Little Lost Angel

I am too impatient, and just can’t wait for the appropriate back story to reveal itself before posting this picture. Isn’t she a little cherub? Who is this lost angel?

Edna Tully McCaughey provided plenty of explanation on the back of the photograph. I’ve done the best I could to decipher the note and search for the names, but I am finding no leads. So, here’s the splat of it. I’m hoping someone online will find this darling a genealogical home.

Edna McCaughey’s handwriting had a few quirks, like occasionally curling the last flourish of her “r” inward instead of the customary outward curve. She must have written some notes in a hurry, for she tended to leave out a letter in some of the longer words (see “daughter” in the scan). I have my guesses about most of this message, which I’ll note below, but since I’ve made no progress following these genealogical directions, I’m copying and posting the original text as written.

As far as I can tell, the note looks like:

Vivian Lester Bromley

Daughter of

Aunt Marie [,] Grandma Ryan

half sister

Two daughters of former

marriage

Kitty Coffee

Margie Hansen

--ths half sister of Grandma Ryan

Bromley? Coffee? Hansen? Any takers for these surnames?

Who is “Aunt Marie”? I have not been able to find any record, so far, showing that “Grandma Ryan”—who would be Mary Ann Sullivan—had any half-sisters.

Any idea who this young angel is, whose tentative pose has forever been captured by A. Morse, photographer, of Irving Park, Chicago?

Help?

Does Anastasia Prefer Being Called Ann?

Sometimes I am most certain that family lines do not organize themselves like branches in a tree, but rather as strands in a spider web. Yesterday, I found another feathery wisp. Though it does not explain the how of the connection, I think it explains the what. And that is enough of a start for me.

Working on the photographs in a collection on loan to me from the descendants of Edna Tully McCaughey, my husband’s paternal grandmother’s cousin and bridesmaid, I had found a picture bearing two different inscriptions. I recently posted on the first label—that for “cousin Agnes” who turned out to be a Dockery—but I also mentioned that the inscription on the reverse continued with what seemed to be a totally different family.

The inscription added to the bottom of the photo explained, “Aunt Ann McCabe children Pete, John, Sarah.”

Admittedly, these lines are not part of my husband’s family, but the lines of in-laws—what I learned in fun from my cousin to call “outlaws”—so it is understandable that these names would not ring any bells for me. Since these were Edna’s photographs, I had to look at them from the vantage point of Edna’s relationships. I knew that Edna’s maternal grandmother, the widowed Mary Ann Sullivan Swanton (who later married a man in Indiana named Edward Ryan) had a sister Julia, who married Michael Dockery and moved to Wisconsin, the source for this photograph. That would explain the photo’s first label, “Cousin Agnes.”

However, I didn’t know where this Ann would come in, the woman named in the second label for the same photo. Could she be a sister of Mary Ann and Julia? I couldn’t find one. Or could she be a sibling of Julia’s husband? If so, that would be yet another step away from the center of my web, too many iterations of the inlaw-of-inlaws chain. At that point, I decided to just set things aside.

Then I got to another photo with an inscrutable inscription—another one of those listings that seemed to lump two separate families together as one. While pondering that one (which I’ve given up on explaining and will just post “as is”), I accidentally stumbled on a possible answer for this Aunt Ann.

Borrowing from someone else’s online work, I found a viable explanation: Mary Ann and Julia must have, indeed, had a sister Anastasia, who according to one descendant’s posting online, preferred to be called Ann. And voilà! She did indeed marry a gentleman whose surname was McCabe, and three of her children were named Peter, John and Sarah.

An added bonus: they lived, during the 1860s, in Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada, which opens up some possibilities for other photograph mysteries I’ve yet to tackle in this collection.

Photograph courtesy retired Wikipedia user Fir002 under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2.

More Babies

Margaret Tully

Here are two more baby pictures: one of a subject I am aware of, one who remains a mystery. Though I’ve obtained them from a collection of photos generally well-labeled, these two say precious little about their subjects.

Both of these photographs are from the collection on loan to me from Edna Tully McCaughey’s family, so they both supposedly sport subjects related to that line. Or do they?

The first one is labeled “Margaret Tully at the age of 3.” Smiling babies make me happy, too, and this little Margaret seems to have such a cheery disposition. However, just knowing that she could be one of several possible Margaret Tullys does cause my brow to furrow a bit. But only a bit. I am hoping that this Tully family, as they did for their other children’s baby pictures, likes to keep these remembrances on hand. The photographer, at least, remains the same as that of some other family pictures—though the insignia for C. W. Lindner on Commercial Avenue in Chicago is certainly less ornate than the others I’ve seen on subsequent portraits.

