that date to find Aniela's marriage record or Bronisława's birth record.

With that realization, I thought maybe now would be a good time to transfer my hunt-and-peck efforts across the ocean to see if I can find any possibilities in Aniela's theoretical home in Płock, Poland.

Icebergs, Disappearing Ancestors, and Bright Shiny Objects

 

What to do when an ancestor seems determined not to be found? That appears to be the case for Uncle John's in-laws, Felix and Aniela Aktabowski.

Times like this remind me of a poster I saw years ago, produced by the California Genealogical Society. It proclaimed, "Internet is just the tip of the iceberg." As the poster stated, most research is accomplished—still—in other places. It's just convenient and fortunate to find online in digitized format the document we are seeking.

Now that I'm looking for some actual paperwork assuring me of the marriage of Uncle John's in-laws, I'm beginning to think I may have to travel to Hudson County, New Jersey. Or maybe even New York City. Somewhere in that vicinity, someone holds the records for the marriage of Felix Anton Aktabowski and his bride Aniela.

Or perhaps I just need to look further online.

I began my search with a record transcription at Ancestry.com for the birth of one of the couple's many children. As it turned out, the transcription was for Uncle John's wife, Bronisława, herself—but you couldn't have figured that out from the transcription. The diacritical mark on the "l" was misread as the letter "t" and the "n" must have been written in old-style European handwriting, which appeared far more like a "u"—and, in fact, was transcribed as if it were indeed that other letter. So, only because Aniela's own name was included in the transcription, I realized the birth record was for Bronisława, not "Brouistawa."

Not to nitpick transcribed records—though I do encourage finding the actual written document, not just someone's interpretation of difficult-to-read handwriting—but I bring up this entry for one reason: the identification of the source from which the record was drawn. "FHL Film Number," the last line in the transcription above, refers to the actual identification of the microfilm I'm now seeking, which can be found by going to the catalog page on the FamilySearch.org website.

That, indeed, was my next step: to see whether that number was still a viable identifier. As it turned out—thankfully—it was, and the number brought me to an entry in the catalog for "New Jersey index to records of births, marriages, and deaths, 1848-1900."

Perfect. Now I'm in business, I thought. Clicking through that catalog entry, I reached a page with further information, including the size of the collection (279 microfilm reels) and the originating repository (the Bureau of Archives and History for the state of New Jersey). 

Right away, red letters above the fold caught my eye: "New Jersey marriages are available online, click here." Being a sucker for Bright Shiny Objects, that is just what I did, and fell down this rabbit hole. End of story: I couldn't find Felix and I couldn't find Aniela, no matter how I searched for their information, modified the spelling of their names, or experimented with wildcard characters. 

I looked further. Perhaps this was an incomplete record set, excluding the very county I was seeking. So I clicked on the box labeled, "How to use this collection" and wound up somewhere else down the rabbit hole—or perhaps whisked away to some other location in the ether. This new strange world was an entry in the FamilySearch.org wiki, explaining more about this particular record set. Scrolling way to the bottom, I discovered there were other links for marriage records, and tried my hand at clicking away on those other options for results.

For some reason, that approach didn't work, so I retraced my steps back to that original catalog page for the New Jersey births, marriages, and deaths. After all, my original purpose in coming to this resource wasn't to find marriage records, although that would be a possible step; it was to discover a way to find the birth record for Bronisława which had been indicated from that transcription I first found at Ancestry.com. (And don't say you haven't fallen down such rabbit holes, yourself!)

Wouldn't you know it, but if I had just ignored those red letters and scrolled down to the end of that original catalog entry, I would have found the entire listing for each of those 279 reels in the collection I was seeking. And while each entry bore the lock and key icon, designating them as items only viewable at the Family History Library, an affiliate library, or a nearby FamilySearch Center, it meant that I could eventually get to search through the collection to find what I am seeking on not only the marriage of Aniela and Felix, but also the births of those of their children born in New Jersey—which was most of the family.

While I am not able to get to a FamilySearch Center in the next week or so, there are some other options available to me—and certainly much less of a research wild ride down the rabbit hole. Noticing dates of arrival for this immigrant couple in that same U.S. Census for 1900 which inspired me to look for the Aktabowski marriage record, another approach could be to look for passenger records. Furthermore, since I noticed that Felix arrived in the United States about five years before Aniela did, that could mean that she stayed with relatives after her arrival in New Jersey, before her marriage to Felix. I could look for any sign of possible family members—Bronisława's grandparents, perhaps—who also lived in New Jersey during that time.

Although each of these may seem like small steps—which might also be wrought with the possibility of leading nowhere in this research trail—it is worth a try to see what might come up if I take that approach next.

Retracing Steps

 

When it turns out that no further information materializes for a brick-wall ancestor, what do you do? In my case, looking now for wedding information on Uncle John's parents-in-law, I've been drawing a blank, so now it's time to review what documents have already provided details on their lives. It's time to retrace my research steps.

