Olive and Rosebud Osborn, Teen Brides

The Osborn girls

From my husband's side of the family tree, I admire the romantic names of the Osborn sisters, as shown in their baptismal record at left, from 1868. The full names of these three sisters appear nowhere else but on their baptismal record! 

Harriet "Hattie" Verona Osborn was the oldest, Olive "Ollie" Violet Osborn was the middle girl, and Rosebud Charlotte Augusta was the youngest of the Osborn sisters. 

Olive gets married

On the 26th of April in 1874 in Toledo, Ohio, teenaged bride Olive Osborn (1856-1891) married William Henry White Wood (1853-1893). They were my hubby's great uncle and great aunt. 

When Olive married William, she was 17, her husband was 20.

Olive and Stephen, then Olive and William

This wasn't Olive's first marriage: In 1872, at only 15, she eloped to Detroit where she married Stephen Sylvester Babcock. Olive said she was 16, the minimum age to marry in Michigan at the time, and her older sister "Hattie" was a witness. No documentation of how that marriage was dissolved. Stephen married again later.  

Olive and William settled in Toledo and had a large family, their youngest born late in February, 1891. Sadly, Olive died in March of 1891 from "peripheral septicemia." William contracted typhoid some months later and died in 1893 from "typhoid relapse."

Rosebud and John

Rosebud married five months after her sister Olive, wed to John C. Werts in Toledo, Ohio in September, 1874. Although 16 was the minimum age to marry in Ohio, Rosebud was only 15. No record of her having a parent's consent to marry. She and John also raised their family in Toledo.

Thinking of Olive Osborn Wood and her husband, William Henry White Wood, on the anniversary of their wedding in 1874.

Tune Up Your Cousin Bait! VGA Birthday Party on April 27

 
This Sunday, you're invited to the FREE birthday party of the Virtual Genealogical Association. 

The party will feature a great lineup of genealogy presentations, from 1 pm to 5 pm Eastern time, on April 27th. Trivia games and prizes also! Free. 

For more information and to register for the Zoom link, see the announcement here.

My ten minute talk on cousin bait will begin about 1:30ish.

See you on Sunday!

New Indexes to Free NYC Digitized Vital Records

The New York City Municipal Archives has been digitizing old birth, marriage, and death records and posting them on this site for a while now. Not all years for all boroughs, but many are already posted and more are on the way. Free! 

The latest news: On April 11th, the city posted a set of indexes for the very first time, simplifying the process of locating the exact vital record.

New indexes! Part 1 of new search process

The indexes for NYC birth certs, death certs, marriage certs, and marriage licenses can be seen here. These online indexes streamline the entire process, still free.

Pick the index you want and start a search for the NAME of the person. Below, an example of a search for the birth certificate for Charles Lang. I entered his name in the search box. Results are displayed in ascending chronological order. The Charles Lang entry that I want is at the bottom, born in Manhattan, birth cert #22907, birth year 1906. 

This is part 1 of the search, so note those cert details or open another tab on your browser.

Part 2 of the search process

Now go to the NYC Muni search page for the type of cert you want, birth or marriage or death. This is part 2 of the search: Enter what you just learned from the index, as shown below in my sample search for a birth cert. Click the purple search button below the data entry boxes. 

The result

As shown in the image below, this search returns a color image, in a downloadable pdf format (printable as well). Vital records may not be available forever, so do grab a digital copy while you can. 

Free! No need to purchase a certified copy unless you have a special purpose in mind that requires certification. So first check the index, then do the cert search. In the old days (before the indexes), there was an extra step to this process to obtain the cert number, borough, and year. Usually those details can be found on Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc. 

FYI today, in April of 2025, FamilySearch does have these NYC vital records but the images are not visible from home, only in a FamilySearch library. And I want to eyeball the document image for myself, so I either use the free NYC Muni Archives or use my subscription to MyHeritage.

MyHeritage search - not free but really easy!

