The Census Taker

 
This poem was contributed to one of my Rootsweb genealogy email groups some years ago. Having spent many hours pouring over old Irish and U.S. census records, it struck a chord with me.

The Census Taker

It was the first day of census, and all through the land;
The pollster was ready ... a black book in hand.

He mounted his horse for a long dusty ride;
His book and some quills were tucked close by his side.
A long winding ride down a road barely there;
Toward the smell of fresh bread wafting up through the air.

The woman was tired, with lines on her face;
And wisps of brown hair she tucked back into place.
She gave him some water ... as they sat at the table;
And she answered his questions ... the best she was able.

He asked of her children ... Yes, she had quite a few;
The oldest was twenty, the last not quite two.
She held up a toddler with cheeks round and red;
His sister, she whispered, was napping in bed.
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She noted each person who lived there with pride;
And she felt the faint stirrings of the wee one inside.
He noted the sex, the color, the age ..
The marks from the quill soon filled up the page.

At the number of children, she nodded her head;
And saw her lips quiver for the three that were dead.
The places of birth she "never forgot";
Was it Kansas? or Utah? Or Oregon ... or not?
They came from Scotland, of that she was clear;
But she wasn't quite sure just how long they'd been here.

They spoke of employment, of schooling and such;
They could read some and write some ... though really not much.

When the questions were answered, his job there was done;
So he mounted his horse and he rode toward the sun.
We can imagine his voice loud and clear;
"May God Bless you all for another ten years."

Now picture a time warp ... it's now you and me;
As we search for the people on our family tree.
We squint at the census and scroll down so slow;
As we search for that entry from long, long ago.

Could they only imagine on that long ago day;
That the entries they made would effect us this way?
If they knew, would they wonder at the yearning we feel;
And the searching that makes them so increasingly real.
We can hear if we listen the words they impart;
Through their blood in our veins and their voices in our heart.

Author Unknown

This is the 1860 Census return for my great-great-grandparents John & Martha Chambers. They lived 

in the 7th Ward, Philadelphia, PA. I descend from their eldest son Thomas.

Nana's Voyage

Nana ~ shortly after arrival

On May 11, 1912, my maternal grandmother, Emily Irvine, embarked on the greatest adventure of her life. A 25 year-old farmer's daughter from County Fermanagh, Ireland, she boarded the S.S. California in Londonderry for New York leaving home, parents and six siblings for a new world and a new life. Three older siblings awaited her in Philadelphia but she was on her own for a week on the North Atlantic. Seeing debris floating in the water from the Titanic disaster, only a month earlier, unsettled her stomach even more. As a girl, I listened to her stories many times without realizing the significance of this trip for her and ultimately for our family.
 

R.M.S. California, 1907-1917, Anchor Line

The rest of my immigrant ancestors sailed from Ireland in the 1840s and 50s, after the Great Hunger, in ships that would have made steerage on the California seem like the QEII. I'm still searching for their names on ship manifests from that period with little success so far. I'm told one great-great-great-grandfather, William Fassett, came over in the early 1850s and then worked to bring over his children, one by one, and his wife last of all. Since this was a common practice among immigrants, it may have been the case for my other ancestors, too. How many made the journey alone? I hope they made friends on board as Nana did.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Irish Immigration Memorial (http://www.irishmemorial.org) and the good ship Jeanie Johnston (http://www.jeaniejohnston.ie) have given me a little taste of their crossings. At the "arrival" end of the Philadelphia Memorial sculpture are two figures I find particularly moving: a passenger on the ship is waving to someone on the dock, the friend or family member he prayed would be there to meet him. Today, with worldwide use of cell phones, Skype and email, it's hard to comprehend what that meant to both traveler and greeter. Sometimes contact wasn't made and most east coast newspapers had "Missing Friends" columns to aid each in his search for the other. 

"Hello!"

During WWII, my dad cruised to Europe (and back), courtesy of Uncle Sam. Every morning he checked that the ship was sailing into the sun, still east-bound, and not heading south and then west toward the Pacific theater. The luxury liner Queen Mary was refitted as a troop ship and could carry 15,000 men faster than the other ships in her convoy. Dad sailed on a much humbler ship, however, so I bought him a souvenir mug when I toured the Queen Mary, permanently moored in Long Beach, California, forty-five years later.

