Mystery Monday: What Happened to Joe Jacobs?

Joe Jacobs, my great-grand uncle, came to America in 1882, quickly applied for citizenship, and was naturalized on October 25, 1888. But the last decade or so of his life is a mystery.

Joe married Eva Micalovsky in New York City, and they began a family: Flora, Louis, Morris, Frank, Hilda, and Frieda. (I think--one census lists "Pearl" and Frieda disappears at times.)

While Joe was in America, his sister Tillie Rose Jacobs married Meyer Mahler, my great-grandpa, in Latvia, and they had a daughter Henrietta (hi, Grandma!) and a son Morris before arriving in New York City.

Tillie's daughter Ida kept a booklet detailing the family's important dates--and she wrote down that Joe Jacobs died on November 22, 1919.

Joe Jacobs actually disappears from documents after the 1905 NY Census (above), when he was living at 88 Christie Street, a big apartment building where his sister Tillie also lived with her husband Meyer Mahler and their growing family.

In 1910, Eva and four kids (Louis, Flora, Morris, Frieda) were listed in the census as living in Brooklyn...she was shown as head of the household, married for 20 years, and 4 of her 6 children were still alive. No sign of Joe with them. In the 1915 NY Census, she's in Brooklyn but now living on Rutledge St., this time with Flora, Louis, Morris, and Hilda listed. Again, no sign of Joe.

By 1920, Eva was listed as a widow in the census, living on Marcy Ave. in Brooklyn with Flora, Hilda, and Frank...This would make sense if Joe died in 1919, although I haven't found any NYC death documents to confirm.

By 1940, Eva was living in Brooklyn with her son Frank as head of the household. He might have been married (the "M" in the married column seems to have a little question mark next to it), but no wife was listed. Eva died in Brooklyn in 1941, at the age of 71.

Update 2022: I located Joe a while back...He, sadly, had a chronic disease and was hospitalized for years. Joe died 3 Nov 1918, was buried on 4 November in Mt. Zion Cemetery in Queens, NY. Find A Grave Memorial# 81028376.

Tuesday's Tip: Searching Online Libraries

Yes, it's a long shot, but sometimes our ancestors are mentioned in books, especially books outlining specific family trees. So I've been taking a few minutes to plug surnames into the search boxes of online libraries--not just Heritage Quest--and see what I can find, with some success.

To avoid getting too many hits, I use the search phrase "surname AND genealogy" in this initial step to narrow things down, using whatever surname I'm researching at the time.

Next, I look at the listing of digitized books, select one or two that seem most promising, and search within the books for the surname.

Here are three online libraries to explore:

• HathiTrust Digital Library allows searching across its catalog and within individual books. Plugging in McClure, I found this page about the Halbert McClure family from Donegal to Botetourt, VA in a genealogy that covered not just McClure but also Haddon and Curry families. 
• Archive.org's "Free Books" section has a search box at the top left where I plugged in "McClure AND genealogy" and found 8 possible hits to explore. The most promising hit is A History of Rockbridge County, where Halbert McClure settled.
• Family Search's Family History Books will search across 80,000 books in family history libraries around the country. The search can be general or advanced. Searching simply for "McClure" turned up more than 4,000 entries! I switched to advanced search, added "Halbert" as a second search word, and got only 100 results. Not all of these books can be accessed digitally, however. The one I viewed was McClure Family Records.

Happy searching!

Wordless Wednesday: Presenting Isaac and Henrietta, Together

My Queens Cuz gave me an envelope of photos to scan.

One of the surprises was this photo of our grandfather, Isaac Burk (1882-1943) with our grandmother, Henrietta Mahler Burk (1881-1954).

We've never seen a photo of them together. Plus this has a date--1936, a few years before Isaac applied for naturalization.

Isaac is wearing a tie and looking quite dapper. Henrietta has a bow pin on the collar of her printed blouse.

Good to see you, Isaac and Henrietta.

Sorting Saturday: Dad the Grad

Today would have been Dad's birthday. Born in New York City in 1909, Harold was the second child of Isaac Burk and Henrietta Mahler Burk.

At this time, Isaac was moving between Montreal and New York City, going where his carpenter skills won him work, often with his family in tow.

I'm still searching for Isaac's siblings and trying to identify his hometown in Eastern Europe.

Despite all this travel, Harold graduated from P.S. 171 in Manhattan (now the Patrick Henry School) in June, 1923.



The photo at left is probably his grad photo. Happy birthday, Dad the Grad! 

(PS: This is Sorting Saturday because my Queens Cuz found his mother's copy of Dad's Grad photo today--the identical photo.)

Amenuensis Monday: Looking Up Famous In-Laws

When hubby and I were researching in Upper Sandusky, Ohio this summer, we wandered into the Wyandot County Museum and talked with the curator about paintings on the wall by artist Frank Halbedel, brother-in-law to hubby's great-aunt Minnie Estella Steiner Halbedel.

One of the most famous paintings shows the Old Mission where Wyandot Indians were converted and worshipped. The mission been reconstructed and is surrounded by many graves of hubby's ancestors in Old Mission Cemetery.

The museum curator kindly copied local news articles about Frank Halbedel, including one about his parents' golden wedding anniversary. Here is an excerpt that describes Mrs. Nicholas Halbedel's father's 15 minutes of fame. This man would be the grandfather of the husband of hubby's great-aunt, but still . . . I've transcribed it below. And the article had one more surprise--keep reading!

