Genealogical Journey: The Book, the Box and the Moment of Truth

Still basking in the glow of my wonderful visit to Staten Island, I returned to family history research.  I had gained a lot of knowledge, but the question of how and if we were related to Timothy O'Sullivan was still unanswered.  Or was it?  Here is how a book and a box helped me find the moment of truth. 

                                                      The Book

In genealogy research, a family Bible is often a valuable source of information.  Names, dates of birth, marriage and death are often recorded there.  How wonderful!  Unless you are Catholic.  You may have a Bible on your bookshelf, but it was not referred to as "the family Bible."  It sat on the shelf but you weren't encouraged to read it.  The priest did that at mass each Sunday.  No need for you to look at it on other days of the week.  And you certainly would never, ever deface a Bible by writing in it.  Especially the names of your family members who you already knew because you lived with them. So a Bible was not going to be the kind of book that would help me with my family history research. 

The book that helped me was authored by James D. Horan, titled Timothy O'Sullivan America's Forgotten Photographer, it was written in the 1960's.  James Horan interviewed my Great-aunt Margaret Sullivan for his book.  Cousin Tim was present for part of that interview.  When I asked him to tell me about it while we were waiting for the cemetery staff to located some information, Tim started at the beginning.  Literally.  He said James Horan rang the doorbell.  Tim made the doorbell pressing motion with his index finger.  Someone answered the door.  When they heard who he was and about the project he was working on, they went and got Great-aunt Margaret.  The two of them talked privately at length  and sadly, that conversation remained between them.  They did go to St. Peter's Cemetery to look for O'Sullivan's grave.  Great-aunt Margaret's memory was fading and his grave was not located then or to this day.  Horan was probably looking to photograph his headstone for his book.  Instead, he was only able to include a photo of many headstones with a caption saying, "St. Peter's Cemetery on Staten Island where O'Sullivan is buried in an unmarked grave." 

I was a child when my family obtained our copy of "the book."  Living in upstate New York, I remembered it was a big ordeal to get it (and many other things) as I recalled the frustration of the limited selection of items and places to shop in a rural community.  Online shopping changed all of that, but there was no Amazon back then.  The book had to be special ordered from a publisher in New York City because it was out of print.  Called an on demand printing and very expensive, a minimum number of books had to be ordered and paid for before the publisher printed another batch.  My Aunt Peggy took on this project after hearing about the book from Great-aunt Margaret.  At around $50 (compared to the five dollars I paid for my copy on Amazon), it was a big purchase four decades ago.  I recalled my Dad showing me the book and saying we were related to this man who took photographs during the Civil War and then out West.  I thought that was pretty cool. 

During the course of my research, I was so obsessed with finding out about how we were related to O'Sullivan that I even contacted James Horan's daughter, Patricia.  ( Horan himself passed in 1980.)  I explained who we were and how the book functioned in our genealogy.  I was hoping to get a look at her father's research notes, particularly his interview with Great-aunt Margaret, but they had been sold long ago.  In any case it was nice to be able to let her know what her father's work meant to our family.  "The book" turned out to be another way to verify relatives on my family tree.  Of course Cousin Bill had a copy; I didn't even have to mention the title to Cousin Tim.  When I called him he said, "Hold on while I get 'the book'. "  My Dad and Aunt Peggy each had their four decade old copies.  Cousin Drew had his copy and soon-to-be found cousins that descended from great-grandpa's siblings had their copies of "the book."  I came to realize that it was another sign that we were related to O'Sullivan. 

                                                      The Box

Several weeks after I returned to California from Staten Island, Cousin Bill called me.  He told me I had better sit down for this one.  In the course of his moving, Cousin Tim mailed Bill a box of their grandfather's memorabilia.  Having driven us around Staten Island that summer day, Tim saw how interested we were in the family's history and thought Bill might like to have that box.  At first I was horrified thinking that Bill was going to tell me the box was lost when mailed.  It wasn't.  I like to think that Bill's dad, who retired from the Post Office, watched over its safe delivery. 

Bill tells me about the many photographs in the box.  As his grandfather was a newspaper photographer at the turn of the 20th century, he had taken many historical photos.  Bill starts with the photograph of Timothy Michael Healy.  He was the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State from 1922-1928.  He was from Bantry in County Cork, Ireland, not far from where our people originated.  His wife's maiden name was Sullivan, but no relation to us.

The second photo was a scene at the train station in Hoboken, NJ.  Great-uncle Jim titled it "Home from the war 1919.  Me- Sulli- on left with camera case."  I think of it as a 20th century selfie! 

