Letting Doubts Give Way to Documents

I've always had my doubts about Thomas. Of all the Hilscher children, Thomas the immigrant seemed out to give me grief in researching his whereabouts. Yes, I eventually could locate a record of his death in New York City, confirming an anglicized version of his parents' names, but I couldn't quite sketch out much more of his life story—until, that is, I took the detour of exploring the story of what I presumed was an unrelated Polish immigrant to New York City.

That immigrant, as we've since seen, was Stanislaus Samolewski. Despite having a surname given to snares of misspelling, Stanislaus was still someone whose life trajectory I could follow. And in following his path from Żerków, Prussia, to a new life in America, I somehow also learned a few things about Thomas Hilscher.

Among the few details I had already found about Thomas Hilscher, I had managed to locate a passenger record. Traveling across the Atlantic with several family members, Thomas had arrived in New York City aboard the steamship Amerika on April 7, 1912. Among the passengers listed on that page were Stanislawa, Thomas' wife, and four children ranging in age from fourteen years down to ten months.

For two of the children, a different surname had been entered, then smudged out. A flip of the page on this record showed more information on the continuation page: that the relationship between those two teenagers and Thomas indicated he was their stepfather. 

There was more to be found amidst the scrawled handwriting on those two pages of the passenger listing. In the brackets surrounding this family grouping, an encouraging note I found on the first page was that Thomas indicated his father's name. I'm sure my sign of relief was audible when I spotted the name Peter Hilscher, followed by the note that this father was from Żerków, despite the written claims of the family being from Germany, not Poland.

On the reverse of that passenger listing, however, were more details that could help me in piecing together the extended Hilscher family. For one thing, I learned that Thomas—although not anyone else in his party—had lived in the United States previously. In fact, he had been to New York twice: once in 1887, and again in 1893. At both times, he had traveled to Brooklyn, the part of New York City to which he was returning.

That second page also provided the information that the two older boys in his party were not his own children, but step-sons.

Most important, though, was the answer to the question concerning whether Thomas was "going to join a relative or friend" and, if so, what that person's name and address was. This was the family history gold for my quest to piece together the connection to my DNA matches: Thomas' answer was Stanislaus "Samolowski," noted in that passenger record to be his brother-in-law from 187 Bayard Place in Brooklyn.

In fact, something I only realized when I researched Stanislaus Samolewski's own records: Thomas Hilscher's brother-in-law was also returning home to Brooklyn on that same vessel. His own entry on the passenger list showed that he, too, had been to the United States before; in fact, by 1912, Stanislaus, traveling with his wife Antonina and two daughters on the Amerika, was returning to Brooklyn as a naturalized citizen.

Thanks to the lead provided by the scantily-documented family trees retrieved from several DNA matches,  a stranger from the past with a Polish surname led me not only to more details concerning his own family history, but secured a connection to a family I was researching. Until I spotted those DNA clues, I hadn't been able to document the connection between the two Hilscher siblings, Thomas and his sister Antonina, by 1912 the wife of Stanislaus Samolewski. That discovery was enough impetus to lead me back to the rest of the ThruLines lists to seek out more Hilscher—and, ultimately, Gramlewicz—connections.

When the "Big Easy" Isn't Easy

 

It isn't easy searching for ancestral names in the Big Easy's passenger lists. I already knew that from trying to find my father-in-law's great-grandfather John Stevens, who supposedly came through the port at New Orleans from Ireland. Nor did looking for any of his Kelly in-laws help pinpoint those New Orleans arrivals. Now, trying a third time with yet another collateral line—Michael Creahan, John Stevens' eventual brother-in-law—I'm not finding any better results.

According to Michael Creahan's own obituary, he had arrived in this country at the age of twenty. Though it is hard to pinpoint his actual age, based on the most realistic of documented reports, it could be said that he was born any time between 1824 and 1830.

Taking a closer look at that obituary, I noticed it doesn't actually say he arrived in New Orleans on his immigrant journey, only that he spent ten years working there—with all the rest of his years in this country spent in Lafayette, Indiana. One could presume that meant the first stop was New Orleans—and that New Orleans was the port of his arrival here—but of course, the record doesn't come out and specifically say that.

So, what do we find in the passenger records for New Orleans? Not much. In one collection found through Ancestry.com, I did find one Michael Crahan—but that Michael Crahan was eighteen at the time of his arrival in 1851. On that same passenger list was a twelve year old girl named Mary Crahan, and a twenty year old named Catherine Crahan—but no Bridget or Patrick, our Michael's family members.

In another New Orleans passenger collection index at Ancestry, since Creahan brought up no results, I searched instead for Crane, an alternate spelling which materialized so often for this month's project. There, I did find a passenger listed as "M. Creehan" on a vessel arriving in New Orleans on February 10, 1848—a very possible date. But again, with the initial rather than a full given name, there was not enough information to conclude this was our Michael. Combined with no sign of Patrick or Bridget Creahan in that listing, it is doubtful this was our Michael's arrival.

Granted, one reliable listing of all available collections of New Orleans passenger records often mentions the phrase, "with some gaps." Perhaps it is just in the cards for me to accept that dilemma: Michael Creahan, his brother Patrick and his mother Bridget Doyle Creahan, may well have taken their migrant voyage from Ireland on a sailing vessel whose data has been lost to history.

Passenger Records: Finding the Proof

 

The Blaising brothers may have said they completed their immigrant voyage in New York City, but finding the proof in passenger records may be another question. Granted, dates of travel may have been estimated, but our ability now to search through digitized records using a date range should ease us around that search roadblock. However, I've yet to find any sign of Henry, Lawrence, John, Philip, Louis, or August, let alone their mother Mary or baby sister Theresa. One would think it rather difficult to hide a traveling family of that size.

The detail of their arrival—whether in 1866 or 1868—tells us that, if they did indeed arrive in New York City, their records would be part of the collection from Castle Garden, not Ellis Island. Castle Garden, also known as Castle Clinton—named after then-mayor of New York City and subsequent Governor of the state DeWitt Clinton—served to welcome immigrants on behalf of the state from 1855 until the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. Thus, whether the Blaising family arrived in 1866 or 1868, either way, if they came to New York City, they arrived through Castle Garden.

While we now think of immigration documentation as the domain of the federal government, at that time it was the state government which oversaw such a procedure. Thus, searching for immigrants in that time period depends on the laws of the time and the jurisdiction.

Though there are many resources for checking passenger lists during that time period in New York, unfortunately, I was unable to locate any sign of the Blaising brothers. In the process, I collected a list of spelling variations of that surname which far exceeded my expectations. Immigration officials were indeed quite creative in their spelling prowess. Even searching for the exact spelling of the surname on the Ellis Island Foundation website, which includes records for Castle Garden, didn't produce any promising results, nor did my attempt at MyHeritage.