If you're a MyHeritage subscriber, like me, you are in great luck--MyHeritage has a unique collection of historic New York City vital records, with its own set of indexes and color scans of the certs. Plus MyHeritage indexes not only bride and groom but also the names of their parents!

Very easy searching. And the benefit of a full color image is that any marks or alterations on the certificate are quite obvious. See the example below from a MyHeritage search for a 1903 birth cert for my great uncle Fred. The magenta shows important corrections inserted years after this man's birth. Among other things, his birth was registered as female instead of male, his surname listed as Forkus instead of Farkas. Neither parent's name was correct either. But Fred straightened out all these details in 1942.

I can download and/or print the image, as well as connecting it to my family tree.

Happy ancestor hunting in the Big Apple!

PS FamilySearch image of Charles Lang birth cert is not in color. Same exact cert, not in color. 

1909 Easter Greetings from Toledo, Ohio

 
On April 8, 1909, this colorful Easter penny postal greeting was dropped in the mail and postmarked in Toledo, Ohio, bound for Cleveland, Ohio. I suspect the card arrived in time for Easter Sunday on April 11, 1909 because mail delivery was rather speedy back in those days.

The sender in Toledo was "Elton," actually Charles Elton Wood (1891-1951). The recipient in Cleveland was Elton's nephew, Wallis Walter Wood (1905-1957). Elton was 18 years old and his handwriting flowed! Wallis was not yet 4 years old but I'm sure he was happy to get pretty holiday cards. Who wouldn't be?

Happy Easter! 

Sarah Mahler Smith, Marital Expatriate

When my great aunt Sarah Sadie Mahler (1889-1974) got married in the Big Apple on April 16, 1912, she lost her US citizenship because her immigrant husband Samuel Smith (1889-1979) was not yet a naturalized US citizen.

Samuel (original name: Simon Solomowitz) was born in the city of Botosani, Romania, and came to New York City with his parents and siblings when he was a little boy. 

After they married in Manhattan, Sam and Sarah moved to Fort Edward, NY so he could work in the paper mills. By 1920, the Smith family was back in New York City, where Sam began working as a chauffeur. As shown in the 1925 New York Census excerpt at top, Sam became a US citizen in 1924 in New York City.

Sarah's citizenship status, however, was not affected by Sam's naturalization, because of the Cable Act of 1922, which separated the citizenship status of spouses. She was a "marital expatriate" - and decided, during World War II, to take steps to regain her US citizenship.

As shown here, Sarah filed Form NH-415, applying to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. She was once again a citizen after taking the oath on February 11, 1944. Sarah was outlived by all five of her children and her husband. Today I'm thinking of her on the anniversary of her marriage in April of 1912 (not 1911, as mistakenly shown on the oath document above). 

WikiTree Users Added 78,477 to Tree--I Added 75 Ancestors

During this past weekend's ConnectAThon XIV, the WikiTree community added 78,477 new names to the worldwide collaborative tree.

My personal total was 75 ancestors added over the course of the weekend, including many from my husband's Larimer family tree (which is quite extensive) and dozens of in-laws from my paternal aunts' side of the family. I 💜 in-laws!

Above, a profile I created for little Dorothy Goodfield, a premature baby who only lived four days. Dorothy was the maternal 1c of my aunt Miriam's husband, David Bourstein. I entered Dorothy's name, parents, siblings, and wrote a brief bio with the one source I have, without a lot of detail because I included the informative original source image.

Red arrows

At bottom right, the arrow is pointing to a sticker flagging Dorothy's profile as someone who "died young." She was one of five or six little ones who I flagged in this way, sadly, but with the hope that this helps keep her name and memory alive for the future. WikiTree provides a number of stickers like this to be added to profiles as appropriate. I insert them occasionally to highlight something significant related to the person's life or death.

At top left, the arrow is pointing to a death cert I downloaded for free from the New York City Municipal Archives. The cert names Dorothy's parents and their birthplaces, shows the baby's place of birth/death, details cause of death, and indicates place of burial as Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. This is the only proof I have of the baby's life and I wanted to share it, in full, for anyone interested in learning about her.