The next photograph was "A stolen picture of Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Longworth and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (left).  The former Alice Roosevelt is adverse to having her photograph taken.  But 'Nick' is a good sport, he generally says, 'Fire away.'" Much to our delight, this was in Bill's grandfather's handwriting. 

The fourth photograph is my cousin Erin's favorite.  She shared it on her Facebook page.  Again, in my great-uncle's handwriting:  "Red Fox-Skinhushu.  A blackfoot Sioux appealing to Secretary Baker to accept his warriors in the Army.  Sulli." 

Bill made sure I was sitting down for the next one.  "Elly O'Sullivan.  Music teacher PS 17 New Brighton, Staten Island."  Elly O'Sullivan was Timothy O'Sullivan's sister.  I calculated the photo to be around 120 years old.  Knowing Cousin Tim's sense of humor, he would have said, "Don't blame me, I am only 72 years old, not 120."  And it is only worse for his older brother Ed, because that means he hadn't looked in the box for 80 years.  My sister said that our dad has Elly's eyes.  I said we owe our mom an apology.  I always blamed the fat genes on her side of the family; looks like some might have come from Dad's after seeing Elly's photo. 

The photo could have come from a garage sale in the neighborhood and ended up in the box but I have a better theory.  Both Timothy and Elly pre-deceased their parents Jeremiah and Ann.  That means it was passed to our family upon their deaths.  Great-grandpa probably was charged with the lovely task of cleaning out Jeremiah and Ann's house and acquired the photo.  He gave it to his son, my Great-uncle Jim, who put it in the box with his other aforementioned prized photographs.  I am glad it was discovered but how is Elly related to us? 

                                                    The Moment of Truth

I had a great time meeting relatives for the first time and touring Staten Island but I was still no closer to finding the answer that started me on this quest.  Or was I?  How were we related to Timothy O'Sullivan? 

Still basking in the joy and the comfort of the trip, I reviewed Great-aunt Margaret's interview notes.  Deciphering the handwriting was as challenging as following her line of thought.  My sister said to re-type the notes so I didn't have to keep deciphering them each time I read them.  Good idea Sis!

The top of the second page read: "George in with Barnum & Bailey Circus 23 years.  Charles Sullivan died 1902.  Tim- Brady was Civil War photographer- cousin father's first cousin Jeremiah was his father father's father was Dennis."  I took a deep breath and re-read the page.  There were three different pieces of information here.  The first piece referred to Old Uncle George, Great-grandpa's brother who ran off to joint he circus.  The second sentence referred to my Great-grandfather Charles' death date.  The third piece of information was the answer to the question I spent years seeking:  Timothy O'Sullivan was my great-grandfather's first cousin.  Their fathers were brothers.  Great-aunt Margaret was saying the following:  Timothy O'Sullivan worked for Matthew Brady, a Civil War photographer.  He was a cousin.  He was my father's first cousin.  Jeremiah was the name of Timothy's father.  My father's father was named Denis.  There was the moment of truth!  My family's lore was indeed fact!  No one had ever said we were descended from Timothy O'Sullivan, only that we were somehow related to him.  He was our ancestors' first cousin.  That means that Timothy O'Sullivan's grandparents are my three times great-grandparents.  Can he help lead me to them?  For the moment, I drank in the glory of finding out the answer to my question that led me on my genealogical journey. 

The Genealogical Journey: Staten Island ( Part 2)

Bill, Paula and I ate lunch at one of the many diners on Staten Island located near the New Dorp branch of the New York City Public Library.  Afterwards, we wanted to go in to look at old street maps, but the branch was closed for technology upgrades.  The only day on that trip that I could visit the library, coincided with the day it was closed.  Thwarted by technology again!  I would have to visit the public library holdings another time, but first I would make sure it was opened as I had learned from genealogy research travel tips. 

We drove to Vahalla Cemetery, now called Ocean View the Cemetery Beautiful to look for Joseph H. Lyons' grave.  Using only Drew's directions, we could not locate his uncle's grave.  The cemetery office was closed but Bill called them the next morning to get the location for our return on Saturday with more family members.  Drew said that his grandmother, Helena Sullivan Lyons, was also in that grave although the military issued headstone only bears her son Joseph's name.  The cemetery later confirmed this information. 

Bill took me to meet another second cousin, Joan.  She is Bill's first cousin and her mother, Mary, was Great-uncle Jim's only daughter and my grandmother's niece.  Joan lived five miles from Ocean View the Beautiful Cemetery on Staten Island.  Like Bill, her husband Al, retired from the fire department and one of her sons currently works as a firefighter.  Another one of her sons is named Timothy Patrick, like my brother.  Bill told me that when she and her sisters get together, they could talk a hitch right off of a trailer.  Joan didn't disappoint. 