While searching for the Blaising records may turn out to be a far more exhaustive search than I had originally envisioned, I also need to recall that, as the FamilySearch blog put it, these Castle Garden digitized resources represent the surviving records from that time period. And even if I do find them, it is likely, given that time period, that there might not be any further personal information given on the travelers than what I've been able to learn from the brothers' naturalization records. We can glean great amounts of information on our ancestors from historic records, but only to the extent which officials of that time period deemed necessary to know.

Their need to know and mine may not see eye to eye.

Overused Cliches and Doing Things Over

 

If doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result has become a cliche—try this cataloguing of the famed "definition" attributed to a really brainy guy—then I guess I won't write any more to litter the literary landscape. That said, I still did try my hand—again—at looking for Hugh Stevens' arrival in New Orleans in December of 1852. 

And the result? This may come as a surprise, but it was the same outcome as the last time I tried to find him. Despite what he insisted to officials when he arrived in Lafayette, Indiana, Hugh Stevens' name wasn't on passenger lists in New Orleans during that supposed month of his arrival. Or that page (or two) is still missing from the records which have been saved for all these years.

I did find some near misses. Using the search mechanisms at FamilySearch.org, I filtered out all passengers born in places other than Ireland and Great Britain, but somehow managed to include all the spelling variations for the Stevens surname. The closest date of arrival I could find was for a Stephens in 1851.

Moving to Ancestry.com, their search process yielded twenty four possibilities arriving in New Orleans for the search term "H. Stevens," including spelling variations. Two of them even arrived in 1852—a promising sign that those dates weren't totally lost from the record—but they came much earlier in the year.

Despite those disappointing results, I did notice one detail that might turn out to be helpful: many of the ships arriving in New Orleans listed their point of departure as locations either in the Caribbean or in Central America. Only four of the arrivals listed came directly from Liverpool, Hugh Stevens' supposed originating point.

That said—and this will come as no surprise to you—it's time to stop doing the same thing over and over again in the hopes that this time, the result will be different. Though signs of Hugh Stevens' origin was my slated research goal for the month of July, we'll wrap up a few other futile searches on his behalf this week, and then move on to another more pressing investigation. 

Initial Impressions

 

It didn't take long, after perusing what remains of records of passengers passing through the port of New Orleans in the early 1850s, to realize that many travelers preferred to identify themselves by their initials. Thus, my chances of finding the right Hugh Stevens in those records suddenly became awash with the possibility of including all travelers going by the name H. Stevens. Every Henry, Harold, and even Horatio immediately took his place alongside the Hugh Stevens I've been searching for.

Another research difficulty in finding travelers in the 1850s: point of origin was sometimes labeled—if at all—by a politically correct designation. Thus, though I've been seeking Irish immigrants arriving in New Orleans, the more likely designation would be Great Britain. Yet another smoke screen gets thrown up to disguise which one of those "H. Stevens" candidates might have been a viable selection.

A further complication, that our Hugh Stevens traveled from Liverpool, England, might tempt a lazy government official to simply record him as being from England, rather than his true residence in Ireland—if any designation was added to the record at all.

Add to that the likelihood that a surname like Stevens could just as easily have been recorded as Stephens, and you begin to see the challenges facing someone who simply wishes to find Hugh Stevens among the thousands who sailed through New Orleans and up the Mississippi.

Hopefully, the one document in which I've been able to spot Hugh Stevens will be mine to view for myself by early next week. Though I'm fairly certain all the basic details I recall about that scant piece of paper will be all that the second copy will reveal, I keep hoping for a revelation. We'll see at that point, which will determine whether my research goal for this month's Twelve Most Wanted will move forward or join the pile of hopeless lost research causes.

Ancestor #8: While We're in the Neighborhood

 

When we've already cleared out the easy pickings on the family tree—thanks to those census records, birth announcements, and obituaries—it takes a different kind of sleuthing to make any research headway. And that's where I'm stuck now.

I've been turning to more broad-based research now to help point the way to find those elusive ancestors. Exploring social history and delving into the details of an ancestor's locale are rising high on my go-to list. Since we will have already spent a month exploring the records for Lafayette, Indiana, in the quest to find any sign of Hugh Stevens, number seven of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2024, we may as well capitalize on already being in the neighborhood. We'll make another Lafayette neighbor the focus of our family history quest for next August.

In that neighborhood, I need to look for more signs of the Kelly family. In particular, the descendants of James and Mary Kelly have been showing up in my DNA matches. The problem is, despite ThruLines' assurance at Ancestry.com that these matches descend from this couple—my father-in-law's second great-grandparents—I can't seem to find any confirming documentation.

Another issue with James and Mary Kelly that they share with our previous ancestral challenge is the missing sections of passenger records at the port where they arrived in America. Just like Hugh Stevens, our research challenge for the preceding month, James and Mary arrived at the port of New Orleans. It's been a while since I searched through all the available passenger records for New Orleans, so this August, in hopes something new materializes, that will be on my to-do list, as well as the DNA exploration.

Granted, it would be lovely to discover just where in Ireland James and Mary Kelly originated. That has been my forever dream, yet I realize with names as common as theirs—and their Irish-born children—this might be an attempt repeated with the same outcome once again. But if we never give that search another try, we'll never make any further progress.

Reconstructing the Story

 

Reconstructing an ancestor's life can be a challenging proposition, but for our more recent relatives, you'd think the process would uncover familiar stories. Not so with my father. 

While it was exciting to learn of his rising star in the New York City music scene during war years, I was aware that the 1940s marked a time in his life when he was also married and a family man. He had long been on the career trajectory that brought him to that point at the end of 1942 when he got in "on the ground floor" with a shot at leading the band selected to play a possible hit piece. It was those earlier years—the ones leading up to this war-time point—which I also want to explore.

Resources like Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com have been invaluable in helping me hunt through myriad blips of publicity over those earlier decades, but even so, it required painstakingly piecing clues together.

Here's an example. Fortunately, I did know a bit about this episode in his life—but only a very little, with just the foggiest of details. As a child, I remembered hearing that my dad had played in bands providing the entertainment aboard steamships headed to and from England. When, where, or how, I knew very little. All I knew was that at the time, he played the trombone, a good fit for a musician heading into the big band era.

A hint on Ancestry.com led me to a barely legible digitized passenger list which contained my father's name. His entry was one of many for which the occupation listed was musician. Above that long list of musicians on the USS Leviathan was another entry: "Musician Ldr"—musician leader. That band leader's name was Richard Kraetke. 

Seeing that entry, my immediate thought was to search for any details on who the band leader might have been. After all, there are now multiple online resources for digitized material from previous eras, including biographical sketches and other resources to piece together our ancestors' past. But for Richard Kraetke, there were only a few items. 

One resource contained only a couple sentences in a New York Daily News article entitled "Two Crew Vets Get Sea Burial." The May 15, 1959, entry noted that Richard Kraetke, one of the two whose ashes had been ceremonially consigned to the sea, had formerly been an orchestra leader aboard some of the U.S. Line ships.

