Great-Grandpa Was Naturalized 120 Years Ago

In June of 1906, my maternal great-grandfather became a naturalized American citizen in US District Court, Brooklyn, New York.

Moritz Farkas (1857-1936) was born on July 3d in the small country village of Botpalad, Hungary. He arrived at Ellis Island in August of 1899, aged 42, having been financially ruined when a hail storm wiped out his uninsured crops. Moritz became a tailor (and cloak maker) in New York City. 

His wife Lena Kunstler Farkas (1865-1938) came through Ellis Island a year later, followed by their eight oldest children (four at a time, in 1901 and 1903). Counting the 3 children born in New York, Moritz and Lena had a total of 11 children.

My great-grandpa Moritz was eager to become a US citizen and he achieved this important goal only days before his 49th birthday. On the reverse side of his naturalization index card, officials noted that he had formerly been a subject of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Hungary. 

Now, thanks to a hail storm, and Moritz's urgent need to start over in New York City, I can celebrate America 250 and remember this immigrant great-grandpa with affection and gratitude.

A Fresh Old Snapshot of Dad for Father's Day 2026

For Father's Day, I'm remembering Dad (Harold D. Burk, 1909-1978). Sis and I rediscovered this snapshot while assembling content for a photo book of our family's first decade.

Dad has a big smile on his face while sitting at the Pulitzer Fountain, near the famous Plaza Hotel -- and opposite where the luxe Savoy Plaza Hotel once stood. 

Dad owned a travel agency located in the lobby of the Savoy Plaza Hotel. He and his brother (Sidney Burk, 1915-1995) arranged train and plane tickets for the hotel's well-heeled guests. 

The Savoy Plaza was the home of Trader Vic's, a trendy, upscale tiki restaurant that served inauthentic but fun "Polynesian" food. When we kids would visit Dad at his hotel, sometimes we would be treated to a meal at Trader Vic's. 

Alas, the Savoy Plaza was sold and resold not long after this photo was taken. It was then torn down to make way for the General Motors building. Dad's business never recovered and he was forced to retire before he was ready. 

As for Trader Vic's, the restaurant moved across to the Plaza and shone brightly for nearly 30 more years before closing its doors. 

Thinking of Dad with great affection on this Father's Day.

Heirloom Documented on WikiTree Free-Space Profile

Last year, Sis and I put together a custom shadowbox frame featuring a photo of Mom (Daisy Schwartz Burk, 1919-1981) and her twin sister (Dorothy Schwartz, 1919-2001) and a few pieces of their childhood jewelry.

The shadowbox includes an archival envelope on the back, where I've stored paperwork explaining about the twins and their jewelry. Ready to be passed down to future generations!

I just created a FREE WikiTree Free-Space page picturing and describing this heirloom. I included the photo of the twins that is in the center of the shadowbox. The space has plenty of room for photos, other images, and lots of text content. Free Space pages can refer to ancestor profiles on WikiTree, which I've done. I also added the twin jewelry page as a source link on Mom and Auntie Dorothy's Wiki profiles.

Above, a screen capture of part of my page. You can see the entire page here.

I'm so happy to have this heirloom documented beyond my genealogy blog, on a free site where I can share with other relatives.

To learn more about WikiTree Free-Space pages, see the help page here.

Whatever Happened to Henry Canner Harvey?

Researching my husband's family tree, I'd long been looking for the death of Henry Canner Harvey (b. 1875). Henry married my hubby's 1c1r Maud Victoria Slatter (1887-1963) in 1911 in Ontario, Canada. They had two children together, one born in Canada and one born in New York State.

Maud born in Cairo, Henry born in England

Maud interested me because she is the only ancestor in my husband's family to be born in Cairo, Egypt (when her father Albert William Slatter was posted there during his service in the Shropshire Light Infantry). 