Upon arrival, she and her husband greeted us on the front steps of their home.  In hushed voices, we were whisked downstairs to a finished basement.  Their firefighter son, Kevin, finished a twelve  hour shirt learning to drive the fire truck and was asleep in the other room. 

We were there less than one hour but I learned the following from Joan:  She thought Great-aunt Margaret might have been a twin.  Her poor health might have contributed to her shyness and lack of many friends.  She had weak eye sight, wore thick, unfashionable glasses and had skin issued like rosacea.  These issues may have played a part in her self-consciousness causing her to keep mostly to herself.  She never married and probably never dated.  Even though she only graduated from high school, she had the knowledge of a college graduate.  She read all of the time and spend Sundays reading the entire New York Times newspaper.  Great-aunt Margaret also had vast knowledge of our family history. 

Joan celebrated her fiftieth wedding anniversary earlier that year ( 2013) by attending a blessing ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral built in 1858, opened in 1879in Manhattan.  I told her that our great-grand-uncles, our great-grandfather's brothers, built the spires on that Cathedral.  Joan was even more pleased to have celebrated her anniversary there upon hearing that.  My sister, niece and I visited the church the next day.  We were in awe of the accomplishment.  Considering that the rest of the building was under scaffolding for a major renovation but not the spires; it made us proud to know family built something so lasting. 

Joan said she met her husband of fifty years online.  In New York City, you stand on line, not in line waiting.  She and Al met while she was on line at the A&P supermarket.  He was bagger, she was a customer he thought was cute.  So she tells everyone they met on line to see their reaction. 

I showed Joan the photo of our great-grandmother holding Joan's Uncle Charlie.  She had a visceral reaction to the photo and politely declined my offer to get her a copy of it.  She explained that she and her sisters were afraid of their Uncle Charlie.  They would go over to his house on Monroe Avenue, ring the door bell and if he answered, run up the stairs past him only when their Aunt Catherine, his wife, sweetly called for them to come on in.  In the photo, Charlie is three months old hoping great-grandma will protect him from the kitty, but as an adult, he was big and loud and scary to his nieces.  I even heard Bill mutter that he too, was scared of him as a child. 

Joan's Uncle Charlie hoping Great-grandma Margaret protects his place on her lap from the cat.

Cousin Joan showed us a drawing that her grandfather Jim Sullivan drew that hung on the wall of her finished basement.  I photographed it while admiring his artistic talent and sense of humor.  Cousin Bill hadn't seen it before, was quite interested in it, asking Joan for a life size copy.  The Norman Rockwell-esque colored pencil drawing was of a drunk guy, bottle in his coat pocket, hugging a cow with the caption, "Gee, dearie-hic-but yer sure are shweet." 

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When Bill mentioned that we were at the ancestors' grave in St. Peter's Cemetery that morning, Joan said he was there recently and was the one who left the flowers.  Mystery solved!  Joan's mother and brother are also buried in the plot and she visits quite often.  Her husband, Al, said he was the one who made the pipe vase for the grave.  Attached to the ground, front and center of the headstone, it is a metal tubular pipe for placing a bouquet of the flowers.  As I thanked him for making the pipe vase, Al mentioned that he cut the grass at a cemetery in Pennsylvania.  Visitors seeking their family history often stopped him on the riding lawn mower to ask him about graves.  It said he was the unofficial cemetery historian and his work was greatly appreciated. 

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Meanwhile, Joan carried on several conversations at once.  She talked to Cousin Bill about their grandfather and her mother and then turned to me to give her family tree information.  She rattled off the names and the dates of birth of her four children, their spouses, and their children with pinpoint speed and accuracy.  Did I mention we were there less than an hour? 

The next day I took a break from the genealogical journey to sight-see with my sister and eight-year-old niece.  We rode the Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan like our ancestors and cousins had done for 161 years.  We visited the Statue of Liberty for the first time.  Even though my sister and I were native New Yorkers and lived in the state for decades, we had never been to the Statue of Liberty.  New York State is big and we lived upstate four hours away.  So we waited until we grew up, moved out of state and then returned as tourists to visit Lady Liberty.  The ticket booth for the Statue of Liberty is located at Castle Garden.  A stone, circular fort, now run by the National Park Service, it was once used as an entry point for immigrants.  When my ancestors returned to New York in the 1860's, they would have passed through here.  It was a unique experience to walk around where they once stood.  We rode the subway to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaur exhibit much to my niece's delight.  We took a taxi cab ride back to the ferry landing joking that my niece's made-in-China souvenir traveled on a boat, a subway, a taxi cab, another boat and then a private car to its new home. 