One reason for this is the need to confirm Uncle John's mother-in-law's maiden name. Last week, we discovered that Aniela—or Nellie, as she preferred to call herself in later years—may have come from a city in Poland now known as Płock. While that may have been a fortunate discovery, the trouble with searching for birth records in an ancestor's home town is that, at least for searching women, I need to know what the person's birth surname might have been. In other words, I am now looking for a viable maiden name for Aniela Aktabowski.

To find this, there are two research routes I can take. One is to look at the record of Aniela's marriage to Felix Aktabowski. The other is to examine the records left by her children which might include details about Aniela's maiden name.

I can already say that the latter search option has left me with doubts. For instance, the death certificate for Aniela's daughter Theresa—the one who married an Italian immigrant who changed his surname from Cappadona to Captain—reported Aniela's maiden name to be Kordecka. However, I am fairly certain that the reporting party for that death certificate—Theresa's husband Thomas Captain—was not present at Aniela's marriage, let alone her birth, so that response is already in question.

Further convincing me that Kordecka might not have been the right answer—yet creating another puzzle—are the records left behind for Aniela's other children. A transcription from the Social Security Applications and Claims Index entry for Aniela's son Gustave reported her maiden name as Nelly Sagwit. While memory of an aging son may have been impaired if he completed his paperwork for the recently-created Social Security toward the end of his life, I suspect handwriting issues and transcription problems may have conspired to create such an unbelievable response. Thankfully, several other children's records—mostly from their birth—agreed that Aniela's maiden name was more likely to have been something like Zelinska or Zielinska, in its proper feminine form according to Polish tradition.

While I will certainly keep those other two possibilities in mind—both Sagwit and Kordecka—my next quest is to find any confirmation of a Zielinska or Zelinska in marriage records from about 1887, the year indicated in the 1900 census as the possible date for the wedding of Felix and Aniela.     

I Miss 1890 — or Maybe I Don't Have to

 

Casting about for a way to wriggle past genealogy brick walls to solve a family history research problem, I'm suddenly realizing how much I miss 1890. Not that I ever was around then, of course—my dad's Uncle John might have been, but he was long gone by the time I got here. But it might have been nice to refer to the document, even if I could have questioned Uncle John about his Aktabowski in-laws.

In 1890, John's wife Bronisława would have been a mere toddler, living in Jersey City with her parents, her older brother Benjamin and perhaps even her younger brother John, who was born early that very year. But the main point would have been to see what was said about her father, Felix, and her mother, Aniela. These parents of American-born babies were themselves immigrants from a border-morphing region sometimes described as Poland—but more often labeled Germany or Russia or even the now non-existent Prussia.

No matter how much I'd wish to see that census record which has since been charred beyond recognition, the choice is simply not mine to make. Other than some veterans' records and a few other bits and pieces, most of that extensive record of the expanding United States population at the beginning of that decade is lost, other than—wait for it!—tantalizingly, enumeration of the Jersey City residents of Hudson County, New Jersey, now preserved on roll 3 of the microfilmed surviving fragments.

You're kidding me, right? This is not the supposed only-veterans-records-were-saved message so many people have read. Talk about lucking out: the very city in which the Aktabowskis settled after immigrating here turns out to be the one place in the metropolitan area where a sliver of the lost record of 1890s America still remains. What are the chances of something like that happening?

However, considering that the fragments of the saved general population schedule include only about six thousand names, and that the population of Hudson County at that time was well over two hundred thousand people, it would still be a long shot to find my Aktabowskis within those surviving slivers. Still, it would be worth a lark to grab a copy of the index for the surviving few, itself preserved in a two-roll microfilmed set at the National Archives. Then it would only be a matter of finding a repository holding a copy of the actual microfilm to look for my Aktabowskis.

I think better of such slim chances, though, and revert back to the documents I do have. Though the 1905 New York State census—where the family had moved after those early years in New Jersey—didn't offer much clues about the family's history, the earlier national enumeration did. Reviewing that 1900 document once again, I saw that the couple reported they had been married for thirteen years, giving me a target of 1887 to research for marriage records.

Given that detail, plus the discovery last week of the over-zealous enumerator who included the city as well as the country of birth for Aniela, it's about time to dig further into local records of that time period, both for the supposed New Jersey wedding of the senior Aktabowskis, and the much-earlier birth record for Aniela herself, back in Poland.

Family research is sometimes a bit by bit process, going back to review the little details which had slipped from our view in previous forays, and using those discoveries to push forward yet another tiny step of a very long journey.