Henry had been born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England and made his way to Buffalo, New York before 1911. He married Maud in that year, obtaining a marriage license in Fort Erie, in Canada just across from Buffalo, but marrying in London, Ontario, where her family lived. They settled in Buffalo, New York.

In 1916, Henry and several partners took over a Buffalo automobile body manufacturing business that he had managed, incorporating it as Harvey Top and Body Company. He ran that business for at least a decade, during a boom period for automobiles (and a period of population growth for Buffalo). 

Where's Henry?

By the late 1920s, Henry had disappeared from the records and the news. His wife Maud was mentioned in one child's marriage notice, but no Henry. I didn't want to assume divorce, especially since Henry was noted as her late husband in Maud's obit of 1963. But where was he? There were all kinds of possibilities.

After failing to find any grave or death cert, I focused on newspaper research, especially searching for obits or business items, thinking that surely a man (with the distinctive name of Henry Canner Harvey) who ran a successful auto body and building business would be remembered at his death. I searched multiple newspaper databases plus freebie databases and all over the place. No obit and no death record that I could find, in Buffalo or anywhere. No news coverage of him after the late 1920s. Periodically, I repeated my searches. Nope.

Breakthrough: Full-Text Search

This month, after again fruitlessly searching all newspaper databases for an obit or news snippet, I turned to FamilySearch's full-text search. I searched "Henry Canner Harvey" and the top result was a detailed death cert from, of all places, Los Angeles, California. See image at top. Breakthrough!

This is most definitely the correct Henry, given that the informant is his wife Maud V. Harvey. He had cancer for a couple of years before he died after an operation for a bowel obstruction, sad to say. I was surprised that he was a commercial traveler (salesman) for building material for the past 6 years. Maybe his auto body business suffered after the big stock market crash of 1929 and the start of the Depression? Again, many possibilities, but clearly he was no longer associated with autos and now associated with building, a solid industry in California.

Curiously, the birth year on Henry's cert is incorrect. Also, he and his wife had different residential addresses, according to this cert. And for some reason the names of his parents are "unknown." Even his birth place is "unknown." I again checked every newspaper database and found no obit, no mention, in California or New York, or anywhere.

Still, I now know what happened to Henry Canner Harvey and will plan to add him as "cremated" to Find a Grave, with a bite-sized bio of his entrepreneurial spirit.

"Possibilities" is this week's #52Ancestors genealogy prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.

Content for Bite-Sized Family History Projects

 

As Sis and I continue our bite-sized project about the first decade of our family life, we're putting "meat on the bones." Thanks for riding along with us as we work on this project.

What will help us tell the story of our first 10 years? 

• Photos! Lots of photos! But not every photo (more in a later blog post). I also included a snippet of a map to show where my fam vacationed when Sis and I were 3 years old. Younger relatives love to look at the pictures, so put in plenty.
• Names. We identified people in the photos by name and by relationship, saying that the boy who bounced the babies on his lap was our first cousin. Even folks who weren't in photos were name-checked, such as the paternal aunt who  bought us fancy dresses for birthdays and photo opps. 
• Birth announcements. Yes, we still have them and they are in the book, listing times, weights, etc. Plus I looked up the weather on the day Sis and I were born and mentioned that as well.
• Education. Oh those school days! We included class photos, a photo of our elementary school, memories. Sis and I walked nearly half a mile each way to school, and sometimes walked home for lunch (and back). In all we walked almost two miles per day and still had energy for playtime!
• Leisure time activities including music lessons, dancing lessons, day camp. We included vivid memories from two vacations, including one at a working farm where we kids petted the barn kitties and milked the cows. For city girls, this was a big deal.
• Copyright-free photos of a few places from our childhood (such as Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, where we saw new movies and the Rockettes).
• Stories from our own memories and from what relatives said. Our grandmother's family tree association kept written minutes and the family was told that Sis said "thank you" and I said "pretty" as our first words. This enriches the project, IMHO :) 
• Black and white is boring. Younger folks expect color so I added color borders to b/w photos and a few little color illustrations like the outline of blue wedding bells on a b/w invitation and a yellow sun drawing above a b/w photo of camp days. It's all about catching the eye of readers long enough to tell the stories.