Saturday morning, my first cousins Bradley and Bonnie joined us on the genealogical journey.  Their mother, my Aunt Peggy, is my father's sister and oldest living relative on this branch of the family.  Cousin Bill arrived ( at the right hotel, on time) to drive us around Staten Island.  It was Bradley and Bonnie's first time meeting our second cousin Bill.  Bonnie told me she had stayed at this same hotel years ago when her husband was hospitalized on Staten Island after an accident. I told Bonnie I had not known that when I booked the Hilton Garden Inn and hoped she could replace her former memory of the hotel with the genealogical journey we were about to take.  We visited St. Peter's Cemetery, the ancestral homes ( including the one on Monroe Ave.) and vacant lots and the public pool bearing our cousin's name, Joseph H. Lyons.  We found his grave at Ocean View the Cemetery Beautiful.  It took all six of us plus a cemetery employee, to locate it in the rain, dodging geese droppings.  During the car ride, we laughed with Bill explaining to him that he sounded like my dad when he started a sentence with the words, "I should have...".  We ended the journey with a toast at lunch, " To ancestors in common.  May they be smiling down upon us proudly." 

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Staten Island

New York City.  September 11th.  September 11th....1848.  The Caleb Grimshaw docked in New York Harbor after five weeks at sea, via Liverpool, England.  Among the passengers in steerage class, a couple in their prime of life disembarked.  Having left the potato famine in deathly quiet West County Cork, Ireland, one can only imagine what they thought of New York City.  America:  The land of milk and honey, where the streets are paved with gold.  Disembarking the Caleb Grimshaw Denis and Elizabeth Sullivan quickly saw that not only were the streets not paved with gold, they were not paved at all.  Not only were they not paved at all, but Denis was expected to paved them had there been asphalt in 1848.  Other than having a son named Timothy born in 1849 in New York City, we knew little else about their lives until they moved to Staten Island sometime in 1852.  One hundred and sixty-one years later ( in 2013) their descendants would meet for the first time to discuss their lives several miles from where they lived. 

I am a luddite.  I am always two steps behind; it keeps me young and I will probably live longer in order to catch up with technology.  I didn't have a cell phone at the time.  I had bought one with the intent to assemble it en route to New York.  At the airport gate, I discovered that I had left the battery at home.  So no phone on that trip.  My sister and niece were joining me the next day and she had a cell phone, so no big deal.  I called Cousin Bill from the airport in Denver during my layover to re-confirm our plans and meeting time at the Hilton Garden Inn on Staten Island at 10:00 am the next day.  The phones in the Denver airport are free to use to call anywhere.  I kid you not.  I made several calls gloating at the fools all around me charging cell phones that they paid for every month.  Maybe I was not like all the other humans on the planet and did not need a cell phone.  Because I arrived late at night at the Newark, New Jersey airport, I had reserved a private car service to take me to the hotel.  It was only a thirty minute one hundred dollar car ride.  New York City cabs can't go to New Jersey.  There is no public transportation from the airport.  There are lots of tolls to pay to get both on and off Staten Island.  The driver and I both looked out of the windows at the rural landscape and wondered if we were lost.  He had never been to Staten Island either.  It looked like any other suburban town in the United States with trees and weeds. 

The next morning, I went down to the lobby shortly before ten.  I told Bill on the free phone call yesterday what I would be wearing and what I looked like.  He said he would be wearing a green baseball hat with the word "Jameson"  on it.  He had bought the hat while in Ireland.  It was now ten o'clock, then five past.  The traffic was heavy on Staten Island and it was raining.  Bill was driving in from New Jersey an hour away.  Another ten minutes passed and still no Bill.  Damn.  I was so like the rest of the population and needed a cell phone then.  My sister and her phone wouldn't be arriving until later that afternoon as she drove in from New Hampshire.  What to do?  Go up to the room to call him?  Ask someone at the front desk if there was a phone nearby?  What if I was corresponding with someone who wasn't my cousin?  If he did show up, was it a good idea to get in a car with a stranger in New York City to be driven out through the trees and the weeds? 

The night I booked the ticket to New York, Cousin Drew called me.  I told him his timing was perfect because I had finished making my travel arrangements.  He said Bill had called him and they talked about family history.  I said I looked forward to meeting Bill and he seemed perturbed, like we duped him when I said we hadn't met yet.  "Now wait a minute!  I thought you two knew each other!"  No, it must have seemed like it because we had gotten thick as thieves on the phone discussing family history.  I told Drew I was meeting Bill on Staten Island and he would take me around where the ancestors lived.  I promised to send him photos of his old house and his uncle's pool.  Uh-oh!

It was now 10:30am and still no Bill.  Between the car ride, the fiasco checking in the night before, and now no Bill, so far, I was not impressed with Staten Island.  Maybe Grandma Mary did know what she was doing when she moved upstate. 