One of those ships had apparently been the USS Leviathan, formerly the German ship Vaterland, seized from the Germans in 1917 by the United States after it entered the First World War, for it was the passenger list of that ship upon which my father's name appeared, ten years later. Another list, with an arrival date only a month after that first list, indicated that this might have been a regular gig for my dad in his twenties. Indeed, further searching revealed a similar list for August, and another for September of that same year.

As exciting as overseas passage to international destinations might have been—even for those working their way across the Atlantic—the thrill would eventually wear off. Sure enough, while there may have been more passenger listings than I was able to find—or than were digitized by genealogical companies—I imagine my father's name would not have appeared on such lists for much longer. Less than two years later, the traveling musician found himself saying "I do" to a woman whose family hailed from Manchester, New Hampshire—seemingly far from the entertainment capital of the east coast.

And yet, even there, my dad found a way to keep in the music world.

The Situation With Sligo

 

Sometimes, it is a wonderful find to discover one's ancestor was featured in those county history books of a previous century. For anyone related to James Murdock of Lafayette, Indiana, it would seem his family's five page spread in Past and Present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana would be more than sufficient to answer any questions about the Murdock family's past. And it is true: James Murdock's route as it is laid out from Ireland to Indiana in this book seems to describe every stop on the immigration route. Finding any way to verify that information, though, is another story.

Take the book's report that the Murdocks emigrated from County Sligo in Ireland. That is not the only place where I found that information. James' own 1908 death certificate mentions that fact, as well.

However, there's a problem with this assertion. When I go to John Grenham's surname map for mid-nineteenth century Ireland and look up the surname Murdock, not a single household shows up in County Sligo featuring that name. There are a few Murdock households for the county to the west—Mayo, supposed home of John Stevens, James' brother-in-law—and some for another county off to the northeast. There is a veritable shower of green dots representing Murdock residents covering the landscape for County Down and the area around Belfast. But not a single marker showing a Murdock family in County Sligo.

Granted, there are other ways to spell the surname Murdock. But looking at any of the variations on the Grenham website doesn't reveal any promising results.

Since the Grenham maps are based on data from Griffith's Valuation, what about going directly to that source? Whether searching for Murdock or Murdoch, the website for Griffith's Valuation gives us no satisfaction.

If you are beginning to lose hope that James Murdock's report gave a correct location for the family's Irish homeland, I am right there with you, scratching my head as well—until, that is, I found this other glimmer of hope.

Of course, hope sometimes comes with multiple caveats. In this case, those caveats include sloppy handwriting or mis-heard report of a given name. Other than that leap of faith that "Sibby"—remember those nicknames for James' mother, Sabina—could be mistakenly written as "Libby," the names of the mother's children on this passenger list line up quite nicely.

Not only the names match, but the ages line up within a year's margin for each of the sons. Only Sabina's year of birth—reported later to have been 1795—does not agree closely with the passenger list.

The added bonus to this list is that the boat these four arrived on during November of 1852—the Dromshair—sailed to New York City from the very place we're holding in question: County Sligo.

There are, of course, problems with this conjecture. Where, for instance, are Sabina Murdock's husband and daughters—to say nothing of their oldest son Samuel? Besides, now that we've discovered the two additional daughters who belong to this household, we can't forget they should be included in such a traveling list, as well.

While first discoveries can be encouraging, it isn't yet time to assume we've found our answer. Let's cross-check this possible passenger listing by researching the story of those two newly-found Murdock daughters to see whether we can learn more about their immigration timeline, as well.

 

Images: Above, from the Indiana State Board of Health, an excerpt from the 1908 death certificate of James Murdock showing his place of birth reported as County Sligo, Ireland; below that, an excerpt from the passenger list of the Dromshair, arriving from County Sligo in New York City on November 5, 1852, showing the names of four members of a Murdock family; images courtesy Ancestry.com.     

Different Than the Rest of the Crowd

 

While most Irish refugees to North America during the years of the Great Famine may have headed to New York or Boston, my husband's second great-grandfather John Stevens had to be different than all the rest. Instead of choosing those typical northern American ports—or destinations in Canada, or perhaps Australia or New Zealand—John Stevens chose to head to the port of New Orleans.

Why he did so has always puzzled me. For the longest time, his stated 1850 date of arrival on his immigration papers was one falling in the gaps of what was available in digitized records collections. Although such online collections are now more complete than when I first began this search, I still haven't located any record that match his details.

With such research trouble, I've begun to wonder whether John arrived from somewhere other than Ireland itself—for instance, traveling through one of the Caribbean islands. Hence, my goal in exploring the background information on the more general topic of Irish emigration itself, especially from John's supposed homeland in County Mayo.

Today, I begin to see some positive signs that he could indeed have arrived through the port of New Orleans. Though some of the statements I've uncovered do not come sourced or footnoted (hey, one is simply an Indiana newspaper), I see them as way-pointers in a long journey to arrive at the truth of this ancestor's travels.

True, both FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com have digitized copies of passenger records for the port of New Orleans. But let's first look at who might have arrived in New Orleans in general.

New Orleans is situated in what is now the state of Louisiana, located in the deep south of the United States. By virtue of its location at the mouth of the Mississippi River, the port's significance has always been its entry to a vast waterway connecting this Gulf port with much of the American midwest. Indeed, John Stevens made use of that transportation feature by continuing his immigration journey northward to the state of Indiana, where he finally settled.

Apparently, the Irish began arriving in Louisiana from the 1820s, and in increasing numbers during the famine years. New Orleans by 1840 had become the third most populous city in the United States—not to mention, the wealthiest. Perhaps on account of such reasons, rather than simply heading west across the Atlantic to New York or Boston, a significant number of Irish emigrants knew to sail farther south.

According to one newspaper column—unfortunately unsubstantiated—the port of New Orleans was considered "less regulated and more lax in following immigration law" than other American ports, leading some immigrants to "purposely choose" this as their port of entry. One other detail supposedly shared by immigrants was knowledge of the likely times for outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever in New Orleans, meaning those in the know would time their travel to avoid the months between May and November.

This last detail, although unsubstantiated in the newspaper report, caught my eye for one reason: what seemed to me to be the odd time John Stevens selected for his arrival in America. According to his Declaration of Intention, John Stevens arrived in New Orleans in the month of December. Could he have known of this bit of travelers' advice?

While digitized copies of the passenger lists for arrivals in New Orleans are now available for the years 1820 through 1945—and arranged by date of arrival in port—I did notice the collection notes admitted, "Some arrival dates are not represented in the data." True, in the past I had only searched for John's surname as spelled exactly "Stevens" and not "Stephens," so it is worth taking another look. But having his declared date of arrival, I have not been able to spot his entry in past forays into this record set.