Each bite-sized project is unique and reflects the subjects as well as the maker(s). Sis and I are enjoying the process of documenting our family's first decade. What works for us might not work for you, but I wanted to share our experience to provide some ideas.

I ended this project with a "cliff-hanger" sentence about the dramatic changes about to happen to our family, as our father experienced health and work problems during the second decade of family life. Sis asked, why the cliff-hanger? I want readers to be eager to read our next photo book! To be continued ... 

OTD: Brice and Floyda Married, 1903

On June 10, 1903, my husband's grandparents were married in a small family ceremony at a relative's home in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Brice Larimer McClure (1878-1970) was a master mechanic working on major railroads, and Floyda Mabel Steiner (1878-1948) was a plucky 25-year-old who had divorced her abusive first husband two years earlier.

Looking at Brice, I thought again about a conflict surrounding his date of birth. He himself gave two different dates for his birth. On his World War I draft registration, he told the draft board he was born on December 29, 1878. But for his World War II draft registration, he told the draft board he was born on December 25, 1878. Also, the Social Security death index shows his birth as December 29, 1878.

So I looked at the only original document available for his birth: A ledger from Little Traverse, Michigan, where his birth was recorded in late June of 1879. As shown above in the entry with the star, the date is clearly noted as Dec 25, 1878.

Since that documentation was closest in time to Brice's birth, I'm sticking with it and showing the birth date as Christmas Day, 1878. 

Also, using FamilySearch's full text search, I discovered that Brice L. McClure was the witness on several US naturalizations as well as at least one last will and testament. I already knew that Brice and Floyda were the joint executors of the will of Floyda's sister, Minne E. Steiner Halbedel. And when Floyda died in 1948, her devoted husband Brice, married for 45 years, was executor of her estate. 

Happy 123d anniversary to my husband's maternal grandparents, a couple who were close, happy, and devoted to their only daughter, my hubby's much-loved mother.

"Kindness is Never Misplaced"

I admit (and not for the first time) that I married my husband for his ancestors. 😂 Such interesting stories!

I've been looking at his Steiner family (relatives of his grandmother Floyda Steiner McClure). His grand-aunt Addie married Charles S. Deering and they had one child, Marie Pauline Deering (1889-1918). After Pauline's death in March of 1918, at the age of 28, more came out about about her final illness and the contents of her will. Pauline was the last in her line, although she did have first cousins and second cousins.

Inez the nurse 

Here's an item from the Mansfield News Journal of Mansfield, Ohio, published on April 12, 1918 (and also appearing in other Ohio newspapers):

"Inez F. Verby realizes that kindness is never misplaced. A short time ago, Miss Pauline Deering was taken ill and when it was realized that she could not live, Miss Verby, her nurse, took her home and kept her until death came. Miss Deering's will has been admitted to probate and under its terms Miss Verby is to receive $12,000 as payment for her kindness to her patient. Miss Deering, who lived in Oberlin, left an estate valued at $30,000."

Inez Verby nursed my husband's cousin in her final illness, which was "tuberculosis of the spine" - also known as Pott's disease. Inez worked as a nurse for years, hired by private patients and by physicians. (I found payment receipts and estate documents reflecting her nursing duties for decades.) 

Inez the executrix

Pauline's will did indeed leave Inez $12,000 in payment for her services. It also named Inez as executrix, with a long list of duties such as making sure that the beneficiaries received their bequests. And what bequests! Money to Inez but also valuable and sentimental household items, as shown above, ranging from Pauline's father's US Civil War military artifacts going to a Deering relative to a hand-stitched sampler being bequeathed to a cousin.