Then Bill blew into the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn.  He walked right up to me, wearing the Jameson hat, out of breath, apologizing profusely saying he went to the wrong hotel.  He was fifteen minutes early in the lobby of another hotel with the initials H.I.  At the same time I was fretting, he was asking the front desk clerk of the Holiday Inn if I was registered there.  When he heard the answer was no, he called my sister's cell and she told him where I was staying.  Hilton Garden Inn and Holiday Inn do sound alike, especially from a free phone in Denver.  We took a minute to calm down; I introduced myself to his wife, Paula.  We sat down for a cup of tea in the hotel restaurant.  I could not stop staring at him.  He had my dad's fair freckled complexion.  He and my dad shared the same blue eyes.  That is what the Irish ancestors must have looked like!  He said I had the Sullivan smile.  Other than that, I do not look like this branch of my family.  I look more like my mother's olive complexioned, dark-haired, brown-eyed Sicilians.  If you lined me up with my dad, Bill and other cousins, and asked which person is not like the others, I would be picked out of that line up. 

Bill showed me his dad's family tree notes.  I clapped with delight when I saw names on the tree that I had discounted while researching because they were unusual.  Trenchard and Preston Sullivan were the grandsons of the Timothy Sullivan who was born in 1849 in NYC.  Timothy was my Great-grandfather Charles' oldest brother.  That branch of the family proved to be the most difficult to research because Preston and Trenchard disappeared from public records after 1940.  It was a while before I was on their trail again, but those notes let me know I was researching the right people.  Bill and I both had the same question:  "What kind of names were Preston and Trenchard?"  Must be from their mother's side of the family. 

Bill showed me some photos from his trip to Ireland he took the month before.  We discussed the information the Skibbereen Heritage Center gave him about possible ancestors beyond our great-great-grandparents.  He promised to give me a copy of his father's notes and Cousin Dorothy's interview notes with Great-aunt Margaret so I could study them at length. 

I got in the car with Bill and Paula.  We drove through the trees and the weeds discussing family history.  He called his children Irish twins because they were one year apart.  His son Timothy's middle name is Michael.  My brother Timothy's middle name is Patrick.  We encountered even more Timothy's later that day.  Our first stop was to St. Peter's Cemetery to pay our respects to the ancestors.  Established in 1848, St. Peter's Cemetery on Staten Island is bordered by Clove Lakes Park and single family homes with main roads dividing it into several sections.  It is well maintained and people jog, walk and exercise their dogs along its wide paths.  Bill located the family plot.  I told my great-grandparents that I had been looking for them for a long time.  Most people aren't happy to be in a cemetery, I but I was.  I photographed the headstone and we walked around the area looking at other headstones.  We both wondered who left flowers in the pipe vase at the grave.  Great-uncle Jim was buried in his wife's family plot located across the road that divided the cemetery.  We visited there later that morning. 

Bill had arranged for me to meet our cousin Charles.  He is Bill's first cousin and my second cousin.  Like Bill, he is also retired from the New York City Fire Department.  Charles, who goes by Tim, had graciously offered to drive us around the old neighborhood where the ancestors lived.  Tim's father is the baby in the photograph that started all of this.  Tim was literally the closest living relative to our ancestors.  He lived across the street from the cemetery. 

Upon entering Tim's house, Bill introduced me.  Tim had a surprised look on his face when he first saw me.  Having sensed this, Bill said, "The reason she is so much younger than us is'--and not missing a beat, Tim cut in and said, --because she was born later."  Bill and Tim were in their sixties and seventies respectively.  I was still in my forties when we met.  Their grandfather and my grandmother were siblings thirteen years apart.  Other than being born later, I found out the reason for that age difference on the 1900 census.  That census asked women how many children they had and how many of them were still living.  I wasn't prepared for my great-grandmother's responses.  The answer to the first question was "eleven" born and the second question was "three" still living.  That was like a punch in the gut.  There were eight other children in between my Great-uncle Jim and my grandmother who did not survive.  I also found evidence of twins among my search for my grandmother's birth record.  The birth ledger asked the same questions and the numbers added up. 

I met Tim's wife, Mary Lou.  She is of Italian descent like Paula and my mom, Mary Ann.  Their oldest son is named Tim, officially.  Tim and Mary Lou were moving so we weren't able to look in the packed up boxes of his grandfather's things.  Tim would later send a box to Bill.  It would turn out that something in that box would help answer the questions of whether or not we were related to Timothy O'Sullivan. 