Dad and friends arriving in New York ~ February 1946

I've visited Ireland and Europe several times by plane. At some point on each return flight the clouds part and that same vast ocean appears far below. My dream cruise is to sail the North Atlantic between the USA and United Kingdom to experience something of those life-altering voyages in the lives of my forebears, without which I wouldn't be here.

[This was written last year for a Dream Cruise contest which ~ apparently ~ I didn't win.]

Digging Around at Mount Moriah

My Chambers Great-great Grandparents - born in Ireland

As an avid genealogist, Mount Moriah Cemetery in southwest Philadelphia has been "calling" me for a long time. Eighteen direct ancestors, going back to my great-great-great-grandparents, were buried there: twelve on Dad's side and six on Mom's. So far I've identified over 130 other family members and their friends who share those and neighboring plots. It was a popular local cemetery for South Philadelphians and many families held picnics there on Memorial (Decoration) Day. Dad's family was the only one on his block of Wharton Street with a lawn mower. They had no lawn; its sole purpose was to trim the family graves at Mount Moriah. 

Grandmom McFarland & some grandkids - picnic @ Mt. Moriah 1932

At my grandmother's funeral in 1986, I wasn't aware of any maintenance problems; I was busy looking at all the ornate monuments. However, at a second-cousin's funeral in 2003, poor upkeep was more obvious. I picked up several beer cans from the deep grass around the grave as people assembled for the interment. Afterward we needed the undertaker's help to obtain from the office the location of our Harvey great-great grandparents' grave in order to visit it. The headstone looked damp that raw, November day, as if it had been face down on the ground until that morning. In fact, I thought it was made of brownstone rather than the typical light grey granite. Beside it was an older white stone leaning forward at a 45-degree angle and I wondered if it held the names of their four young children who died before them.

Sadly we didn't take good pictures that day and I wanted to return to find those two stones. In 2008, armed with maps and plot numbers, a cousin and I tried unsuccessfully to find them again – this time wading through a low jungle of thick weeds and vines which had been a mowed lawn five years before. But with no visible section markers in that area it was impossible.

Since I no longer live in the Delaware Valley, opportunities to visit are few so I was delighted for an excuse to come in February 2012 and help make a video for the benefit of the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery organization. With the help of a Friends volunteer, we were able to tie the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania's burial database to a satellite map and pinpoint the right area of Section 31 to start looking. (Let's hear it for technology!) Weeds and vines were knee deep but I recognized the top of the tilted white headstone peeking out. Pulling away the weeds, there was my great-great-grandparents' headstone flat on its back. We gently brushed off the dried mud and rinsed it and what was indeed light granite turned brown. As it dried in the sunlight it became grey again revealing unusual designs and lettering. 

 

My Harvey Great-great and Great-great-great Grandparents - all born in Ireland

Meanwhile, we dug around the older stone and were able to lay it down on its back and carefully brush away the dirt. The lower half had been in damp earth for many years and was even harder to read than the top. I was surprised to find the name of a woman whom I thought was a family friend, Mary Elizabeth Hutchison (1868). But under her name were the words "Also her Father James Harvey (1870)" and "Also her Mother Mary Harvey (1851)." I knew my great-great-great-grandfather James was buried in this plot but hadn't known his wife's name or that the Mary Harvey buried here (one of twelve people in the plot) was his wife or that Mary Elizabeth was their daughter. These genealogical secrets had been buried in the mud.

Interestingly, the headstone seems to read 1851 for Mary Harvey—before Mount Moriah opened in 1856. It may be that she was re-interred there after the family bought the plot. I need to find her death certificate or obituary to answer those questions.

 Etching of front gates from a Chambers deed dated 1874

Mount Moriah Cemetery has seen better days. That's old news. Many of us on several genealogical email lists had wrung our hands for years and wondered if anything could be done while the office resisted. But with a shift in ownership, interest on the City's part, and the mobilization of hundreds of volunteers for cleanup and organization, 2011 and 2012 saw much progress and the enthusiastic momentum continues to grow. I like to think Mount Moriah's "residents" would be pleased.