I was taken aback by the listing of property shown in the will (see excerpt at top of this post). In addition to a house and lot in Plankinton, South Dakota, where Pauline was born, she also owned two apartment houses in Chicago. Maybe her father or mother arranged for these as an investment? In any event, all the property was to be liquidated by the executrix to provide cash for bills and bequests.

Inez was also directed to work with a family friend to arrange for a monument after Pauline was buried in Nevada Cemetery, Nevada, Ohio. I've requested a photo of Pauline's monument through Find a Grave. May she rest in peace. 

Marrying in Plankinton Before Dakota Became Two States

Researching my husband's Steiner ancestors, this social item on page 1 of the Crawford County News (Bucyrus, Ohio), August 28, 1884, caught my eye: 

Addie Steiner, formerly of Nevada [Ohio], was recently married at Plankinton, Dakota to C.S. Deering.

Adda "Addie" Forrest Steiner (1860-1915) was my husband's 1c2r. She grew up with her parents and siblings in small-town Nevada, Ohio, according to the US Census of 1870 and 1880.

Why Go from Ohio to Dakota?

Somehow, in 1884, Addie managed to travel to Plankinton, Dakota Territory and marry Charles Sawyer Deering (1839-1899), a widower who had served in the 13th Maine Infantry on the Union side of the US Civil War two decades earlier. He was born in Maine and farmed in Maine before embarking on a different work life.

From Addie's Ohio hometown to her new home in Plankinton is a distance of 950 miles. How she got to Dakota is a mystery. Remember that Dakota Territory wasn't split into the two states of North Dakota and South Dakota until very late in 1889. Plankinton is in the south of South Dakota, as shown on the map above. 

My guess is that Addie met Charles on one of his trips to or from Dakota and his family's home in Maine. Addie lived close to several busy railroad hubs. From my knowledge of Addie's family, they had no relatives in Maine and didn't travel there themselves. (If they had visited Maine, local newspapers would probably have mentioned their comings and goings in the social items that filled many columns.)

Charles Deering in Dakota

Charles's marriage to Addie in August of 1884 came a decade after the death of his first wife, Abbie Flood, in their home town in Maine. Abbie sadly died shortly after giving birth to a baby boy, and their son lived just a few weeks longer, sorry to say. 

Maybe these terrible losses prompted Charles to seek a fresh start in rapidly-growing Dakota. In 1879, a few years after his first wife's death, Charles went to Plankinton to work on a telegraph line for the United States Signal Service. He returned to Maine following that telegraph work, then went out west again to continue the telegraph line in 1880 (Portland Press Herald, Maine, April 17, 1880). 

Charles settled down in Plankinton, later running a furniture store and heading up a farm insurance firm. As a Union veteran, he was especially active in the Grand Army of the Republic, serving as an officer in local and regional groups. 

Charles and Addie had one child: Marie Pauline Deering, born in Plankinton in October of 1889, only a month before Dakota Territory became two states. 

What happened to Charles and Addie

Charles died in March of 1899 due to stomach cancer, at age 60. His brief obit appeared in many newspapers throughout the Dakotas, and even in a Minneapolis paper that covered the South Dakota region. His GAR activities were prominently mentioned in the obit. 

Addie was now widowed in Plankinton with young Pauline, only 9 years old. By 1900, the two had moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where they were boarders in the home of an insurance executive while Pauline attended school.

By 1910, mother and daughter had moved to Lima, Ohio, to continue Pauline's education. They boarded with the family of Edward V. Wells. Addie fell ill in 1915 and went to Cleveland for surgery, which didn't go well. She passed away and was buried in Nevada Cemetery in Ohio, near other Steiner relatives. Pauline was left an orphan, not yet finished with her college degree at Oberlin. 

More about Pauline in my next post!

Plankinton is a "place that matters" in my husband's family tree. "Place that matters" is this week's 52 Ancestors prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.