Tim drove us over to the cemetery office.  While waiting for the staff to locate some records, I asked him why he was called Tim when his name is really Charles.  He said the kids in the neighborhood starting calling him that because he resembled a comic strip character name Tiny Tim.  I later looked it up and sure enough, Cousin Tim did resemble Tiny Tim from the comic strip by Stanley Link that ran from 1933-1958. 

We visited Great-uncle Jim's grave but did not find much information at the cemetery office about other relatives or Timothy O'Sullivan.  They had been looking for his grave for a long time.  We learned that Bill's father was responsible for putting the Great-grandparents' plot in perpetual care in 1979.  That would have been required before a headstone or other burials were allowed. 

As promised, Tim drove us to New Brighton.  We photographed the houses the ancestors lived in as well as Cousin Drew's old house.  We visited the Joseph H. Lyons pool.  Bill theorized that some of the photos on display of the pool being constructed might have been taken by his Grandfather Jim, who was Joe Lyon's first cousin. 

We said our good-byes to Tim back at his house.  Then the three of us took a lunch break before continuing the genealogical journey. 

Drew Knew (part 2)

                                                            

I called the number listed in the white pages.  I left a message on Drew's answering machine.  I made sure I included the name "Sullivan" and Drew's old address on Staten Island.  It was a holiday weekend but I couldn't wait to talk to him.  I called again.  Our phone call lasted over an hour.  Drew was warm, receptive, and full of answers to my questions.  He told me stories about his Grandmother Helena's siblings. 

 

He started with old Uncle George.  George was also born in Ireland during the family's ten year return.  He is two years older than Helena.  In one census, I found him living with Helena's family listed as a boarder.  George was once engaged to a woman.  He broke it off when he saw her drunk on the elevated train track.  Heartbroken, he ran off and joined the circus.  Literally.  George was with the Barnum and Bailey Circus for twenty-three years.  He traveled with them at the turn of the twentieth century on their European tour.  I found documents backing this up:  ship records and a passport application from the American Embassy in London listing Barnum and Bailey as his employer.  It turned out everything that Drew told me I found in official documents. 

 

He told me about his Uncle Joseph H. Lyons whom the pool is named after.  Drew tired to get a lifeguard job at that pool one summer.  They said no; if you want to work as a lifeguard you have to go to South Beach on Staten Island.  Drew protested saying the pool was named after his uncle and he should get to work there.  Sorry, positions at the pool are filled.  It is South Beach if you want to work as a lifeguard.  Drew spent that summer lifeguarding at the beach.  So much for posthumous nepotism. 

 

He told me the story of his beloved Nana, Helena Sullivan Lyons.  Drew's mother, Agnes, worked so Helena was his primary caregiver.  When I asked about her being born in Ireland, he said she would answer by saying," I do not speak with a brogue."  He and his sister Helene, would continue to tease her saying, "Come on Nana, we know you were born in Ireland."  She would never admit it but would reference Ballydehob, a small town in Ireland.  Pretty specific for someone who had never been to Ireland.  Being foreign born was frowned upon during the turn of the twentieth century. Even her brother George lied about it on his passport application.  He stated he was American born despite having paperwork for becoming a naturalized citizen.  I guess you didn't want to be in the American Embassy in London and admit you were born in Ireland in front of the whole circus.  Besides, George and Helena could get away with it probably because their older siblings were born in New York.  Helena also assumed her husband's citizenship because he was American born.  Drew asked me about ancestors beyond Charles and Helena's parents.  I answered that was why I called him.  I hoped he knew who they were.  His grandmother didn't talk about that probably because she would have had to admit to being born in Ireland.  No progress was made at that time on finding more ancestors but I had a lot of leads to research thanks to Drew. 

 

Drew filled me in on Charles and Helena's other sister, Elizabeth Sullivan Rogers and her descendants.  Any living relatives from this branch of the family?  More leads to research.  I had hours of happiness in front of me.  We discussed present day family members, jobs and how we each came to live in California.  Unprompted, he then says, "You know, we are related to that photographer, Timothy O'Sullivan."  Stunned silence on my end of the phone. 

 

 

 

           

Genealogical Journey: Drew Knew

My Great-grandfather Charles Sullivan was one of six children.  Although he was the third one born, he was the first to die in 1902 at age 46.  As a result, our family didn't know much about him or the rest of his siblings and their descendants.  That was about to change.  Bill told me about great-grandpa's youngest sister named Helena Sullivan.  Her married name was Lyons.  Another mystery solved!  What becomes of women after they marry and change their names?  They all but disappear if we do not know their new married names.  I recalled seeing Helena's name on the 1870 and 1875 census schedules when the Sullivan family returned to Staten Island from a ten-year stay in Ireland.  I often wondered what became of her.  To this day, we do not know why her parents and older siblings returned to Ireland.  From a genealogist's perspective, I am glad they did.  I found our town land through Helena's birth record.  My great-grandfather and his two older brothers were born in New York but the three youngest siblings were born in Ireland.  Researching your ancestor's siblings is another research strategy I learned at the Family History Library.  Helena Sullivan Lyons is my link to both the past and the present day relatives.  She led me to our ancestors' geographic area in Ireland, maternal ancestors and to her greatest legacy:  her grandson. 