As much as I know about this Margaret Tully, I don’t know about the subject of the next photograph. Though it bears the legend, “Edward at 6 mo.,” on the reverse, I have yet to find any baby Edward among this Tully family’s relatives. I’ve looked at the related lines for Edna’s aunts on her Sullivan side, and also among the Tully relatives for Edna’s father, William. No Edward.

The photograph was taken at a Chicago studio. The company’s inscription is hard to read, and appears to be Siegel (or Liegel) Cooper. There are no other photographs in this collection bearing that insignia that I’ve found so far, which makes me wonder if this is the only picture sent from this family to Edna’s parents. This may be a mystery that remains unsolved. And yet, in searching for the answer on this one, I’ve found the answer to another riddle.

But I’ll leave that one for another day.

Firsts

Margaret Tully 1882-1936

In honor of the launching of a new blog—The Catholic Gene, courtesy of a splendid cast of genealogists including Cecile Wendt Jensen, Craig Manson, Miss Penelope…er, Denise Levenick, Donna Pointkouski, Lisa A. Alzo, Sheri Fenley, Steve Danko—I thought I’d dig through my own assortment of First Communion pictures and share a few.

These aren’t exactly my pictures. They’re actually from my husband’s Tully ancestors’ relatives, obtained from the collection on loan to me from the descendants of Edna Tully McCaughey. Thankfully, now that I’ve spent a little time researching these “outlaw” family lines, I know a bit about these people. But not much. The hope is that those who are descended from these featured subjects will be able to fill in the blanks, and enjoy a digital copy of the photographs, if they don’t already have one.

The one person I do know something about is the subject of this first photograph. Edna makes the note on the back of the picture: “Margaret Tully’s first communion picture.” Though I’ve already told you the story of my dreadful attempt to sort through the many Margaret Tullys in this family line, I’m fairly certain in this case that this is Edna’s older sister.

Ann and Thomas Clifford

I learned a little about the Clifford family in preparing for a blog post the other day, and this photograph goes along with that family’s story. Edna writes on the back of this card, “Mother’s sister Ellen (Nell) Clifford’s children Ann and Tom.” Ann and Tom were the older two of the Clifford children in the photograph included with a recent post.

While I’m not Catholic, myself, I certainly can say I’ve benefited from the record-keeping diligence of Catholic clergy through the ages and through all the states, as I’ve followed the trail of my husband’s Catholic ancestors upon their arrival in this new land. Thank God that births, sacraments, and yes, even deaths, were held in high importance in the eyes of these faithful leaders. While they kept their records in service to their God, they have also handed to us a faithful representation of the lives of those we seek to better know in our own family lines.

My best wishes to the creators, initiators, fellow conspirators and inspired writers of The Catholic Gene's staff. Your publication will certainly fill a void and serve an important role for those seeking to know more about their Catholic roots.

Tully’s Three Sons

John Felix Tully 1875-1880

I think we have little concept of the difficulties of life even one hundred years ago. I am reminded of such dire realities when I look at the 1900 census and can’t seem to find those who were detailed as mere children in the previous available census.

Sadly, I find what may be the remembrances of such children in the photo collection of Edna Tully McCaughey. Here are three young ones and the pathetic little bit I can find on each of them.

According to the 1900 United States census, in which Edna’s mother Sarah was already widowed, Sarah was listed as the mother of eight children. Unfortunately, by that time, she had already lost four of them.

Firstborn John, named perhaps after his father William’s older brother, was born in 1875. He was listed in the 1880 census transcription under the name “John T. Tulley,” living in South Chicago as of the enumeration on June 15, 1880. The inscription on the back of his photograph started in ink: “John Tully, little son of William and Sarah Tully,” but sadly continued in pencil, “died at age 5; First born.”

Because of spelling variations at the time, and due to the many people bearing that name, I never was sure of the many entries in the online death record listings at the Illinois Archives. However, there is, indeed, one for a “John F. Tully” who died at 5 years of age on July 24, not much after that 1880 census was taken. Taking a look at the digital copy of the census (rather than the transcription, which listed middle initial “T”), that name did show an overwritten middle initial, making it possible that the census was showing “F” as the middle initial, in agreement with the death record.

I found a digital copy of the death certificate for that date, and the middle name is spelled out as Felix. Another wrinkle surfaces in that the place of death was 93^rd Street in South Chicago, while father William Tully’s census address showed as South Chicago Avenue. Yet the age seems to fit. There were others in the Tully family who may have lived at 93^rd Street at the time; given their proclivity to keep using the same given names, I wonder if this might have been for a cousin. The cemetery listed on the certificate, Calvary in Evanston, did have other Tully family members buried there. No parents’ names were listed on the death certificate, making the results inconclusive.