That's Not What it's Supposed to Say

 

The main reason I've been poking around newspapers and documents this month for Uncle John's Aktabowski in-laws is because I'm trying to determine just where the family originated. Uncle John's wife Blanche was born in New Jersey, but where was her mother born? I've found conflicting information on Aniela—or Nellie, as she was listed in many documents after she moved to New York—so I'm trying to gain some solid confirmation of the true location of her roots.

After retracing my research steps from the first point at which I had found young mother Aniela up until nearly the point of her death in 1946, I could find little more than the conflicting information that she was born either in Poland or in Russian territory. However, it was in the 1940 census that I spotted something. At first, staring at the document, I thought, "That's not what it's supposed to say"—but then I realized how much such clerical errors have turned out to help me in the past. I remembered how I discovered my own grandmother's birth in "Posen," thanks to an error in the 1920 census, and figured it might turn out to my benefit to follow this unexpected error on Aniela in the 1940 census.

The "error" in the 1940 census was in the tiny box where the enumerator was supposed to enter the answer to the question, "In what place did this person live on April 1, 1935?" In no way could I explain why, for so many of the other residents in Aniela's neighborhood, the answer was correctly entered as "same house" and yet, for Aniela's own household, the answer was entered differently. It was almost as if the enumerator had gotten confused with the previous question—place of birth—and had followed through by asking not only the country, but the city or town of birth, as well.

That, as it appeared to be for many immigrants on the street where Aniela lived, was what had happened. There were entries for towns all across Eastern Europe on that page, when I'm fairly certain only a fraction of those respondents actually did live in those far-flung places only five years earlier.

For Aniela's widowed daughter Blanche, the "five years ago" answer was Jersey City—the same place, coincidentally, where Uncle John's wife had been born. For Blanche's unmarried daughter, also called Blanche, the answer was strangely correct: "same house" in Brooklyn, New York. But for Aniela—who was listed as born in Poland this time—the "five years ago" entry became "Plotz."

Yes, I know that's not what it was supposed to say on that line in the census form, but I'll take a mistake like that and run with it. I've already discovered that the place the enumerator referred to as the city of Plotz is actually a city in central Poland currently called Płock. The city's long history included significant roles within the Polish monarchy, annexation into the kingdom of Prussia and, in the 1800s, control by the Russian empire.

Learning that overview of the city's history helped clarify one possible reason why Blanche's parents were sometimes reported to have come from Russia, and other times from Poland. Unlike the "error" I found in the 1940 census, those reports may well have been correct representation of the changing jurisdictions of the city of Aniela's origin.

Whether that turns out to be the correct birthplace of Blanche's mother, there is one other detail about Aniela which may help me move this research project one step further: I have information on her possible maiden name.  

What's in a Name?

 

What's in a name, that we should think it must remain unchanged from one end of life to the other? 

My paternal grandmother Sophie had an older brother named John. Well, now that I think about it, Uncle John's name couldn't really be John, because he was born in Poland. But I never knew that, so I couldn't possibly have known that his name at birth should actually have been Jan; that was part of the family secret that the grandkids were never supposed to know.

Uncle John, having lived in New York City since he was nine, was one of those immigrant children with one foot solidly on American ground, but another figurative foot still anchored in the "Old Country"—which in his case would have been the Province of Posen in the now-non-existent realm called Prussia. With that in mind, I suppose it would never have made him blink twice to think he would grow up to marry someone named Bronisława. 

Bronisława Aktabowska, on the other hand, had been born in "Jersey"—not the Jersey you might think of when dreaming of an out-of-the way vacation to an island nation in the English Channel, but the "new" state neighboring the city whose New York accent renders the name more like "Joisey" than Jersey. Thus, the American-born Bronisława preferred that she be called Blanche—though no list I could find provided any such English equivalent for her Polish name—making research on this family line so very tentative without a confirming document making the two identities, well, identical.

I could find Bronisława listed by the name Blanche as early as 1900, two years after her immigrant parents had made the move with their seven children from New Jersey to nearby Brooklyn, New York. There they were, in the 1900 census, on North Sixth Street: older brother John, younger brothers James, William and Frank, baby sister Veronica—plus a mis-identified "daughter" Gussie, who most likely was Blanche's five year old brother Gustav.

Not long after the family appeared in New York State's 1905 census, Blanche's father Felix died, leaving his wife "Nellie" a widow with the massive problem of caring for a family which now included ten children. Perhaps it was no surprise, then, to see Blanche glad to say "I do" to a husband of her own. Yet, unlike Aunt Rose in our research example last month, who gained citizenship when she married a native-born American, Blanche's marriage to John Laskowski put her in the opposite predicament: she became one of the family members named when John applied for citizenship in 1923.

Just as much as Bronisława Aktabowska had morphed her identity to become Blanche Laskowski, her mother "Nellie" had also reinvented herself from the foreign-sounding name of Aniela. And, years later, several of her brothers felt it to be more opportune for business ventures to change their surname from Aktabowski—admittedly a mouthful—to the snappier and more easy-to-remember Hark.