However, seeing that mention of travelers' hesitance to arrive in Louisiana during the height of the malaria season does give me a slight glimmer of hope that John Stevens did indeed arrive in New Orleans just when he said he did. Now, it's just a matter of finding the record to have appropriate confirmation of this step in his emigration journey.

Of course, to be able to see that the entry is indeed for a man named John Stevens—and that the name wasn't simply an alias—would bolster my confidence, as well. After all, if he did indeed come from County Mayo, I have not seen many encouraging signs that his was a surname included among the residents living there during famine times.

Finding the Fortune

 

Sometimes, stumbling upon stories held dearly as family traditions can be a boost to our research. Other times, finding such legends can become research stumbling blocks. It all depends on whether the details can be verified—but even then, who's to say the legend didn't guide us to a coincidentally "supportive" record while steering us away from a more likely clue?

From an earlier era of online genealogy—think listservs and forums and the email exchange of GEDCOMs with inquiring cousins—I had read that before Nicholas Schneider and his family had emigrated from his German homeland, he had served as a soldier in the Napoleonic wars. In fact, according to one story, that was how he met his future wife, Anna Elizabeth Eckhardt.

Just how I am supposed to find documentation for such a story, I'm not yet sure. But I know one thing: Nicholas and Anna Elizabeth Schneider did arrive in the New World sometime after their oldest son Jacob's 1799 birth. 

As we've already seen from their subsequent children's birth locations, the Schneider family lived for a while in Pennsylvania, and then in Maryland, before purchasing property and settling in Perry County, Ohio. The oldest child I could find who was born in Pennsylvania was their daughter Catherine, who arrived there about 1805.

Those two dates, then—1799 and 1805—mark the time frame for the Schneiders' possible immigration. It would be prudent to guess that the family arrived in Pennsylvania from Germany, but without documentation, it would be simply that: a guess.

Thankfully, just as that old web page sharing the Schneider family traditions had mentioned, I was able to track records showing the family sailed from Emden, Germany, on a ship called the Fortune, arriving at port in Philadelphia in 1804. That discovery, however, I couldn't have accomplished without the generous sharing of records by other family researchers, plus the foresight of organizations with the mission of digitizing old documents.

A hint at Ancestry.com had mentioned that there was an entry for a Nicholas Schneider transcribed in an old genealogy book, Names of Foreigners Who Took the Oath of Allegiance to the Province and State of Pennsylvania, 1727-1775, with the Foreign Arrivals, 1786-1808. Of course, if I had lived closer to Pennsylvania—like, maybe, across the state border in Emmitsburg, Maryland—it might have been a small matter to access the microfilm of such information at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's Archives, but this was not such a time. 

I took that wordy title—yes, with every word intact—to Internet Archive to see whether any forward thinking person had uploaded a digitized version. In fact, someone had. The boost at Internet Archive, of course, is that the book is now completely searchable, so I put the program through its paces to find an entry for Nicholas and Anna Schneider and their son Jacob.

But that's a transcription of a supportive record. What about the actual ship's passenger list? As it turns out, yet again, some kind soul had chosen to be generous and upload the scanned picture of the Fortune's passenger list. The vessel, sailing from Emden, Germany, to Philadelphia, had its paperwork dated September 26, 1804. Tucked toward the bottom corner of the listing of passengers was a box for Nicholas, Anna, and Jacob, plus two unnamed Schneider children who, according to the book mentioned above, had died during the voyage.

Whether I'll ever be able to substantiate those other stories of Nicholas' wartime escapades—or even his story of romance while injured during his military service—I can't say. This, at least, is a start to the goal of an unbroken paper trail from Nicholas Schneider's last years in Perry County, Ohio, back to his arrival in Philadelphia with his wife and young son.

Image above from the passenger list of the ship Fortune, dated September 26, 1804, sailing from the port at Emden, Germany, and arriving in Philadelphia; image courtesy of an Ancestry subscriber posted April 4, 2009, at Ancestry.com.

The "What If?" Strategy

 

In the process of searching for our specific ancestor, it is tempting, once finding a reasonable document, to assume that is the proof we are seeking. That's never a foolproof approach, though. There are several reasons why we seek more than one document to confirm the details of an ancestor's life story.

For one thing, we need to consider what I call "name twins." There is a strong possibility—especially given common names of folks living in population centers—that someone else could be given the same name as the ancestor we are researching. A wise alternative is to seek several documents along that person's life trajectory to confirm we are following the same person's history. 

Likewise, keeping track of not only the timeline but the locations where significant life events occurred is important for ensuring we are still researching the same person. Impossible feats of travel, given restrictions of the time period, would be a clue that we have jumped track from our ancestor to someone of the same name but different family.

In the case of my father-in-law's mystery great-grandfather, Stephen Malloy, we have a situation where the family received one report of his demise which might be quite believable—until we begin asking questions about the circumstances.

Questions, as it turns out, are a good device to employ in genealogical research. We always need to consider possible alternative explanations. And in Stephen Malloy's case, there are questions.

One question we had mentioned yesterday: the fact that Stephen's wife Anna chose to remain unmarried for the rest of her life, despite being free as a widow to remarry—indeed, in that day and age, especially with a child to support, that would have been the norm. Was there any doubt about that story that her husband had been killed in Boston?

Another question flows from the very details found in the passenger record of the ship upon which our Stephen was supposed to have been aboard. The age for that man was cited as twenty six, and yet his supposed bride would have been thirty seven that same year—hardly a believable age spread for a couple during that time period.

The least verifiable of my doubts comes from the overarching history of the region which Stephen Malloy left in 1849. Ireland had experienced some civil unrest, both politically and from a sectarian point of view, and Stephen's abrupt and seemingly mysterious defection plays with my own doubts in ways not likely to be substantiated without further evidence. I begin to wonder: why did Stephen Malloy leave home so abruptly? Could it be that he never made it on board the ship in Liverpool? If he were fleeing trouble back home, could he have assumed an alias?

Perhaps my questions might never have found a satisfying answer—except that now, we have search capabilities unparalleled in previous generations. While I can take the tedious route of searching Boston newspapers for crime reports of the murder of one Stephen Malloy, I can also search for alternate explanations by other means as well.

One possible alternate explanation could be that Stephen did make it to Boston and decide to settle there, making a new life for himself. Searching online records did reveal one document which gave me pause to consider these alternate possibilities: a petition for citizenship filed by one Stephen Mulloy in the state of Massachusetts in 1855.

According to the document, this Stephen arrived in Boston on or about the first day of April in 1849, only a few days after the date given on the passenger list for the Anglo American. The document also provided his date of birth and current age: born December 24, 1827, he claimed to be twenty eight when he completed that 1855 document. Thus, he was nearly—but not quite the same—as the age of the Stephen Molloy on the passenger list.