LeRoy F. Tully 1885-1889

After the birth of three daughters, William and Sarah had their next son Leroy, sometimes called simply, “Roy.” Ten years after the birth of his older brother, Roy arrived on the scene June 4, 1885. While there is no somber memorial inked on the back of his young likeness, the Illinois Archives show death certificate number 11130 in Cook County has the date of death for a four-year-old Leroy Tully to be July 12, 1889. Looking at FamilySearch.org to see a copy of the certificate, I discover the collection evidently skips over that number—and several others—so there is no way to visually verify address or any other of the meager set of identifiers made available on death certificates of that time. I can’t tell for sure if this was William and Sarah’s little “Roy.” However, there is no record of him in subsequent census reports.

William and Sarah’s next baby was, again, a boy, whom they named after his father. He was born August 24, 1887, on 93^rd Street “near Marquette Av.,” handily confirming the change of address that had caused me some doubt for the death certificate of his oldest brother. This younger William Earl Tully was fated to the same end as his older brothers. The inked note on the back of this photo, “Wm. Earl Tully, little son of Wm. & Sarah Tully” was once again followed by a sad, penciled-in postscript: “died at age 5 yrs. in 1893.”

William Earl Tully Jr. 1887-1892

That, however, was not quite correct, according to the death certificate I found online. Little William did not quite make it to his fifth birthday, which in any event would have been in 1892.

Then, again, perhaps this was not his record. After all, I wasn’t able to find anything online for brother Roy’s passing. And this record bore a different address: 9216 Commercial Avenue.

Before the loss of this third son, William and Sarah became proud parents of a daughter—Edna, the one who, as a very capable grown woman and mother, preserved many of the records I now benefit from in my research. I wonder if Edna remembered anything about her next-oldest sibling, her brother William. She would have been barely two years old when he passed away.

I wondered, also, if Edna’s birth certificate could verify whether the record I found for William really was the right one. I looked, but once again, a gap must have occurred in storing online records. Nothing in sight for Edna, as far as birth records showed. However, happily, the family didn’t stop with baby Edna. Her younger sister, Esther, still sports an online birth record, which thankfully confirms the family’s change of address to Commercial Avenue, though sadly reveals that her birth came two days on the heels of her brother William’s death.

It wasn’t long after Esther’s birth that the elder William, himself, passed away, leaving his wife to raise her remaining four daughters. It is no surprise that a woman in those circumstances at that time would rely heavily on her extended family, church family, and good neighbors to make it through the challenges of daily life in late 1890s Chicago. She would have had no alternative.

Baby Face

Baby Sarah, Thomas and Anna Clifford

Do you like your own baby pictures? I thought Google had an answer for everything, but when I posed that question to their magical search box, they let me down. I’ll have to go on mere intuition here: it’s my hunch that some do, some don’t.

In the Tully-and-related-friends collection I’ve been studying, however, there were evidently a lot of people who liked their children’s pictures enough to save them. For generations.

After all, what’s to see in a baby picture? A round face, bald head, nondescript near-smile, and hopefully wide-open trusting eyes—at least not the squalling, red-faced variety that announces nonverbally that his little highness is not pleased with how the photographic sitting is going.

On the other hand, there is quite a bit of fun to the sport of pulling out the prior generation’s baby pictures and seeing if that nose or forehead really does take after Uncle Elmer’s.

Out of the many baby pictures shared in the collection loaned to me, I selected this set to show with today’s post, not only because I can offer a before-and-after comparison, but because I already had found some genealogy research online for this family. In fact, I’ve emailed in the past with one member of this family as we’ve collectively worked on our Tully connections.

On the back of the first picture, original owner Edna Tully McCaughey wrote: “Mama’s sister Ellen Clifford, called Aunt Nell; three children Ann, Tom and baby Sarah, called Sadie.”

“Mama,” of course, was Sarah Swanton Tully. Her sister, Ellen, married an Irishman named Patrick J. Clifford. They raised their family near Chicago in the area just over the Indiana state border known as Valparaiso. Since there were only three children listed in this note, the photograph must have been taken some time between late 1886, the year baby Sadie was born, and August of 1890, when the next child, Grace Helen, was born.

In a way, it feels strange to gaze at baby pictures of children now long gone. The oldest child, born in 1883, succumbed to tuberculosis in 1923. Thomas, the young boy seated in the center of the picture, married, had a namesake son, and lived a long life, passing away in 1970.