"[Mrs. Anna Schactela Halbedel's father] who is still remembered by our older citizens, was a soldier under Napoleon Bonaparte, and he, with the father of Philip Tracht of this city, was present at the famous ball at Brussels when the exultant soldiers of the Little Giant were surprised in their revelries by the forces of the Duke of Wellington, on the eve of disastrous Waterloo, when the Emperor of the French was overwhelmed."

Now for the surprise. Buried in the fine print listing all the attendees were these two names: "Mrs. Edward G. Steiner and daughter, Miss Floyda." Bingo, a direct connection with my hubby's pedigree.

Floyda was my husband's grandma, Mrs. Edward G. Steiner was his great-grandma. Now more research is ahead: This 1902 story appeared soon after Floyda was divorced from her first husband (a brief marriage that I haven't yet found the divorce papers for) and a year before she married hubby's grandpa, Brice Larimer McClure.

2022 update: I do have Floyda's divorce papers. Here's her story!

Surname Saturday: Heritage Pie Updated

Last October, I modified the idea of creating a heritage pie chart of great-great-grandparents and posted my pies with hubby's great-grandparents and my grandparents.

Today I have enough information to post a chart with the birth place of all 16 of hubby's great-great-grands (above). Except for 4 people, all of hubby's great-grandparents were born in the US (mainly Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Ohio). However, not all of the great-great-great-grands were US-born.

Here's what I know or suspect about where the families of each of hubby's great-great-grandparents were from originally:

Ireland: John Shehen and wife Mary (maiden UNK)--have evidence
England: John Slatter Sr. and wife Sarah (maiden UNK)--have evidence of English birth, but this family might have long-ago Irish roots
England: Ancestors of Isaiah Wood Sr.--have evidence
England: Ancestors of Harriet Taber--have evidence
England: Ancestors of Sarah Denning--need evidence
England: Ancestors of Lucy E. Bentley--need evidence
Huguenots (possibly France): Ancestors of Henry E. Demarest--need evidence
Huguenots (possibly France): Ancestors of Catherine Nitchie--need evidence
Scots-Irish: Ancestors of Benjamin McClure--have evidence
No. Ireland: Ancestors of Brice S. Larimer--have evidence
Germany: Ancestors of Jacob S. Steiner--have a clue (a letter from a descendant)
Switzerland: Ancestors of Joseph W. Rinehart--have a clue (a family story)
???: Ancestors of Elizabeth (maiden UNK) Steiner
???: Ancestors of Margaret Shank, who married Joseph W. Rinehart

Friday's Faces from the Past: Uncle Benny McClure Saves a Coon

Benjamin McClure (1812-1896), hubby's great-great-grandpa, was a pioneer settler in Wabash, Indiana, but what was he really like?

The woodcut at left is from The Wabash Times, 21 December 1893, which ran a story on p. 3 titled "A Biographical Sketch: One of the Sturdy Old Settlers--Uncle Benjamin McClure, a Man Well Known to All the Older Inhabitants of Wabash County--an Octogenarian." The same newspaper used this woodcut when it ran McClure's obit in 1896. And I'm using this woodcut as the profile photo for my Benjamin McClure Facebook page, my social media experiment in genealogy.

(Mrs. Sarah Denning McClure, hubby's great-great-grandma, died in 1888. Widower Benjamin soon sold the family farm and lived with his children for the next 8 years.)

Hubby used the microfilm reader in the Wabash Carnegie Public Library (which has lots of useful genealogical resources) last month to look for McClure's name in local newspapers. He found a story in the Wabash Plain Dealer one week after McClure's death that gave us new insight into this pioneer man's strong religious feelings. Here's the story in its entirety:

Uncle Benny and the Coon

How the Late Mr. McClure Balked a Party of Hunters

Jehu Straughn, the genial pioneer resident of this county, tells an anecdote of the late Benjamin McClure, which shows how thoroughly loyal Mr. McClure was to his Christian faith.

Many years ago when the country was new and Mr. McClure lived on the farm just west of the city, an industrious, contented husbandman, rugged in constitution and strong in religious convictions, there was a coon hunt by persons living in the vicinity of Mr. McClure's farm.

The coon was started, and ran toward the home of Mr. McClure, ascending a tree in the door-yard of that gentleman. It wanted only a few minutes to midnight when the animal ran up the tree and it was after twelve when the hungers located him. It would have been an easy matter to shoot the creature, and some members of the party were determined to do so, but Mr. McClure, who regarded the Sabbath day as sacred, lifted his hand warningly and said: "Boys, you can't shoot that coon until Monday. This is Sunday and the day shall be kept holy. If the coon is in the tree tomorrow night at this time, get him if you can, but he shall not be killed before that."

The hunters expostulated, but to no purpose, and the dawn found the coon still in the tree. During the day the hunters dropped in and begged to be allowed to fire at the coon, but Uncle Benny turned them all away with the remark: "No man shall ever say that he heard the crack of a rifle on my farm on the Sabbath day, if I can prevent it. Come tomorrow and if the coon is there, he's yours."

But Sunday evening the coon ran down the tree and escaped and Mr. McClure was roundly censured, but he was true to his convictions and not an iota did the lavish criticisms cause him to yield from the position he had taken.