Glad Nana didn't marry a 3rd time!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Here's a link to the Mount Moriah video "Espy's Field":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKJSphHnNw

The Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the historical significance, enhancing the beauty, and preserving the artistic heritage of Mount Moriah Cemetery:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/fommc/  and  http://www.friendsofmountmoriahcemetery.org/

How I Got Into Genealogy and Why I Stayed

With Grandmom and Nana on my 1st birthday

I was blessed to have two grandmothers who enjoyed telling me stories of their childhoods – my maternal grandmother Emily Irvine Chambers Cassidy in County Fermanagh, Ireland and my paternal grandmother Maria McFarland Porter in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Both came from large families and it was hard to keep all the names straight. Each generation had several Jameses, Allans, Johns, Marias, Emmas, Margarets and so forth. 

In the 1960s, in my teens, I became aware of a heavy, old photo album with a worn velvet cover and fat cardboard pages. The clothes were old-fashioned and I was interested in historical costume. But there was no writing on any page – and nobody was smiling!

So I sat down with Grandmom Porter and we went through the album. It had been a wedding present to her parents Maria Harvey and Charles McFarland in 1888 and held their large photo collection of family and friends. She identified everyone and explained their relationship to her (which I wrote on each page). In between, she told me stories about them all – and I could cry now because I didn't have a tape recorder to catch what she said. I’m also sorry that I didn’t remove the pictures back then because two were tucked behind others and remain unidentified. 

 Maria Harvey McFarland and Emma Harvey Mills - early 1870s

That was the start of my interest in genealogy but it didn’t go far for the next 30 years. In the '70s, my mother's older brother (her family's historian) took me to his local LDS Family History Center where we pulled up the 1901 Irish Census on a microfilm reader and found my great-grandfather James Irvine's return in Kesh, Fermanagh, showing my grandmother at age 14. But the LDS Center was 30 miles from my home and I never returned. After I married, my mother-in-law showed me her huge genealogy collection – and computer software – and I was inspired to begin again and organize it on the computer.

So I sat down with my folks and picked their brains. It was harder after 30 years, but a lot bubbled to the surface. Thankfully, Mom grew up near Dad in South Philadelphia and each knew many of the other's relatives. Going through their old photos sparked questions. Then I started to write to cousins and second-cousins who were very generous in their responses and in sending names and addresses of more cousins – as well as pictures, memories and stories that were handed down to them.

One second cousin inherited my paternal great-great-grandmother Maria Fassett Harvey’s Bible which contained a host of marriage, birth and death dates and she gave me beautiful color photocopies of these ornate pages. Maria listed the deaths of her parents, William and Maria Darragh Fassett, whom I didn’t realize came to America. It also gave dates for her brother and sister and some of their children. Here were branches of the family that I knew nothing about although their pictures are in the velvet album. 

From Maria Fassett Harvey's Bible

Another second cousin sent a collection of newspaper obituary clippings which his grandmother, Emma Harvey Mills, began and his mother, Emma Mills Collins, continued. The dates are cut off and I don’t know which Philadelphia paper they came from, but they supplement the Bible’s information with addresses helping me identify them on census returns.

My new hobby took off like dynamite aided in very large part by the computer and Internet. Genealogy is a huge interest (and business) and the Internet has countless records on it which previously were available only on paper in libraries and historical societies. Before this, I could only look at census records on microfilm when the LDS Center was open but now I can search the same records at home on my computer – at 10 pm in my pajamas. Genealogy interest groups trade information via email. I belong to several free Rootsweb surname and location email lists and recommend them highly:   http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/index.html

Many online records require a subscription to access but more and more basic records are free. I read the US Census returns online through my local library membership. Being able to save and study census return images on the computer screen has yielded amazing results – as well as raised more questions that may remain unanswered for a while. Time stood still for my ancestors, particularly the women, who aged as little as five years between each census. Consequently, birth dates can be questionable. Baptism records seem more accurate – they seem to have lied less often to the church than to the census taker!