Though the tantalizing detail of the record was that this man, too, was born in County Limerick—location of the home where our Stephen sent his letter to his wife in 1849—his age, being so much younger than his supposed wife Anna, gives me pause to wonder whether this traveler was the same man as our Stephen. Indeed, records of this man in the Massachusetts 1855 state census, where he was boarding with a Reardon family, could lead one to presume he was waiting for his wife's arrival from Ireland—but the subsequent state census in 1865 showed him a married man with two children. Hardly our Stephen Malloy. Or was he?

There are, of course, other possible explanations for our Stephen Malloy's disappearance. Coming here in 1849, of all times, he could possibly have caught gold fever and headed for California. He could, once in this country, have assumed an alias. Either of those scenarios could have reached a climax of finding him shot to death—but even with today's search tools, we might never find the full story.

With that, we have some other search options to explore before the month is out and we turn our attention to other research goals. At this point, the best way to determine next steps is to talk it all out. We'll grapple with the possibilities tomorrow.

Back to Boston

 

One plus to revisiting our family history research trail over the years is the possibility that additional documents may have been uploaded to digitized collections. This was indeed what I had discovered while grappling with my father-in-law's puzzle concerning his great-grandfather, Stephen Malloy.

Having left his home in Ireland via Liverpool in a hurry, Stephen had written to his wife Anna, telling her that he was bound for Boston. While the name of the sailing vessel matched up with passenger records I've been able to find almost two hundred years later, that was the last confirmation of what had become of him.

Family stories didn't help the research effort. According to the oral tradition passed down by the family, Stephen Malloy had made it to Boston, alright—but some time after his arrival, he was shot and killed.

That's what his descendants had said, repeating the story generation after generation with no proof to substantiate the claim. I decided to look for myself—but that was years ago. Sure enough, I found his name on the right passenger list, arriving in Boston about March 27, 1849. But what about his death? Surely someone would have made an official note of such a crime.

Back at that time, I did stumble upon a possible record. It was, however, only a transcript, as many of the records available for genealogical purposes were at the time. 

The record basically reported the death of one Stephen "Maloy" in Boston during 1850. The date looked reasonable, and since I'd already discovered the numerous spelling varieties used for Stephen's surname, an entry for "Maloy" didn't disturb me too much.

Clicking through on a second tab for the reference, labeled "source," gave me more information on this entry. It provided me with the name of the original document from which this indexed collection had been drawn—helpful information, indeed, if I wished to track down the source for myself to view anything more than a mere, possibly error-laden, transcription.

At the time I first found this entry—this was years ago—all I could do was presume this was the indicator of Stephen Malloy's demise, just as the family had insisted was his fate. Later, fortunately, the document itself was digitized, enabling me to see for myself the full story. In fact, there were several versions of the record made available, from typed transcript back to what appears to be a time-worn original version of the record itself.

Once I was able to view the actual document, I learned that, once again, our Stephen Malloy had thrown me off his track. The entry for the 1850 death was indeed for someone in Boston named Stephen "Maloy," but it was for a babe in arms aged one year and five months—hardly of an age to be husband of Anna Flanagan or father of Catherine Malloy.

The child, son of John and Elizabeth Maloy, was certainly not our Stephen. But what if the family could have been related to Stephen? After all, why did Stephen choose to migrate to Boston? He could, as did many Irish immigrants, have rather chosen the route to New York City—or chosen the more prudent expense of transportation to the British portion of North America, and head for Canada.

That Stephen's wife Anna may not have been entirely convinced of his tragic death was evident in that she, a devout Catholic, remained unmarried for the rest of her seventy three years—or, perhaps, she just never gave up hope that she'd see him again.

I, on the other hand, in revisiting this research puzzle couldn't help but take a look at all the other documents which have more recently been digitized and placed online for our benefit. While this may be a wild and crazy conjecture on my part, I couldn't help but notice that there were other records from the Boston area concerning men of the same name during that time period.

While a game of "what if" should never have any part in the final proof argument drawn up at the conclusion of a difficult ancestral search, it certainly doesn't hurt to at least consider other possibilities while we are still in search mode. And there was one possibility in particular which made me think twice.

 

Note: both search results, shown above in insets, are from Ancestry.com, as indicated by the hyperlinked text next to each example shown.     

Stephen's Side of the Story

 

How many times do we discover one useful detail about the ancestor we are pursuing, only to find the information isn't quite enough to satisfy all our questions?

Take Stephen Malloy, great-grandfather of my father-in-law. The tantalizing detail about Stephen was that my father-in-law's family actually still had in their possession a letter which he had written to his wife, Anna Flanagan Malloy, on February 20, 1849. The downside was that that letter became the first and last token of his existence which anyone in the family had of the man.

The letter, despite its abysmal handwriting and decrepit condition—chunks of paper missing from what might have been key details in the message—still provided enough clues for a modern-day genealogist to do some fact-checking.

From the surviving details, we can glean such facts as where the letter was written—in Liverpool, not in Ireland—and Stephen's plans. He was immediately to set sail for Boston aboard a ship called the "Anglo-Americanio." Spelling not being the strong suit of the letter's scribe, it would be quite reasonable to assume the ship might rather have been named the Anglo-American. In fact, one vessel bearing that name docked in Boston harbor on March 27, 1849—five weeks after the date on Stephen's letter, a reasonable travel time for that era.

The bonus detail—at least for our research goals—was discovery of someone named Stephen Molloy listed in the passenger records for that ship. According to the scanned record, Stephen was headed from Ireland to the United States at age twenty six. He claimed to be a mason, and was apparently not traveling with any discernible family members.

Despite that serendipitous finding, realizing that Stephen's age in 1849 put his year of birth approximately in 1823 did not sit well with the discovery that, according to Chicago records at the end of her life, his wife Anna was likely born around 1812. In other words, that would make Anna, mother of Stephen's daughter Catherine, eleven years older than her husband—an unlikely scenario, given that time period in Ireland.

Furthermore, looking back at the tax records for the civil parish in County Limerick where Stephen's letter was sent to his wife, while we can find the encouraging sign of one Flanagan residence nearby, there is no mention of anyone by the surname Malloy. Nor Molloy. Nor any other spelling permutation of that name.

Stephen Malloy may have been sailing from Liverpool to Boston on the Anglo-American, but where did he come from before departing for his New World destination?

Above: Header for the scanned passenger listing for the Anglo-American, arriving in Boston from Liverpool on March 27, 1849; image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Falling Into the Gap

 

Have you ever celebrated finding a new record set, and set about scouring its contents for your ancestors, only to discover there's a gap in the collection, right where your ancestor should have been?

I've had that happen several times before, and seeking the passenger listings for my father-in-law's Stevens and Kelly families, it looks like I'm about to see that happen once again.

Let's just say that experience has cooled my enthusiasm for jumping right into the fray when I find a new online collection. I've learned to stop and consider what, exactly, is available within each collection I'm about to examine.