Sarah (Sadie) Clifford Skibbie

And then there is baby Sadie. Though seeming to retain what might be called a baby face into her teen years, Sadie grew into a lovely young lady, becoming the bride of Albert T. Skibbie. Together, they raised a family of four daughters and a son. (Another son, Robert, died in infancy.)

Looking at the childhood pose of these three Cliffords reminds me that, whether you like your own baby pictures or not, someday someone may be showing them off to people who were not even born before it comes time for you to pass from the scene. So don’t be selfish and hide those pictures. Sport that cranky likeness or fuzzy head. Someday, other generations will be charmed to get to know a little more about you.

About All Those Margarets

Oh, for the discernment to know which Margaret Tully is the one referred to in each specific instance! This Tully line starts with Irish immigrants Denis and Margaret Flannery Tully, arriving in Ontario, Canada, from Ireland sometime before 1850. This couple names one of their daughters Margaret—becoming the first of the Margaret Tullys that I find incomprehensible…or at least unfindable.

Denis and Margaret have three sons—Patrick, John and William—who each proceed to name one daughter Margaret.

Margaret Tully score at this point: five.

That is not to infer that the elder Margaret didn’t have other namesakes among her descendants. Denis and Margaret’s daughter Johanna, marrying a Ryan, names one of her daughters Margaret. Johanna’s sons James and Dennis follow suit and each name a daughter Margaret, too. And elder Denis and Margaret’s son Patrick’s daughter Margaret names her only child Margaret. Patrick’s brother John—the one in our direct family line—has one son who bestows Margaret as a middle name to his only daughter.

Think that’s enough Margarets to brew a storm of confusion?

And now, we tread tentatively into the research for today’s featured photograph….

Margaret Tully Dempsey

Our subject is listed simply as “Coz Maggie Dempsey.” Maggie, of course, is nickname for Margaret. I’m fortunate to already know that Maggie is the nickname used for the mother in this family rather than the daughter, who is also baptized Margaret. Her nickname, thankfully, deviates from the norm to help alleviate mix-ups: she is usually called Rita.

So I can presume it is safe to proceed with some information on this particular Margaret.

The Margaret in this picture was born in the Canadian village of Paris, in Brant County, Ontario. Her year of birth is alternately presented as 1866 or 1868, depending on which census record you choose to believe. She emigrated from there in either 1868 or 1878, although I’ve even seen a transcription showing the date as 1888, which also happens to be the year of her marriage, in Chicago, to Michael Dempsey. (My personal favorite is 1868, for reasons I won’t delve into here.)

Margaret was the eldest child of Patrick and Mary Tully. (Mary, her mother, due to transcription issues, can be said to have sported the maiden name of either Hogan or Horan—yet another wrinkle in keeping things straight in this family line.) Four children were to follow her birth—three brothers and a sister—though I’ve had a dickens of a time trying to find out much more on these younger siblings, other than to note that they all made the move from Ontario to Chicago with Margaret and their parents.

Margaret’s intended, Michael Edward Dempsey, was actually an orphan from St. Louis. I’m not sure what brought him to Chicago, but through the years, he and two of his siblings (Hattie and Anna) crossed paths—or perhaps followed each other—as they moved from state to state.

Margaret and Michael were married at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in South Chicago by Pastor Martin van de Laam on October 3, 1888. A couple years later, Michael’s sister Anna was married in the same parish, to James A. Davidson, an immigrant of Scottish descent who had settled recently in Joliet, Illinois.

Shortly thereafter, both couples move to Cincinnati, Ohio, where James and Anna become proud parents of daughter Adeline in February, 1893. Margaret gives birth to her own daughter in August of 1894, whom the Dempseys name (no surprise here) Margaret, or Rita for short.

Somewhere in between Adeline’s birth and Rita’s birth, the family story is overshadowed by sadness. Eight month old Adeline suddenly loses her mother, and for reasons I’ve yet to uncover, her father seems to disappear from the picture. Michael and Margaret, whether unofficially or legally, choose to adopt baby Adeline as their own, and the family unit from that time until their deaths remains intact with these four.

Along the way, briefly, they are joined by Michael’s sister Hattie until her death in 1900 in Ohio at the relatively young age of forty. Though the family moves from Ohio to California and back to Illinois, Michael and Maggie show up in census records with their two daughters—both remaining single for life, both serving as registered nurses in private duty. Though Rita passes away, not quite 47, in 1941, Adeline—the one whose mother and aunt both passed at relatively young ages—lives on to see her century mark.

For all I’ve been able to determine about Maggie from her family’s public records, there is little to nothing that I know about her private life. Though she predeceased her husband in March, 1933, I’ve yet to find even any obituary in the Chicago newspapers for her. This photograph, at least, provides a glimpse, however brief, into the life of this one Margaret Tully.