Whatever the name each of these in-laws of Uncle John chose to go by, they still represented the same individual—at least, I think that's who they were. This will be the month to run all these details past currently-available documentation to see whether that assumption about those names still holds up.

A Date, but No Name

 

Is it possible to find a record on a family member if all we know is just a date, but not an exact name? It can be, depending on the circumstances.

I have indeed, with past family history puzzles, been able to connect people, as long as the parameters were narrow enough and the details fairly specific. I wouldn't attempt such a search for, say, a Jones family member. But with other, more unusual circumstances or locations, especially if I could factor in some limiting search terms, it has been possible.

In the case of my quest to connect some of my uncle's Eggert ancestors to the family of well-known New York City watch and chronometer maker Dominic Eggert, yesterday we ran across a hint that provided a possible date of death for the unnamed youngest brother of Dominic's son Charles. Of course, given that the detail was provided in a newspaper—heads up for possible editorial errors—we can't be totally certain. With the help of a calendar, even if the date were off by a few days, at least we could search for the surname Eggert, plus a death in the New York City vicinity, on or about September 22, 1883.

I decided to hedge my bets and factor in an educated guess. I thought if Charles were Dominic's son—which we've already seen reported—and if Dominic's was the household living next to Charles in the 1860 census, as we've already seen, who was the youngest man listed in that enumeration? A twenty five year old man by the name of Sylvester Eggert.

Assuming that Sylvester could be the possible youngest son of Dominic—after all, no other Eggert men were living in Dominic's home in either 1860 or 1850—I started my search with Sylvester's name. And a funny thing happened.

I don't know why, but when I search for a name on a genealogical website, I expect the results to refer to the same name I had just searched. I know; I'm funny that way. However, when I use Ancestry.com, lately I've seen results for other family members show up in my results. In this case, a search for the death of Sylvester Eggert on or about 1883 led me to something I had not been able to find directly, despite quite a bit of effort looking for it: I found Dominic Eggert's own will.

As it turns out, Dominic himself died early in 1872, not long after the 1870 census where, once again, he had appeared in an Essex County, New Jersey, household which included several surnames. The beauty of this discovery—at long last—was that this was a will which told all. Unlike some last testaments I've found, where the decedent left his property to his "beloved wife and children"—frustratingly leaving out any mention of their names—Dominic told all.

This 1872 document—and its many codicils attached over the years since the will was first drawn up in 1864—laid out the names of each of Dominic's children in order, adding in the mention of some grandchildren as well. Dominic was particularly careful to emphasize his concern for the care of his son Sylvester, which he repeated with each codicil added over the years.

As for my quest to determine whether it was Sylvester who was the youngest Eggert brother mentioned in Charles' obituary, I now had more than enough reason to call off the search. Not only were all the Eggert siblings listed, including the sisters' married names, but the executor named was the very man whose relationship I had been pursuing: my uncle's grandfather, John Eggert.  

Finding Dominic's Children

 

In this month's quest to see whether there is any family connection between my uncle DeMilt Eggert's grandfather, John Eggert, and the renowned chronometer maker and founder of the New York firm of D. Eggert, we've been stuck in 1850 New York City. New York City, because that was the earliest location where I could find John Eggert's family in census records, and 1850, because that was the earliest enumeration in which all members of a household were listed individually by name.

The problem lies in the fact that John, having been born about 1819, by that point in 1850 had been recently married to his eighteen year old bride Catherine, and was living in the household of his new father-in-law, ship's captain John Peckner. For that 1850 census entry, there was no way to connect John Eggert to his own parents. Thus, even locating a census record for Dominic Eggert would have told us nothing.

Taking a research step which could prove risky, let's reverse our search direction. Instead of trying to push backwards in time, locating a record showing John Eggert's father, let's jump to Dominic Eggert and see whether we can reconstruct a family line for the founder of the Eggert business.

To get us started, we have one small clue—one unfortunately coming to us without any documented support. For that detail, we'll need to return to the March 2017 discussion about the Eggert chronometer on the forum of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors. An entry in response to the original query on this forum thread mentioned that because Dominic Eggert was losing his eyesight, in 1848, he turned over the helm of the business to his son Charles.

Once again, owing to that census issue in 1850, we are left with the research problem of finding Charles and his household separate from that of his presumed father. How are we to know we even are pursuing the right Charles Eggert? In cases like this, I try to make an educated guess and start following the trail, looking for clues which will either stop me in my tracks or bid me pursue further.

In Charles' case, we once again encounter a scenario much like what we've already stumbled upon with the newly-married John Eggert. We see a twenty four year old man entered as "Chas." Eggert, along with an eighteen year old woman, presumably his bride, named Martha A. They were living in the household of an older woman named Martha McCormick. Interestingly enough, below this woman's name was an entry for a man half her age, named Robert McCormick, whose occupation was listed as ship's chandler.