More Book Reviews for America 250 and Independence Day

Leading up to this year's special America 250 celebrations and Independence Day, I recently read two books that I highly recommend. 

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written

The first is a fairly quick read: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by famed biographer Walter Isaacson. This 80-page book dissects and provides context for this powerful sentence that stands out from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

This one sentence was carefully drafted, revised, rewritten, and discussed by a number of major figures of the American Revolution. I was intrigued by the nuances and implications presented by Isaacson as he analyzes each word. 

This Land Is Your Land

Professor Beverly Gage of Yale University wrote the second book I enjoyed: This Land Is Your Land. This is a first-person account of Gage's visits north, south, east, and west to historic places across the United States that shaped the country over time. This narrative picks up where Isaacson's book leaves off, with a look at the American Revolution through Gage's modern-day visit to Independence Hall. 

We ride along with the author through places as varied as Henry Ford's River Rouge automobile plant in Michigan, the Alamo in Texas, and Crazy Horse monument in South Dakota. She doesn't shy away from topics such as enslaved people, native peoples, foreign wars, and the challenges of industrialization. I particularly appreciated Gage's personal observations as well as her careful historical explanations. Recommended! 

First Half 2026: Genealogy Look-Back and Look Ahead

 
So far in 2026, my family history research and projects have been moving along nicely! Top priority has been sharing what I know with family and online. Progress to date:

• From my maternal side, I've digitally shared the 30 years of scanned Farkas Family Tree minutes (600+ pages) and 42 minutes of Farkas home videos with at least one cousin in every line descending from our journey-taking immigrant ancestors, Moritz Farkas and Lena Kunstler Farkas. This project began in 2014 when I scanned the tree association's written minutes and printed spiral-bound copies. Now my cousins have the minutes in digital,  searchable form. Happily, this has prompted more questions about our genealogical background.
• Sis and I printed the first of a series of photo books about our parents (Harold Burk and Daisy Schwartz Burk) and ourselves. This initial chapter focuses on our family's first decade. We are going to plan our next photo book during the summer, after getting feedback from the younger generation.
• I've added more ancestors and information to my family trees on Ancestry, MyHeritage, and WikiTree, as well as linking ancestors and posting bite-sized bios on Find a Grave. I also participated in two WikiTree Connect-a-Thons, putting dozens of ancestors on that free worldwide collaborative tree. In the process, I solved a handful of small family history mysteries.
• I completed the trans-Atlantic donation of family artifacts to an important repository! The Imperial War Museum now has possession of letters written from a family in England to my maternal grandparents (Hermina Farkas Schwartz and Theodore Schwartz) and to my Mom (Daisy Schwartz), in the Bronx, New York, during World War II. 
• My hubby and I had his peacetime US Army memorabilia framed in a custom shadowbox and wrote notes to explain the significance and timing of each item in the frame. This was at the request of the family, a future heirloom.

Looking ahead, my plans for July through December are:

• We will record (audio or video) my husband's peacetime military memories and submit to the US Library of Congress for its Veteran's Oral History Project. My senior community has a small recording studio where we will conduct a 30-45 minute interview together. The studio volunteers have kindly agreed to put this into the required format. Just think, my husband will be in the Library of Congress!
• Continue curating my genealogy materials with an eye toward physically or digitally donating to appropriate institutions. This downsizes my collection or at least shares selected items beyond the family. I want info about my ancestors or artifacts from their past to be in different museums, libraries, archives, and other repositories. 
• Maybe, just maybe, I'll finally move those old family photos into archival albums. I have everything on hand, and the photos are sitting safely in archival envelopes inside archival boxes. I just have to make the time to concentrate on this project, including captioning.
• LOCKSS. After 28 years of genealogy fun, it's most important to me to perpetuate my family's past by sharing it appropriately and widely. Remember, lots of copies keep stuff safe. Family history is less likely to be forgotten if it's available in many places and in many hands.