At top right, the arrow is pointing to "2 categories." This shows that I categorized Dorothy Goodfield in two ways: First, as being buried in Washington Cemetery, and second, as being of Jewish Roots. So if someone wants to see the profiles of people buried in that Brooklyn cemetery, they can click through and see the description and names here. Similarly, I added the Jewish Roots category because Dorothy's family was Jewish. 

Thank you to WikiTreers for camaraderie and fun during this intense weekend of adding profiles to grow the collaborative family tree in total beyond 41 million names.  

PS: Here's the "how to" page with more info about getting started on WikiTree.

Bartlett Larimer MD, Preceptor

Researching my husband's Larimer, Short, and Work ancestors (intermarried over decades), I've marveled at the family influence of Bartlett Larimer (1833-1892), an early physician in Indiana. Bartlett was a younger brother of hubby's 2d great grandfather, Brice S. Larimer. 

At top is an excerpt from the University of Michigan yearbook from 1869, showing John L. Short and William H. Short from Millersburg, Indiana are both medical students. "B. Larimee" is their preceptor.

Despite the small spelling mistake, this is clearly Bartlett Larimer supervising the medical studies (and maybe the internships) of his two nephews. 

Bartlett himself attended LaGrange Collegiate Institute in 1850, a prep school also attended by his brother David the following year (see alumni page at right). By 1853, Bartlett was studying at Wabash College before going on to University of Michigan. After graduating, he became the first physician in practice in Millersburg, Indiana, circa 1858. According to a news report in the Elkhart Truth, he was also a temperance advocate who personally paid lawyers to oppose any applications for saloon licenses in his town--successfully.

Three of Bartlett's nephews (including the two Short brothers listed in the image at top) became doctors and two became dentists. However, none of his own six sons and one daughter became either a doctor or a dentist. Bartlett died in his late 50s after a brief illness, much mourned in the family and the community.

This is my "mistake" post for Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors genealogy challenge of the week. 

National Library Week: I Heart My CT State Library

I 💙 my Connecticut State Library!

Just recently, the state library posted links to three of Connecticut military veterans records digitized by Family Search, as shown above. Instead of having to look through index cards, we can click on each of the hyperlinks to see individual images of documents about veterans in Connecticut. 

With my state library card, I can access a number of useful databases from home (in my bunny slippers if I wish), including Fold3 for military records and HeritageQuest for city directories, Census records, historical newspapers, and more. For free!

During National Library Week, please show your 💜 for local, state, and specialized libraries that offer so many genealogical resources!

VGA Party Features Free Genealogy Talks on April 27th

Mark your calendar for Sunday, April 27th: The Virtual Genealogical Association is celebrating its 7th birthday with a four-hour party of brief genealogy talks--free!

From finding ancestor photos to finding ancestors in newspapers, DNA details to non-English documents, this party covers lots of topics in short bursts. No talk will be more than 30 minutes long and many will last for just 10 or 15 minutes. 

My 10 minute live presentation is "Tune Up Your Cousin Bait" - scheduled for about 1:30 pm Eastern.

See the full list of speakers, register for the Zoom link here, and get ready for a fun Sunday afternoon of genealogy talks and prizes!

To use the discount code for VGA membership, please type the letters in caps, not in lower-case. See you on April 27th.

Two Blunt Obit Headlines for Frank Bentley Light

Researching my husband's 1c3r Frank Bentley Light (1853-1913), I was stopped dead in my tracks (so to speak) by the headlines announcing his death in Vacaville, California in 1913. The blunt language was not at all subtle but did accurately describe what happened to this man.

Above, a brief notice about "the carpenter who dropped dead" while working on a Union Ice Company building being identified as Frank B. Light. This item was picked up by the Sacramento Bee newspaper from the Vacaville newspaper. The headline "Was Frank B. Light" served as a correction because the initial report misidentified the dead man.