Following those clues to other documents, it turns out that someone in New York City named Charles Eggert married someone named Martha A. McCormick in 1849. Moving to records a decade later, we can find the 1860 census showing a couple by that name, with children named Charles, Ada, and William Henry Eggert. While the elder Charles is listed as a watchmaker, a confusing additional detail shows the family no longer living in Brooklyn, New York, but in Millburn, New Jersey.

Not to worry, though, for we've seen that location pop up in our journey to trace this Eggert family before. Looking around on that same 1860 census page, it was easy to spot the name of the household next door: D. Eggert, a man whose occupation was listed as watch and chronometer maker.

While this looks like a promising candidate for father and son, what we need is not only more proof to connect the two men—and to make sure they are the right pair—but to broaden the family circle to see who else should be included. After all, if Charles doesn't lead us to more information on the other children of our Dominic Eggert, perhaps one of the other children—if there are any—may provide the help we need.

Someone's Talking Timepieces

 

If you have ever availed yourself of the help offered on genealogical forums, perhaps it will come as no surprise to learn that timepiece collectors also resort to such online resources to talk about the minutiae of their specialty. That type of online forum, almost immediately, was where my search for the Eggert chronometer led me.

From what we learned last week about the navigational tool known as the marine chronometer, someone doing business as D. Eggert had been selling the device to the United States government as early as 1839. Whether that person was related to my Uncle DeMilt's watchmaking grandfather, John Eggert, I couldn't ascertain, simply because John had left his parents' home and married by 1850, the earliest U.S. census to record the names of each member of a household. I have no way—yet—to connect John to any Eggert relatives, let alone one with a first initial "D."

When I searched online for the name "John Eggert," one of the first results to pop up was a discussion on a watch and clock collectors' forum, begun by someone seeking more information on a chronometer maker by that same name. Only problem: that John lived in New Jersey, rather than in Brooklyn, New York, as had my John Eggert.

Checking on that discrepancy, I learned that despite John's business being conducted in New York, he and his family did live, for a brief time at least, in a place in Essex County, New Jersey, known as Millburn. According to the 1860 census, all five members of the John Eggert family, all born in New York, had made their residence in this New Jersey community. (By 1870, the Eggerts had returned to New York.) 

What unfolded from that online discussion on the watch collectors' forum turned out to be helpful in my own research project. Apparently, some timepiece collectors' interests extend to genealogy. The original member's query about John Eggert included a timeline for the D. Eggert business, leading me to some of the details I've already shared.

It was the reply to the original query which provided even more information—though it is information that certainly needs more support and documentation. While this may turn out to be a wild ride down a rabbit trail, since I don't yet know that, I'll examine this information like I would the work of a trailblazer.

Here are a few details from the responses to that query which helped light my research path so far. First was the date given of 1839, marking the point at which chronometer number 106 was sold to the government. Since we had already learned last week that the Eggert numbering system began at 100, this helps put that 1839 date in perspective, regarding the start of the business.

The respondent also quoted from the Whitney Chronometer book I had mentioned last week. From that forum reply, I learned that Dominic Eggert was supposedly born in Strasburg, Germany, in 1785, and moved to England to work as an apprentice to learn the watchmaking trade. After Dominic Eggert completed his apprenticeship in Bristol, England, he emigrated once again to New York City, where he opened his own shop.

This is where things get interesting—and will certainly be one detail I'll need to confirm. Perhaps starting his own business as a stranger in a new location didn't go so well for the young watchmaker. Shortly after his arrival in New York City, Dominic Eggert took a position making chronometers for the business of two brothers. The older of the two brothers died in 1835, and the younger brother decided to retire in 1839, passing the business to the brothers' associate, Dominic Eggert.

This may not turn out to be the tale of just any brothers, though. I found it compelling to discover the name of the men. When Dominic Eggert took over that chronometer business in 1839, he assumed ownership of a company run by B. and S. DeMilt. Since the name DeMilt figures so prominently in the Eggert family tree of my Uncle DeMilt, you know I've got to take a little detour this week to learn more about this other business partnership. 

Easing Into Another Batch

Could an indexing project be as relaxing as mindlessly assembling a jigsaw puzzle? Depends. In my case, anything would be relaxing in comparison to the five-hour-long commute last night from a city that was only ninety miles from home. Once safely home after such a harrowing experience—and promising myself to never, ever, ever attempt a trip home from the Bay Area on a Friday preceding a three-day weekend—I thought I'd unwind with a little volunteer work online at FamilySearch.org.