Perhaps because our ancestors came from island nations, my family likes to swim.  Bill and his brother were lifeguards at the public pool near the Ferry Landing on Staten Island.  A lot of family members swam there.  The pool was built in the 1930's.  It was one of eleven pools and recreation centers built in New York City during the depression.  It was a WPA project designed to put the unemployed to work.  The Joseph H. Lyons pool is still in use today.  Joseph Henry Lyons was Helena Sullivan Lyons' son and my grandmother's first cousin.  In addition to visiting a cemetery, I guess I will be visiting a public swimming pool when I go to Staten Island.  Not your typical  New York City sight-seeing venue.  Why would a pool be named after our cousin?  Even though we refer to the Lyons' pool as "our pool", we certainly did not pay for it.  Neither did Joseph Henry Lyons.  He must have done something special to deserve that honor.  Frankly, with public places these days being named for corporations that buy naming rights, I am surprised the pool still bears his name.  Where I live in San Diego, there was a big uproar when the Jack Murphy Stadium's name was changed to Qualcomm Stadium.  Jack Murphy was a beloved sportswriter and games are now played at Qualcomm Stadium on the Jack Murphy field.  Jettisoning his name altogether would have been unacceptable to San Diegans so the compromise of naming the field after him was made.  Let's hope that the "forgotten borough" as Staten Island is sometimes called, of New York City forgets about selling naming rights to our pool.  Come swim at the Poland Springs pool on the Joseph H. Lyons deck hardly seems worth it. 

My research was going wide but not deep.  Joseph H. Lyons' story is interesting but not having any descendants of his own, I must continue going down the tree if I hope to get further up it.  I shall return to your story later Cousin Joseph.  Now back to your mother, Helena. 

Armed with knowing Helena's married name, I continued researching her children.  In addition to Joseph, she had three others who lived to adulthood.  ( A baby named Lily, died in infancy.)  Via the 1940 census, I learned that Helena was living with her two daughters and grandchildren a few blocks away from Great-Uncle Jim on Monroe Avenue in New Brighton.  I found those same surnames at that Hamilton Street address in my grandmother's address book.  There is an eight-year-old boy name Drew listed on that 1940 census.  If I can find him, he would be 80 years old.  His mother, Agnes Lyons, married a man with a distinct last name.  I searched for Drew's name in the white pages directory, an online nationwide phone book.  I got one result. He was the only Drew listed by that surname in the entire United States.  And he wasn't in the Social Security Death Index.  I was about to get even luckier.  He lived in California. 

Genealogical Journey: Cousin Bill

The voice on the other end of the line had a heavy New York accent.  He said he was my cousin from New Jersey.  Bill became my genealogy partner in crime readily sharing photos, notes and eagerly listening to my findings.  ( Our first phone call lasted over an hour.)  He was so pumped up that he traveled to Ireland to try to find ancestors beyond our second great-grandparents.  That was another reason why I must pursue the O'Sullivan lore; I could not find ancestors beyond my second great-grandparents.  If I could find out how and if we were related to Timothy O'Sullivan, I might be able to use that information to bread through my brick wall. 

We discussed the possibility of our relationship to Timothy O'Sullivan.  He said he had heard that we were related to him but didn't know how.  Not the answer I was hoping for, but at least another branch of the family had heard that story too.  No O'Sullivan photos were found among Bill's family's things.  He said that our surname was originally O'Sullivan.  The "O" was dropped somewhere along the line and the past three generations go by Sullivan.  My dad and aunt told me this as well.  This was the beginning of hearing the same story from different family members who had never met.  I got a good feeling about that.  Bill told me many stories that provided me with research leads to both the dead and the living.  I never would have been able to find what I found about him.  I am eternally grateful. 

For starters, he told me where our great-grandparents are buried in St. Peter's Cemetery on Staten Island.  I had called the cemetery prior, but they could not tell me where the plot was located.  It turned out to be a family plot containing our great-grandparents, Bill's parents, his aunt, cousin and our Great-aunt Margaret, Great-uncle Jim's and my grandmother's younger sister.  Bill's dad used some of Great-aunt Margaret's willed money to redo the headstone and put the plot in perpetual care when she died in 1979.  Other family members used the money for more important long-gone things such as furniture, riding lawn mowers and motorcycles.  I was glad Bill's dad wasn't interested in those things. 