The full obit, which appeared on April 11, 1913 in the Vacaville Reporter newspaper, reads:

Dropped Dead. Frank B.  Light Succumbs to Attack of Heart Failure. Frank B. Light, a resident of this place for a number of years, dropped dead last Friday morning while engaged in unloading a carload of ice for A.M. Stevenson. The cause of death was heart failure. Deceased was a native of Indiana and was 60 years of age. He came to California with his parents in 1853, and resided in Santa Rosa for many years before coming to Vacaville. He was a carpenter by trade and a conscientious and upright man who had the respect and esteem of all who knew him. He was unmarried and leaves a sister Mattie Light and a brother L.E. Light. The funeral was held Sunday from the Baptist church and the interment was in Vacaville cemetery.

Frank lived with his sister Martha Ann "Mattie" Light (1854-1917) for years after their parents died. She worked as a dressmaker, according to her voter registration, but it's a good guess that Frank kept a roof over their heads with his carpentry and work in lumbering and as a laborer. Vacaville was a small town when they lived there--fewer than 1,200 residents until the 1920s--and probably everybody knew everybody.

After Frank died so unexpectedly, 112 years ago this month, Mattie went to live with their brother Lucien E. Light (1862-1918), also a carpenter. Sadly, Mattie became ill and died in 1917, followed just a year later by Lucien's death. I noticed that Lucien's obit was worded more gently than Frank's obit. The headline read: "L.E. Light Passed Away Last Friday," perhaps because this death (from Bright's disease) was nowhere near as sudden as Frank's death.

"Language" is this week's #52Ancestors genealogical prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.

Korean War Draft Cards Now on Fold3

No April Fool here! A few months ago, Fold3 began posting US draft registration cards from the Korean War era. These offer a unique window into our US male ancestors' lives in the middle of the 20th century.

So far, only cards from the states of Wyoming and Alaska have been put on Fold3, with more cards to be added during this year. Remember: a draft card is only a record of a man's registration with the local draft board--not proof of any military service.

I'm delighted to see all the detail on these cards: Full name, birth date (not just age), birth place, "someone who will always know your address" (FAN club), occupation, employer, industry, exact place of employment. Also marital status and specifically whether living with wife, separated, divorced, or widower--and whether this man is a father. On the back are physical details of height, eye/hair color etc. I already found someone in my husband's family who was, I was surprised to discover, living in Wyoming and had to register!

To learn more about this Fold3 database, see here. 

NOTE: Even though Fold3 is a subscription site, many US public libraries offer remote access with a library card. I get into Fold3 through my Connecticut State Library card. Check whether your library has Fold3 access and happy ancestor hunting!

Learn for Free: Big Genealogy Sites' Blogs and Videos

Even if you don't subscribe to big-name genealogy sites, you can read their blogs and learn from their YouTube channels for free. Lots of interesting tidbits about historical context, details about info that is and is not in particular data collections, surprising genealogy discoveries, backgrounds of notable historical figures, and many other insights. I especially like browsing blog posts, but informative videos are also readily available without charge.

Here are links to six blogs to browse:

• FindMyPast (blog is here) posts blog entries about history, building a family tree, starting your genealogy journey, customer discoveries, and more. Not just United Kingdom.
• MyHeritage (blog is here) posts blog entries about social history, family history customs, immigration, new collections, DNA discoveries, and more. Posts span the globe.
• FamilySearch (blog is here) posts often about new collections, using the Familysearch site/tree more effectively, involving family in genealogy, RootsTech developments, and much more.
• Ancestry (blog is here) posts about a broad range of genealogy topics and cultures, including strategies for uncovering female ancestry, DNA details, surnames, and more. 
• Fold3 (blog is here) posts blog entries about new collections, military history, wartime experiences, and more. Posts pertain mainly to US, but some also cover Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Part of Ancestry.
• Forces War Records (blog is here) posts blog entries about military history involving the United Kingdom, World War I and II, women in the military, and more. Part of Ancestry.