Based on the Declaration of Intent for John Stevens, an immigration document he filed in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, he claimed to have arrived in the United States at the port in New Orleans. An unexpected route for an Irish immigrant right in the midst of the famine back in his homeland, John Stevens' itinerary might have been for an entirely different reason than that of his fellow countrymen.

While I can't yet determine the route taken by his future wife's family—I have yet to find any immigration documents for the James Kelly family that I can say with assurance belong to the right individuals—I suspect they may have taken the same route as John Stevens. After all, what would have caused them to end up in the early 1850s at the same small town in western Indiana, other than the logical conveyance by river navigation?

Still, no matter where I've looked for John Stevens in record collections for the port of New Orleans—and, at the same time, searched for the Kelly family—I've come up short. Let's review the reasons why and see if anything has changed since the last time I attempted this search.

First, I review the resources available online—since I won't be traveling to do in-person research any time soon. My first stop is usually to check out the FamilySearch wiki. While the overview of the collection seems promising—the digitized records from the National Archives cover the years from 1820 through 1945—there are some caveats which already are sending me warning signs.

One warning, for instance, comes from the observation that the earliest records were handwritten, making it possible that, in transcription or indexing, the writing could have been misread. A second caution comes from the realization that all information recorded was gleaned from passenger reports. A false report, of course, leads to incorrect information. Even if the passengers reported all details correctly, there was always room for the possibility of clerical error. Combined, this cautions me that I might have to read through those handwritten passenger names, myself, line by line, if the usual search methods don't yield me an answer to my search query.

While the overview on the FamilySearch wiki for New Orleans passenger records is helpful, that is not the only place I look. Of course, I'm certainly pleased that Ancestry.com also includes two record sets on New Orleans passenger lists in their holdings, which glean microfilmed material from several sources. And just in case one resource incorrectly identified my ancestors' entries—hey, this happens—not only can I jump from the records at FamilySearch to Ancestry to compare notes, but I can also check out the same material from the Louisiana Secretary of State's website.

Yes, having resources in more that one place can be cause to celebrate, but let's not get too hasty yet, shall we? After all, we have yet to actually do the work of searching for our Stevens and Kelly names in those records. And there is one more caution to keep in mind. This I found, courtesy of a finding aid compiled by the ever-helpful Joe Beine on the German Roots site online, where he notes that those Ancestry.com lists I mentioned come "with some gaps."

Guess where the gaps are?

Granted, some of the gaps may have occurred before or after our Kelly family arrived in America—and other gaps have inspired work-arounds for those critical years of 1851 and 1852. However, because some of the handwritten material may require a thorough—remember the term, "reasonably exhaustive"?—search, before jumping into such a project, it is always good to review the fine print to see if we are still headed in the right research direction.

Passengers and Ports of Entry

 

Sometimes, to track down an elusive ancestor, we need to rethink the entire research puzzle. In the case of William Stevens' mother—the unfortunate Catherine Kelly we discussed yesterday—I am stuck with only a part of her information. Yet I can't seem to fill in the rest of the blanks on her immigrant story.

From very tenuous sources, I've been able to determine that Catherine's parents might have been James and Mary Kelly. At least for Mary Kelly, we've been able to spot her in her children's census entry in 1860—in the same household where the motherless William and his two older brothers also lived. It was only from an old transcription of a now-defunct cemetery in Lafayette where I might have gleaned the correct name for a Mary Kelly's husband: James.

What seems strange to me is that I cannot seem to locate either the Kelly family or Catherine's husband, John Stevens, in the 1850 census, in the area in Indiana where they later settled. Nor yet can I find them in any ship's passenger records between that census date and 1854, the year Catherine gave birth to her oldest son, James. The presumption, of course, is that Catherine and John Stevens were married after they both arrived in Indiana—but where are the marriage records? It would be nice to fix a date to this event.

Furthermore, just how did they arrive in Lafayette, Indiana? Many researchers, starting out, assume most immigrants arrived at New York harbor—or, given the affinity of the Irish for the city of Boston, consider that second option. The truth is that there were many ports up and down the Atlantic seaboard which welcomed in immigrants, depending on the time period.

The trouble is, in the case of either the Kelly family or John Stevens, that sought after arrival record might not be found in the passenger records for any of those Atlantic ports. From a copy of the first immigration form completed by John Stevens in Lafayette—his Declaration of Intention—he indicated that his port of arrival was actually New Orleans.

Could John have traveled with the Kelly family? Is it possible that he met them in passage from his native Ireland? He gave a date for his arrival, along with the identification of his port of arrival, and yet, I've never been able to locate a record of his arrival in New Orleans in any ship's records. Nor, following this line of reasoning, have I been able to find any possible mentions of a Kelly family.

There are several reasons why, on my last attempt to find these individuals, I may have fallen short of my goal. For one, seeking names as common as Kelly and Stevens present a challenge, especially when so many names were listed only with an initial instead of given name. More challenging than that, though, is the fact that last time I looked, there were several gaps in the records for that time period I'm interested in.

Still, records keep getting added to digitized collections, and it is always worth the effort to re-check those places which we've searched before, after a span of several years. It is likely time to explore what can be found about New Orleans passenger records now, and see if there have been any updates since I last passed this research way.

Finding the Place Once Called Home

 

Finding the specific place of origin for our immigrant ancestors can be challenging. 

While as a general guide, we may know that an ancestor came from, say, Russia, when we consider just how large that country of origin might have been, we realize the size of the challenge facing us in our hope of narrowing the search to a specific city.

Furthermore, over time, locations sometimes underwent a change of identity—or even disappeared entirely—especially in war-torn regions and areas with border changes. And there is the burden of translating a place name from its spoken sound in one language to the way others heard the pronunciation, as rendered by the immigrant arriving in the new country.

So the question is: now that we've seen seaman Michael Melnitchenko arrive safely back at his home port in New York after the second World War, can we depend on the only two records we've found which reported his place of birth? Though the answer on each of the two documents we've found is different, at least they both approximate the same pronunciation. Let's see if that hint leads us to Michael's place of origin.

The first record we had found which provided a birth place for Michael Melnitchenko was a World War II draft registration card. Admittedly, I had my doubts that the card really was for our Michael. Though the middle name given had been poorly transcribed—as "Juan" instead of the more likely "Ivan"—the option of Ivan could have been an Americanized form of the patronym that Michael, as a typical Russian, might have used. But since the date of birth seemed to agree with other records, I'm willing to sweep all questions aside, at least while we explore the possibilities of a place of birth.

That first record stated Michael's place of birth was a city named "Nikolaiev, Russia."

The second mention we found was the passenger record listing his arrival back in New York City as a repatriated seaman, following the attack on the ship for which he had served as chief officer in 1943. That passenger record identified Michael's place of birth as "Necolaeff, Russia."