Bill's dad was named James after his dad, my Great-uncle, the newspaper photographer.  He was the second oldest of my great-uncle's five children.  He worked as a pipe fitter, joined the Navy and retired as a mailman.  Again, only men worked those jobs back then.  He lived well into his late eighties probably because he walked delivering mail on Staten Island for decades.  I believed that Bill's dad instilled in him the interest in family history.  He left Bill some family history notes that Bill tried to read to me over the phone.  Thought we weren't able to get any further up the family tree, we filled in a lot of branches of current generations using those notes.  Those cryptic notes still let me know if I am on the right track when researching.  They were also the gateway leading me to more living relatives on other branches of the family tree. 

Bill was named after his Uncle Bill, his father's brother.  Bill has a brother named James who has a daughter named Michele, my name spelled the same way with one "L".  Bill and my dad share the same first name.  They both married women of Italian descent.  They both have sons named Tim.  Hmm...there was a clue.  Tim.  My brother was named Tim after a great-grand-uncle, according to my dad.  Why did Bill name his son Tim?  He and his wife simply liked the name.  The Tim count is at three so far:  Great-grand-uncle, brother, and second cousin's son.  Were we mixing up Timothy O'Sullivan with the confirmed Great-grand-uncle Timothy Sullivan on the family tree?  At this point, it would seem so. 

Surprised that I had never been to Staten Island, Bill encouraged me to visit.  He offered to show me around where my grandmother grew up.  She died three weeks before I was born.  Having had a close, loving relationship with my maternal grandmother, I felt gypped by her death.  That was another reason why I wanted to learn more about her side of the family.  My Grandmother Mary Sullivan married my Grandfather William Lagoy in Lake Placid, New York where they met.  In the summer, she took the train upstate where she found work as a stenographer for artists and writers.  The story goes, while walking down the street in Lake Placid, she broke the heel on her shoe and my grandfather fixed it.  They were married shortly thereafter.  When a couple hails from opposite ends of New York State, they settle mid-state in Montgomery County.  At least my paternal grandparents did.  New York State is big.  The Staten Island Ferry docks in Manhattan, not Montgomery County where I grew up.  As a result, I had never been to Staten Island.  The stories kept pouring out of my second cousin.  I'll bet not many people say this about visiting New York City, but I could not wait to go to Staten Island. 

Genealogical Journey: Contacting Living Relatives

Aunt Peggy provided me with a name and an address of a relative now residing in New Jersey.  Staten Island is geographically closer to New Jersey than New York.  Legend has it that the governors of New York and New Jersey had a foot race to determine who would get the island.  The governor of New York lost.  I write my second cousin Dorothy a letter, including a copy of great-grandma's photograph.  After all, it is her great-grandmother too.  Her grandfather took the photo.  Perhaps she would be willing to talk to me about our family history if she sees this.  That was not the case.  She called months later when I was out of town.  We became friends on facebook.  She never responded to my invitations to meet when I am on the East Coast. I spoke with her briefly when she was at another cousin's house and the phone was handed to her.  To this day, I still have not spoken directly to her about our link to Timothy O'Sullivan.  It turned out that she held the answer to the question of whether we were related to him or not. 

I continued my research on ancestry.com with my free, two week subscription.  Those weeks passed quickly and I still hadn't found a record directly linking us to O'Sullivan.  My budget for genealogy resembled the shape of a donut, but I was hooked and needed to find a way to continue researching.  An online search led me to the Family History Library where I discovered free access to premium data bases, classes, books and like-minded people researching their families.  I became a regular patron on Thursday evenings.  One of the many things I learned was to contact living relatives when you are stuck or "at a brick wall" in genealogical terms.  Luckily, my Great-uncle Jim had five children.  I only needed one of his descendants to be willing to talk to me.  Time to try again. 

I did not want to cold call Sullivan's listed in the phone book on Staten Island.  My questions were about the past, but we live in the present post-nine-eleven world.  My cousins worked as New York City firefighters.  Baby Charles in the photograph was a fireman (only men held that job in those days) and so was his son and nephew.  But were they still working in 2001?  After twenty years, one retired from the FDNY.  A quick calculation determined that they would have been retired by 2001.  But even if they didn't work on September 11th, no doubt that they knew people who did, and I had to be sensitive about this. 

Meanwhile, I get an email from ancestry.com. as a result of a family tree I had posted there.  Short and to the point, it read:  "Contact UR cousin William Charles Sullivan age 65-email address."  I some how doubted a sixty-five year old man spelled "your" as "U-R".  I emailed him back asking him the O'Sullivan question.  He called me.  Bill is a retired New York City firefighter.