Here are links to big sites' video vaults on YouTube. Of course, genealogical videos are also available on each proprietary site.

• Ancestry YouTube channel
• FamilySearch YouTube channel
• MyHeritage YouTube channel
• FindMyPast YouTube channel

Look for Kernels of Truth in Family Stories

I love a good family story. "Teddy was late to his own wedding because his horse ran off." "They gave Mom their unopened pay packets every Friday and she doled out a handful of nickels for the next week's subway fare." "Minnie wouldn't accept a suitor chosen for her by her family--she threw his engagement ring out the window."

These three stories were passed down in my mother's family tree. Too bad I can never confirm the story about the horse that ran away. And at first, the other two stories sounded a little outlandish, despite multiple cousins having heard variations of those legends from family history.

New World, new approach to household finances

Then I was introduced to two books that changed my understanding of these family stories. The first was Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars by Elizabeth Ewen. The author looks at the lives of Jewish and Italian women immigrants on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the peak years of immigration to America. Mothers and daughters learned to approach household finances in a different way when they moved to America. In the Old World, barter was an everyday experience. In the New World, cash was an absolute necessity.

The chapter on "Our Daily Bread" describes the common experience of the immigrant mother as strict organizer of household finance, demanding unopened pay packets from working children and only giving back the bare minimum of coins for each child to get to their job in between paydays. The rest was kept for rent, food, and other household expenses.

There was the kernel of truth in my family story: According to descendants, my great-grandma Lena Kunstler Farkas (1865-1938) stood at the door of the family apartment on payday with her hand extended, taking pay packets from teenage and adult children as they arrived home from work. 

Sometimes my great uncles Julius and Peter wouldn't have enough money for subway rides to and from work, so they would reportedly walk home from Manhattan to the Bronx on occasion. Speculation was that the boys actually dared to spend a nickel or two on some treat or diversion. Instead of asking for more from Lena, they walked home and said nothing. Lena was a strict disciplinarian and no one wanted to get on her bad side or they'd get a sharp rap on the head. Really.

Marrying the family's choice?

The second book I read was Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, a Polish-born Jewish author who immigrated to New York City with her family in the 1890s. This overwrought 1925 novel tells the story of conflict in a poor Jewish family transplanted from Poland to tenement life in lower Manhattan. I find historical fiction such as this sometimes offers windows into attitudes and challenges from past generations (allowing for excessive drama in the narrative).

This book really caught my attention when the father of the family rejected the men that three of his daughters want to marry. Instead, he arranged marriages to bring himself financial gain, even though the daughters would be unhappy. The youngest daughter resolves to only marry for love. And after many trials and tribulations for the family, that's what she does. New world, new approach to marriage. 

In my family, Lena's husband Moritz Farkas (1857-1936) earned little in his work in New York City, so everyone had to pitch in to keep the household afloat. Moritz was very fond of all his daughters, and each thought she was the favorite, by the way. When my grandma Minnie, the oldest daughter, fell in love with Teddy Schwartz, Moritz and Lena objected because they thought their daughter could do much better. That's when they arranged what they believed would be a more suitable match, a marriage they hoped would give Minnie a better life. 

Minnie would not even consider an arranged marriage. Knowing her as I did in later life, I can imagine her throwing the engagement ring out the window to show her final answer to the arranged marriage. Family story is that Peter and Julius scrambled down the stairs of the tenement to the sidewalk to search for the ring, but no one has any idea whether they found it and who kept it. With Minnie as the role model, every one of her siblings who married chose his or her own partner. It was a new world and the family learned to adapt. Kernel of truth!

Did Teddy's horse really run away on the morning of his wedding to Minnie? It doesn't really matter...what matters is that there are kernels of truth to explain the stories passed down through the decades, and to remind descendants that ancestors were more than names and dates on a family tree. Thinking of my great-grandma Lena, who collected paypackets to finance her household, on the 87th anniversary of her passing, in March of 1938.