The problem was, once I tried finding either city in current records, I came up with zero results. There is no city called Nikolaiev, nor is there one called Necolaeff.

However, there is one city which could possibly substitute for those spelling variations, if we make a few allowances. The first is that we consider the phonetic similarities between the two spellings, and play loose with those details. The second is that we realize what the ears of English-speaking people might hear as the final syllable "-eff" might more likely be transliterated from a Russian spelling equivalent to "-ev."

One last detail: the only city name I could squeeze into a shape approximating either of our two options happened to be in a different country. That country, however, had long been occupied by Russia, thus rendering some cities in that country not one name, but two.

Thus, the seaport the Ukrainians call Mykolaiv was known for the entire time of Russian occupation as Nikolaev. 

If that was indeed the place of origin for our Michael Melnitchenko, there are some details which seem to corroborate this discovery. First of all, Nikolaev's long-standing history as a seaport and major ship-building center could possibly be the influence that led Michael to choose his occupation. Perhaps he followed in the footsteps of his own father. Given the position of Nikolaev in relation to the Russian Empire's ample grain exports from the nearby steppes, international commercial activity flourished by the late nineteenth century.

Another encouraging corroboration was that, despite the city being within what we now call Ukraine, at the time when Michael was born, almost two thirds of the city considered their ethnicity to be Russian, not Ukrainian. In all the documents identifying Michael Melnitchenko as a crew member of ocean-going vessels, he consistently reported himself to be Russian, and to speak the Russian language. Growing up in a city with such a history would seem plausible.

Of course, finding any records of Michael's family in such a city would present a challenge, as the government in charge of collecting those records is not the governmental body now responsible for that area. Furthermore, we can already surmise from the date of his daughter Genia's birth in France—January 6, 1924—that Michael and his wife had to have left Nikolaev some time before that point. Given the impetus of the Russian Revolution, the Melnitchenkos may have vacated their homeland long before Genia's birth.

There is one other detail which needs to be addressed, however: just how a seaman from the Russian Empire's Ukrainian coast came to marry a woman whose place of birth was on the very opposite side of the Black Sea.

 

Above: Excerpt from the November 23, 1943, passenger record of the S.S. John Rutledge, showing the entry for repatriated seaman Michael Melnitchenko, giving his place of birth as "Necolaeff." Image courtesy Ancestry.com.

 

In the Suicide Corner

 

Out of the haze of my memories of high school history class I can still recall one documentary film which captured my attention. It was one clever researcher's attempt to piece together the literary descriptions embedded within Homer's Odyssey to discern the actual locations along that fantastical journey.

While some people may be able to do so, I've always found it difficult to trace descriptions of others' navigation reports. Unfortunately, after all these years, I am still no better equipped at guessing just where people have traveled, despite detailed descriptions.

So it is with the mariner's report embedded in the biography of Captain Erich Richter, master of the ill-fated S.S. Richard Olney, once the ship arrived from New York at the north African port of Oran. Granted, the stated mission was to arrive at Salerno, Italy, only days after the historic Salerno landings of the Allied invasion of Italy. But what had been decided at the start of the mission was not what was to unfold, once the Richard Olney left port.

According to the captain's notes written on September 19, 1943, the Richard Olney was carrying explosives, ammunition, cordite, aviation fuel, and other supplies. According to reports from other sources, apparently the Olney was also transporting a field artillery battalion of the 34th U.S. Infantry division. As a troopship—in other words, a commercial shipping vessel used during wartime to convey soldiers—the Richard Olney would not have been able to actually land at a seaport at their destination, but would have had to unload their cargo and troops onto other smaller vessels such as barges, once they arrived at Salerno.

The Richard Olney left Oran as part of a convoy, a formation employed to provide protection from enemy fire. Each ship in the convoy was assigned a specific position in one of two columns. The Olney was directed to take position number thirteen—last ship in the first column, dubbed the "suicide corner."

By September 21, the captain noted receipt of a message from the convoy commander that submarines had been spotted in their vicinity. Orders to each ship in the convoy required keeping a tight formation, but in the midst of the journey, the ship directly in front of the Olney's final position was losing contact with the convoy, and the Olney attempted to reconnect with the ships and escort vessels ahead.

Consulting with navigation tools, the captain determined that the ship needed to readjust its course, for fear they would not "clear Fratelli Rocks." This is where the report lost me in the navigation description. The only "Fratelli Rocks" reference I could find would have put the ship's route passing south of Sicily on their way to Salerno—if, of course, Richter's "Fratelli Rocks" referred to "Scoglio Due Fratelli" or "Two Brothers Rocks." 

That, however, was not the problem soon to face them, as subsequent convoy orders changed the course for about one hour, and then again, through the night, navigation directions adjusted according to signs of threats lurking in the water.

It was at 7:55 a.m. on September 22 when a sudden blast ripped through the Olney from starboard, continuing into the engine room, the force of which buckled the plates on the port side of the ship. The captain, assessing the damage, determined the ship would not sink, and signaled for assistance from nearby ships. A British escort ship provided a tow, and the Olney was brought to port at Bizerte.

While the troops aboard eventually were transported to their destination on the S.S. John Fiske along with the Olney's cargo, a skeleton crew remained with the Richard Olney in port at Bizerte until they could be "repatriated" for service on other vessels. That—and the fuller description I gleaned from the biography written by the captain's daughter, Ursula McCafferty—provided the rest of the story explaining why my godmother's father, Michael Melnitchenko, left New York a crew member on the S.S. Richard Olney, but returned to New York as a passenger on another vessel.

Before the Mission

 

It is always exciting to stumble upon personal details of an ancestor's life which reveal closeness to action confirmed by reports of world history. Discovering that my godmother's father Michael Melnitchenko, chief officer of the S.S. Richard Olney in 1943, endured a harrowing brush with wartime destruction aboard ship, makes me want to discover more about that experience. I want to know what brought him to that fateful moment, and what the plan had been, had the mission gone as planned.

Before we can discuss details of the mission of the Liberty Ship S.S. Richard Olney, though, we need to realize many other plans needed to fall into place—and to do so in a systematic sequence. Here are those many preparatory steps.

The Liberty Ship S.S. Richard Olney was launched January 22, 1943. Sometime before the end of March, 1943, when Captain Erich Richter took charge of the ship, the Richard Olney was berthed in New York harbor, having recently arrived there from Santiago, Cuba. At that point, Michael Melnitchenko was not among those listed as crew members, and I am not able to locate any record of his having been added at that early date.

However, by the time of the ship's crisis on September 22, 1943, Michael was serving as chief officer, according to his written report of the morning's incident. The S.S. Richard Olney was part of a convoy in the Mediterranean, headed to Salerno in the wake of the Allies' invasion of Italy.

Every step along the way to that destination required several other steps to have been successfully cleared out of the way, before the Richard Olney could even begin to enter the Mediterranean Sea. 