Truth be told, the real reason I headed to the indexing tab last night was because of something I had spotted a few days earlier. I had been trying to find resources to help me do some lookups of California records at FamilySearch.org. To my surprise, last week I discovered a project which had been initiated by a neighboring genealogical society—a project which anyone could help complete with only a few minutes of volunteer work at a computer. Sure, I'd be willing to help my neighbors, so I made a mental note to go back to that link (yes, I saved it) during the time I had scheduled for indexing work later in the week.

By the time I got to check it out again, it was gone. All I got was an error message, as if it were a broken link or something. But how could that be? So I went back to my original notes, and tried to look up the collection in FamilySearch's catalog. Sure enough, there it was, now searchable. Poof! Another indexing project quickly dispatched.

I'm glad to see how quickly some of these indexing projects are completed. There is so much work still to do to make digitized record sets searchable. Since I couldn't work on that California record set anymore, I went back to my old standby: naturalization records in the tri-state area surrounding that major port of entry, New York City. This time, I concentrated on some very old records—well, as early as 1856—from Essex County in New Jersey.

Those early records don't contain as much information as later naturalization applications require—but I'll bet anyone searching for their immigrant ancestor from the late 1850s would be elated to find anything on such mystery ancestors. At least this is a start for those seeking to make the momentous jump "across the pond."

Likewise, because this particular record set was so sparse, as far as fill-in-the-blanks went, it was a blast to complete the indexing batch, so I did more than one batch. It was a breeze. It was a good feeling to know I'm helping someone else. And it hardly ate up any of my spare time. That's the type of volunteer project that's do-able for almost anyone—and I'm glad so many people have been willing to jump in and help. The end result makes it easier for all of us to delve further into our own family history.

About Horace

While my grand-aunt Mabel Davis Hines Martin may have inherited, by marriage, the antique Dresden china clock that was the envy of her new Tennessee neighbors, I know very little about the man whose mother bequeathed it to him.

Horace Lightfoot Martin must have come into Mabel’s life some time before the 1940 census, for I can pinpoint their residence then to Mosswood Avenue in South Orange, New Jersey. Actually, considering that census requested information on each family’s residence in the previous five years, Horace and Mabel were there in 1935 as well.

Only Horace’s wife wasn’t going by the name Mabel. She was known at the time as Jean—which, I suppose, is close enough to the census enumerator’s “Joan” entered for her first name. The whole Mabel-Jean name thing is something I’ve just got to explain to you. Soon. I promise.

The best I can figure from census records, Horace was previously married to a woman named Bertha, which is evident from both the 1920 census and his World War I draft registration papers. By the time of the 1930 census, though, I’m not sure I’ve found the right man. The railroad “agent” of later years evidently had a number of earlier stints in other lines of work, making it hard to know for sure whether the “single” man working as an office manager for a “steam railroad,” according to the 1930 census, was the same Horace Martin.

Perhaps it is just lack of access to online versions of New Jersey state records hindering my ability to find much more on the man. I did find a version of Horace's obituary, after his death on September 1, 1959, in the Johnson City Press, a newspaper published in the relatively-larger city near Mabel’s home town of Erwin in Tennessee, though I could find no mentions in any sources closer to the Martins' residence in the greater New York metropolitan area.

You know how it is about finding one’s name in The New York Times. And I don’t know the Jersey-version of the Daily News.

Even so, finding the list of Horace’s many siblings in his obituary seemed promising to me, despite the relatively common surname he possessed. After all, Martin or not, how many men do you know named Saunders? Or Talmage? Or how many women have you met named Indiana?

I had hoped, by tracing his siblings’ lines upward, I could find out more about this specific Martin family. So far, no luck.

Even so, Horace Martin’s obituary shared a couple of hints about his stature within the railroad industry in the “local” area of New York City, where he worked in his later years. From those, we can glean the idea that he met with a measure of success.

That alone, however, still doesn’t provide any hints as to how his mother came to own such a unique antique—even if it was only coveted in the back corners of Tennessee.

           ERWIN—Horace L. Martin, 76, died yesterday morning in South Orange, N. J. His wife is the former Mabel Davis Martin, Erwin. Martin was a retired agent for the Norfolk and Western Railroad with headquarters in New York. A member of the Methodist Church, he had lived in South Orange for the past 30 years. He was a member of the New York Athletic Club, Down-Town Club, and held a lifetime membership in the New York Traffic Club.

            Survivors include the widow, Mrs. H. L. Martin of the home, four sisters, Mrs. Mary Hanks, Mrs. Virginia Purdun and Mrs. Gladys Mountcastle, Richmond, Va., and Mrs. Indiana Cecil of Indiana; three brothers, Ray and Talmadge Martin, Richmond, Va., and Saunders Martin, Raleigh, N. C. Boyd-DeArmond Funeral Home is in charge.

The Story Behind the Story

As the newspaper article unfolded the story of Jean Martin’s prized antique pieces, the 1967 publication allowed me a glimpse into my grand-aunt’s family history as well. It made me thankful that this mystery relative took a moment to send a “brag piece” in a letter to her brother and sister-in-law so many years ago. I certainly wasn’t having much success finding out about Mabel Eugenie Davis Hines Martin on any other accounts.