Married Twice Because His Mama Wanted a Pastor to Preside

My husband's first cousin once removed, George Ellery Wood (1885-1976) was married for the first time on this date 117 years ago. As shown above, George E. Wood was the groom, Amanda L. Krueger (1890-1947) was the bride. They claimed to live in Detroit, Michigan, where this marriage was recorded, but in reality both lived in Toledo, Ohio. 

George was an iron worker, he wrote on this marriage license, and he and his bride both listed their parents and ages correctly. Directly above, the part of the marriage ledger where the officiant is named: a Justice of the Peace.

The family story is that George and Amanda eloped to Detroit on this Saturday in March, returning home the same day. George's mother was not happy. George was her oldest child, and she insisted the couple be married again in Ohio, where they actually lived, and by the clergyman of her choice: Reverend George Candee, an ardent abolitionist. 

And so on Tuesday, March 31, 1908, George and Amanda stood in front of Rev. Candee and were again married. Above is the proof. Interestingly, the bride and groom claimed on this marriage license application that neither had been previously married, perhaps because George's mom didn't want anyone to know about the elopement ten days earlier? Also note by the star on the image above, the notation "don't publish please." Hmmm? 

In any case, the couple had three children together and remained married for nearly 39 years until Amanda's death from heart problems in 1947. She was buried in Forest Cemetery, Toledo, Ohio. When her husband George died in 1976, he was buried by her side.

This "historic event" of two marriages in 10 days was discussed by descendants for decades. My post is for the #52Ancestors challenge by Amy Johnson Crow.

Remembering Maternal Grandma Minnie and Her Age Fibs

Born in what is now Berehove, Ukraine, my maternal grandma Hermina "Minnie" Farkas (1886-1964) shouldered a lot of family responsibility from the moment she set foot on the S.S. Amsterdam to sail to America. Her parents were already living in a tenement on the Lower East Side of New York City, and Minnie was sent, with an older brother and two much younger siblings, to join them. She celebrated her 15th birthday on the trans-Atlantic voyage in November, 1901, not knowing what her new home would look like but with high hopes for the future.

Minnie in America

In New York, Minnie worked during the day at a tie factory owned by an in-law and went to school at night to learn English. At the end of every week, Minnie and her siblings handed their unopened pay packets to their mother, who doled out carfare to each adult child and kept the rest for household expenses. 

Minnie met her future husband Theodore "Teddy" Schwartz (1887-1965) in a Hungarian deli. Despite resistance from her parents, she married him in October, 1911. From then on, Minnie would not just help Teddy in the store, she would also raise three children AND sew clothing for her siblings, nieces, and nephews AND cook Hungarian specialties for family meals. She worked long and hard for decades. 

Only after Minnie and Teddy sold their small dairy store in the 1950s did they have time and money to take a honeymoon! Minnie had happy moments, but as the years passed, she was disillusioned and disappointed because her life did not play out like the rosy future she had dreamed of when she arrived in 1901 as a hopeful immigrant teenager. The more I research her and talk with older relatives who knew her well, the better I understand why she was not "warm and fuzzy" although she was a responsible grandma who pitched in when needed.

Noting Minnie's age changes

On their marriage certificate (shown at top), both Minnie and Teddy are shown as 24 years old. That might be one of the last times Minnie told the truth about her age.

In the 1920 US Census, she was supposedly 30 (actually she was 34). In the 1925 NY Census, she was supposedly 35 (actually 38). In the 1930 US Census, she was supposedly 40 (actually 44). In the 1940 US Census, she was supposedly 52 (actually 53). In the 1950 US Census, she was shown as 63--correct age!

When Grandma Minnie died of heart problems on March 20, 1964, it was the end of an era for the entire Farkas family. Disheartened, and with his health deteriorating, Grandpa sadly passed away 14 months later.

Remembering Grandma Minnie with affection during Women's History Month.