Awaiting the right moment to begin their own mission, in September 1943, the Richard Olney had been berthed at the port of Oran in present-day Algeria—but shortly before that, at the start of the second World War, that wouldn't have been possible. 

For one thing, the Mediterranean had effectively been closed to merchant marine traffic since 1941, due to Axis control of the area. In addition, Algeria had been part of French North Africa. But early in the war, France had fallen to the Germans, which impacted the French territories of northern Africa as well, effectively closing off Allied access to the Mediterranean. Operation Torch began clearing those formerly French holdings from the Axis powers, enabling the Allies access to key African ports, including the Algerian port of Oran and ports in nearby Tunisia, including Bizerte, in May of 1943.

That, in turn, cleared the way for Allied forces to mount an attack of nearby Sicily in July from those north African ports, further securing Allied access to Mediterranean waters, and especially paving the way for invasion of Italy. That final operation was what brought the crew of the S.S. Richard Olney to land there in Oran, preparing for and awaiting further orders in September, 1943.

Above map: the plan for the September 1943 Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno, following which the S.S. Richard Olney was to join a second convoy from Oran; colorized version of map courtesy Wikipedia from original government document; in the public domain.

  

With the Rarest of Names

 

In the field of genealogy, the discovery of an unusual surname can seem like a gift: a name which only a few can claim, it provides a wide open playing field, uncluttered by competing possibilities.

Not so, I am finding out, with the surname Manouiloff. That was the married name of the woman listed as my godmother Genia's aunt on the passenger records of their 1947 arrival in Virginia. Alexandra Manouiloff was the name given as that of the closest relative, outside of the United States, of Genia's mother Lydia Melnitchenko. Alexandra, according to that report, still lived in Marseilles, the city Lydia and Genia had just left for good.

My first thought was to wonder whether Lydia's sister remained in France, or whether she would eventually consider moving to America, as well. So, of course, I took a look to see whether any other family members eventually joined Lydia in her move to become a United States citizen.

As it turned out, I did find a few details on the woman. But only a very few. Perhaps this name was turning out to be a bit too rare.

First, arriving in New York on the French ship Liberte on May 19, 1958, was a woman named exactly that: Alexandra Manouiloff. Unfortunately, the only other detail affixed to her typewritten entry on the passenger list was her passport number and the term "Stateless." Sadly, this was not one of the forms for which the magic of flipping the page would reveal the secrets we are eager to uncover.

The second discovery was a typewritten index card for those who had filed petitions for naturalization with the federal district court in New York City. The card did, thankfully, squeeze in a few useful details, unlike some on which I have seen not much more than the person's name entered. From this card dated June 20, 1966, we learn not only Alexandra's petition number as well as alien registration number, but also her current address and date of birth.

That October 12, 1899, birth date came in handy for matching up those two sparse records with the sole remaining one I could find: her entry in the Social Security Death Index. Rather, let's make that "his" entry, as the given name recorded was not Alexandra, but Alexander. However, with the gift of finding that same birthday—October 12, 1899—combined with what we will soon come to see as the very unusual spelling of her surname, I believe it is safe to assume it was Alexandra who died in August of 1966, not long after her petition for naturalization was recorded as having been received.

Was there any obituary? Not that I can find. Facing the tedium of sorting through New York State death records—especially those originating from the fiefdom of New York City—will likely be something I'll need to consider. I can't even find a place of burial at this point. And, other than her sister's family, certainly not any indication of who might have been left to mourn her loss.

Such is sometimes the fate of searches for surnames which seem a bit too rare. But I'm not satisfied to leave the search just yet. As we've done with so many other surnames in the past, let's see what can be found by taking our research question outside the sheltered realm of genealogy and into the broader orbit of the Internet at large. 

With the Flip of a Page

 

Sometimes, it seems we struggle so hard to capture the exact picture of our family's history—and then other times, we reach the solution as easily as if it were just the flip of a page.

When I first started working on my godmother's family tree—a project I thought was hopeless, since everyone I knew in that family had long since passed away—one silly goal I had kept almost as if my own little secret was that I wanted to see if Genia had any relatives still alive.

That type of search simply wouldn't have become a possibility if it hadn't been for the massive digitization of government documents, newspapers and other publications. The search capabilities we have at our fingertips now would have been startling science fiction only a few decades ago. But then, we have to give credence to the warnings of "operator error," as well, for despite the powerhouses we now command as part of our modern search capabilities, sometimes the solution to our research dilemma can still be as simple as turning over a page.

That, in fact, was the only barrier standing between me and the beginning of discovering a possible answer to my question: who were Genia's relatives?

Let me take you back to that passenger list for the S.S. William Ford Nichols, arriving at the port of Norfolk, Virginia, on April 21, 1947. That was the document where I had discussed the additional handwritten comments at the bottom of the page, explaining that "stateless" passengers Lydia and Genia Melnitchenko had used for identification a document called a Nansen passport.

We already know, from the many other records we had found for Genia and her mother, that these two lines in the alien passenger listing referred to the right people. Just last week, in fact, we had flipped the page on Lydia's husband's arrival in New York City after that horrifying torpedo attack to see that her former address in Marseilles was indeed confirmed.

Here, at last, Genia and Lydia had arrived in the United States to stay for good, it seemed, after decades of facing up to what must have seemed like continual warfare. But just like any other alien arriving on our shores, the immigration officials wanted to collect details about who was coming in, and where they had come from. 

In the case of this 1947 passenger list, the address of a significant other from the "old" country was not showing on the page we had already viewed. That, however, could be had for the simple flip of a page—but had I already done that? Of course not. At that point, I was looking for other details. The logical next step had slipped my mind while I was on another research trail.

Finally returning to do my due diligence in the nosy researcher department, I found an unexpected gem. I had somehow thought that any address given by Lydia or her daughter would have referred to her seafaring husband, wherever he was residing at the time. That, as it turned out, was not the case.

The address Lydia provided was for someone else living in Marseilles, the city she had just left on her final voyage to America. The address was written as "3 Impasse Bombinette" but of course, I couldn't just accept that recording of the information. I had to look it up for myself, which was a good way to double-check details.

What is still existent in Marseilles is a winding dead-end alley called Impasse des Bombinettes. I doubt the numbering system still remains the same, but already I could tell from the map of that geographic area that this road was not far from the address which Michael Melnitchenko had recently given as Lydia's own residence in Marseilles.

The address, though, was something I was only mildly curious about. What I really was keen on seeing was the added note above the name and address given: it was marked "sister."

Lydia's sister was named "Mrs. Alexandra Manouiloff." Whether that was a phonetic transcription of what an American government official thought he heard an aging, travel-weary, twice-displaced immigrant say in possibly-mispronounced French, I can't tell. But you can hardly expect me to wait around for a response to such a conjecture. I'm now off to see whether I can find any documents containing a name like Alexandra's.