The clipping from the September 13, 1967, edition of The Erwin Record was most likely set aside by my grandmother when she received it—not entirely sure what to do with it, but not wanting to toss it. Yet.

Upon her passing, along with several other personal effects, the article—now sans letter—was passed to my aunt. She, likewise, set it aside, not entirely sure what to do with it, but not wanting to toss it. Yet.

Upon her passing, along with several other personal effects…

Well, you get the idea. The only difference with this last iteration is: I already know what I want to do with it!

If it weren’t for the fact that the article was passed down to me via close family members, I would have some concern that the subject of the article was named Jean Martin, rather than Mabel. With some caveats about her name—which I’ll delve into more deeply in a future post—I can dismiss those concerns based on several details mentioned in the article:

• Right away, she is identified as Mrs. H. L. Martin
• Her address is given as Second Street
• Her maiden name is given as Davis
• She was listed as a native of Erwin, Tennessee
• She was listed as daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Davis

Of course, the point could be raised that there were likely several William Davises in the area in that time period. I don’t dispute that. In fact, one such William Davis may even have been a cousin of the other William Davis. That’s where those helpful middle initials come in handy.

The article does go on to mention that Mrs. William Davis, mother of Mabel/Jean, was known to all in Erwin as “Aunt Cassie” and that her home was located at the corner of Main and First streets. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that tale about my great-grandmother—there’s enough detail in that family story to merit a post of its own, though admittedly a morbid one.

Thanks to that newspaper narrative provided by Mrs. Bede Webb, I found out that my grand-aunt moved back to her home town six years prior to the date of the article, pinpointing her return to some time in 1961. The event prompting her return was listed as the passing of her husband—although Horace L. Martin actually died in 1959.

According to the article, “the genial Jean Martin has been a career woman.” My ears perked up at this detail, and I was rewarded for my attention. Remember that single thirty-something woman in the boarding home in Detroit in 1920? How does this little fact line up:

“…having been with the merchandising departments of Shillottos, Cincinnati, Ohio, and the J. L. Hudson Department Store in Detroit, Mich.”

Some little dress shop that must have been.

Evidently, Mabel leveraged her position from that post in Detroit to snag an appointment with “the chain department store empire of the May Company” as a buyer. According to the Record article, her company’s headquarters were in Baltimore and New York City.

How nicely those align with census details found so far—even the one I was doubting.

It’s All in the Dash

When we look at genealogical records and see a date of birth flanked by a specific place, then view the date of death and see that same location listed at its side, we presume we are considering a person who lived and died in his or her hometown.

That is not always necessarily so.

My grand-aunt, Mabel Eugenie Davis, was born August 16, 1888, in a tiny place called Erwin, Tennessee. Ninety six years later, on September 1, 1984, she died in the same town.

As far as that little dash in the middle of those two dates goes, Mabel was anything but a homebody. In fact, she wasn’t even a resident of her home state for most of her adult life.

Where she did live during those many years is not entirely clear to me—yet. Thankfully, decennial records pinpointed her whereabouts, after her marriage, for 1910, 1930 and 1940—but as for the rest of those years, there is no guarantee she remained in the same location.

The Unicoi County census records for 1900 captured her name in the household of her parents, William D. and Martha C. Davis, along with her siblings, “Lumie B.,” Mary Chevis, and “Robie J.” (my grandfather, Jack).

That was the last time that family unit would be registered together in the same household. On October 28, 1906, Mabel married LeRoy Okeson Hines, a man from Virginia, and shortly after the November 17, 1907, birth of their daughter, Stella Mabel Hines, the new household had moved out of the state of Tennessee.

Thankfully, online resources helped me pinpoint the family in the 1910 census. Listed as lodgers in a boarding house in the Adkin District of McDowell County in West Virginia, the civil engineer and his wife were entered in the record as Leroy and “Mable Hins.” With the addition of their daughter’s entry as Stella M., as well as correct entries of states of birth, approximately correct ages, and LeRoy’s occupation, I can say I’m fairly certain I have the right family.

It all disintegrates from that point onward. Come 1920, I can find LeRoy and his daughter Stella living with his mother, sixty seven year old Sarah M. Hines, in Norfolk, Virginia.

Where was Mabel?

I have my guesses—thanks only to digital records and online search capabilities at our fingertips nowadays—but I would have been hard pressed to come up with this possibility only a few years ago. And I’m still not certain this is a valid possibility.

Listed in the 1920 census in a boarding home in Detroit, Michigan, there was a single woman by the name of Mabel Hines. She was working as a saleswoman in a local shop. Of the right age, born in Tennessee with both parents from that same state, this entry looked promising—but I can’t yet be sure it was the correct one. What would she be doing in Detroit?