U.S. census records in the 19^th century gave names of those in the household, their relationship to the head of the family, age, occupation, ability to read and write, and sometimes financial information. Census takers' spelling can be "creative" and one fellow listed everyone by their middle name and the initial of their first name. Until the 1900 census, street addresses were not given, only the city ward. Thankfully, I've been able to track Philadelphia ancestors through old city directories online. This is particularly important since the 1890 Census records burned – leaving a huge and important information gap.

Beginning with the 1900 U.S. census, mothers were asked how many children they bore and how many were still living. Child mortality was something I had read about in school but suddenly this was my family. My great-great-grandmother Harvey bore ten children but only six lived to maturity. One consequence of that is that today none of her descendants carry the Harvey surname.

The LDS Family Search Site (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/list) is a gold mine for me contributing Philadelphia Marriage Indexes and Death Certificates, WWII "Old Men's" Draft Registrations, New York Passenger Arrivals, and other records I haven't looked at yet. And it's all free!

I'll finish with two wonderful connections I made using the Internet. Family Tree Maker software allowed me to construct a web page displaying my database and photos to share with family and other researchers: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/f/o/h/Linda-P-Foh/index.html. One day I got an email from a 2^nd-cousin-once-removed in California who stumbled on my site in searching for Maria Fassett Harvey – her great-grandmother and my gr-gr-grandmother. My site mentioned a family "legend" that this immigrant ancestor had sewn and displayed a flag when Abraham Lincoln was shot in 1865. My father saw the flag as a child but nobody knew what happened to it. "It's true," she wrote, "and my mother has the flag!" Dad knew her mother but hadn't seen her in 60 years and was delighted to contact her again. She was a very sharp 90-year old and a fountain of family information. Later that year, a large family reunion was held at the Union League in Philadelphia where the restored flag was contributed to the League's Civil War collection. It now hangs proudly on the second floor landing opposite a life-size equestrian portrait of George Washington. Great-great-Grandmom Harvey would be amazed. 

The Harvey flag at the Union League

Except for my maternal grandmother  who came to America in 1912, I don't know where my other Irish immigrants were born – my "brick walls" – so I've researched her family and ancestors drawing on information from second cousins in County Fermanagh. In 1983, her niece, Agnes Irvine Cole, in England gave me a copy of an old letter and photos from New Zealand. It was full of family information of the sort you might send to cousins in the "old country" whom you'd never met. It was written on a lawyer's letterhead: "Lewis O'Neill, Hamilton, New Zealand, 190__" but it was an interior page, therefore missing the salutation, closing and further introduction and explanation. Agnes said it was written to her grandfather, James Irvine, (who raised her) by a cousin on his mother's side.

In 1983 I had no idea how to trace it so it sat in a box – until 2002 when I sent an inquiry to a Rootsweb list for New Zealand. Back came all kinds of helpful information. Lewis O'Neill was identified through online legal archives. His father James and uncle Allen O'Neill immigrated to New Zealand in the early 1800s and became prominent citizens leaving huge paper trails, much of which is available online now. Their lengthy obituaries placed them in County Leitrim where my great-grandfather was born. Two "listers" from NZ helped me construct a detailed family tree for this clan. However, the exact connection to my great-great-grandmother remained plausible but unproved. 

Then, in 2008, a descendant of Lewis' uncle, saw my 2002 post in the Rootsweb archive and contacted me with a wealth of information about her family's Leitrim roots. The immigrant brothers had a sister with the same name as my gr-gr-grandmother, Jane O'Neill, so the NZ lawyer and my great-grandfather could be first cousins. The link became more plausible – I just needed to find her marriage record. Allen and James O'Neill's younger brother Lewis immigrated to Philadelphia around 1830 and his son Aaron was well established when the first of my grandmother's siblings came to Philadelphia in the 1890s. Is this why they picked Philadelphia out of all the Irish communities on the east coast? Nobody remembers hearing a reason and it never occurred to me to ask my grandmother!

Genealogical research never ends – it's always a work in progress. Thanks to 21^st-century technology, the Internet and the "random acts of genealogical kindness" of so many online researchers, I'll probably be working on this for the rest of my life. I guess as a nation of immigrants, we Americans (and our ex-colonial cousins around the world) want to know where we came from and won't be content until we dig just a little deeper. Good hunting, cousins!