Looking back at LeRoy’s entry for the same census, he listed his marital status as married—which indicated some problems, since his wife was obviously not listed in the same household.

Putting life’s little mystery for the 1920s aside, I moved on to the 1930 census, where Mabel Hines had advanced to buyer for a department store in Baltimore, Maryland. By the time of this census, she was brave enough to declare her marital status as “divorced.” She was living alone.

Meanwhile, by 1930, LeRoy Hines had left his old position as a civil engineer for the City of Norfolk, and was now living—along with his daughter Stella and his new wife, Louise—in Virginia Beach. He was still employed as a civil engineer, this time for the County of Princess Anne. (Apparently, the information for this census was provided by LeRoy’s second wife, who either neglected to ascertain where her step-daughter was born, or proved by her answers that there are two civil engineers in Virginia named LeRoy Hines with daughters named Stella.)

By the time of the 1940 census, things had changed for Mabel—well, that is, if you can believe in mis-entries in governmental records. Mabel had shown up in South Orange, New Jersey, as the wife of a railroad agent. The only drawback was that her first name was entered as Joan, rather than the shortened form—“Jean”—of her middle name. Fortunately, I can say that I’m fairly confident of the entry, though, thanks to other records the family had of the Martins’ residence, and Mabel’s second husband’s name: Horace L. Martin.

How long Mabel lived in New Jersey, I can’t yet be certain. I do know, thanks to my grandmother’s address book, that she had returned to Erwin by the late 1970s—long after her husband’s passing in 1959. I am beginning to find hints of what life was like for Mabel in New Jersey—living an easy twenty mile commute (no doubt by rail) from downtown Manhattan—as I go through family papers left behind by both my mother and my aunt.

If I had only assumed, from the vital statistics given for her birth and for her death, that she was a Tennessee native who never left home, I would never have gotten any idea of the collage of experiences that were represented by that tiny dash separating those two all-important life dates. Even now, I’m not entirely sure, despite hints of a career in the fashion industry (including, possibly, a stint as a model in New York City).

People have likened the difference between “genealogy” and “family history” to the difference between knowing the dates—in Mabel’s case, 1888 and 1984—and knowing the stuff squeezed into that dash in between those two dates. Just like the well-known poetic description of that concept, aptly entitled, “The Dash,” I often wonder just how it was that my grand-aunt Mabel spent her “dash.” There is just so much more of her story yet to be discovered.    

Meeting Aunt Mabel

Four more years and she would have lived to be one hundred. Of course, Mabel Davis Hines Martin wasn’t quite that age when I first met her—but then, I wouldn’t have remembered that, anyhow. I was still a baby.

My mother used to tell me that, when I was a newborn, her Aunt Mabel would come to visit us and provide home remedies for my “condition,” massaging my spindly arms and legs and, no doubt, advising my newbie mom from her vast store of mountain-folk wisdom. Surely insecure and lacking experience in her new parenting role, my mother nevertheless thankfully balanced Mabel’s sage advice with the more newfangled ways of modern medicine.

As I grew up, I was quite aware of Aunt Mabel despite the rarity of her visits. While I always thought of her as my mother’s aunt from Tennessee, she actually lived not far from our New York home when I was still in grade school. Once, she even came for an overnight visit, arriving (of course) by train from her home in New Jersey—the only time I recall seeing her in our home.

I remember a woman tall, erect, thin, but not quite as stern as all that sounds. I remember being so curious about her, wanting to get to know more about this stranger who claimed to be a relative. I probably asked more pesky questions than the lady cared to answer.

When it came time for all obedient, darling children to retire in the evening, I remember taking that inopportune moment, bounding into the guest bedroom, only to find the elderly woman already getting ready for bed. She had let down her long, long hair and was brushing it out so she could braid it for the night. I found that to be quite a backwards approach—thinking, “Why braid it at the end of the day? Shouldn’t that be what you do first thing in the morning?”

It wasn’t until much later that I discovered she likely adhered to the old-fashioned custom of never cutting her hair, putting it up, as married women of that time did, in an understated bun at the back of her neck—or, if she were feeling particularly elegant, in a French roll. What a contrast to my grandmother—Mabel’s sister-in-law—who bobbed her own hair and knew every dance step in vogue in the 1920s. No wonder my grandmother never saw eye to eye with the Davis family.

As conservative as that may sound, Mabel was no less a career woman than her older sister, Lummie. Along with the letters from Mabel, full of recipes and domestic advice, that I found saved in my mother’s belongings after she died, I also found articles and details of Mabel’s life tucked into my aunt’s files as well. Like fragments of a shattered portrait re-assembled into a mosaic, these few slivers of information I’ll piece together to see if we can catch a better glimpse of who this woman was—and perhaps discover why she chose such a different life path.