I've made contact with more of the Raulinitis Clan! I managed to track down a few from the Ives family. They're a sub-group from the Flanagans, which branches off from Margaret Raulinitis, my great-grandmother's youngest sister. Over the last day there's been a flurry of Facebook messages going between us.
Tracing through a female lineage can be tricky, as there are so many name changes, but luckily they've got contact will all the other Flanagan descendants, so it will make the job of getting to the others quite easy. What's more is that they know something of what happened to Annie Raulinitis, my great-grandmother's other sister! As I wrote previously, I managed to find record of her having been in the US, but nothing of much detail. I suspected she had married and taken a new name, but without some clue of knowing what it was, finding her could be really difficult. Fortunately, Jane Ives has told me that she thinks she married a sailor with the name Graham. I'm confident we'll get more about her because, Jane tells me, her aunt Annie Flanagan, the niece of Annie Raulinitis, also emigrated to New York and was taken in by her. Annie Flanagan apparently married someone named Raymond, but he died young, and she became a nun (I'm discovering an awful lot of nuns in the family!). But she's still living, so she will certainly know more about her aunt.
I've also been messaging with Jane's brother Rob. He had done a bit of genealogy work himself. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about what he know of us, because he'd even gone to the extent of traveling to Lithuania in search of leads! I'm not sure if he was looking for us (i.e. if he knew Zose and Kazimiras had returned there) or if he was looking for record of Motiejus and Eva's families. But I told him he wouldn't find us there, being that Kazimiras Jr was killed by the Russians and the rest of the family fled to the US.
It's really great to make this contact and to find that they seem just as curious about us as we are about them. I don't expect every one of them to care that much either way, but it's nice that I moved here with only Jessee and I've amassed more family than I ever knew I had!
13 July 2012
09 July 2012
Mary McCourt
Recently, I've been talking with my grandmother's cousin, my "first cousin, twice removed", on the McPherson side, Mary McCourt (born Mary Spencer). I had my uncle David show her a copy of the McPherson tree I've reconstructed so far to see what she knew of it. Of course she knew her aunts and uncles, all 8 of them! But he had no idea that her grandfather was one of 8 as well!
She recalled meeting her great-uncle John McPherson (the one born in 1865) once when she was very young, but she didn't remember ever meeting any of the others. As she remembered it, any of the others (she didn't know who or how many) had "gone west". That is, "West", with a capital 'w', as in the Wild West!
That really got me interested, as they could have gone out there in the time of the Deadwood, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, the frontier and all the rest! Tracing their move out there won't be easy, but hopefully I can dig up something. It would be fascinating to be connected to that history in some way.
From the census records, it looks like James, Mary, William, and Joseph disappear after 1880. I'd be surprised if Mary would have gone out there on her own (not many women did that in those days, unless of course she became a prostitute! - unlikely in such a pious Catholic family), so I suspect she probably married and took a different name. The three men, however, may well have gone. The other four, Agnes, John, Alfred, and my great-great-grandfather Henry appear on the 1892 NY state census, but Alfred may have joined them later because he doesn't appear on the 1900 census. I've been limiting my search to the City of Buffalo, thus far, so I'll need to extend things to get more information - it's always possible they just moved out of the city but stayed relatively local. For now, I'd just like to believe that they were in the thick of the Old West, which is not improbable given the story relayed by Mary.
Mary also told me that a distant ancestor of ours was quite well regarded in the Buffalo (and wider) community for starting a school for the deaf. She was a nun, Mother Mary Anne Burke, who Mary McCourt said was always a respected member of the family for her charity work. Since Jessee's sister is a sign language interpreter in New York, I asked her if she'd ever heard of the school. Apparently it's pretty well known in the deaf community, St. Mary's School for the Deaf (presumably named for the Virgin Mary, not my ancestor). She pointed me to their website, which sure enough indicates that Mary Anne Burke was involved in it's early days! She was sent to Philadelphia for deaf education training in 1861 and had become the principal of the school by 1863.
Mary also said we're related to "Cluny MacPherson", or rather Ewen Macpherson of Cluny, a significant figure in Scottish history. He aided Bonnie Prince Charlie's (failed) attempt to reclaim the British Throne in the Jacobite Rising of 1745. He was a fugitive for almost a decade after Prince Charlie was defeated and famously was paid a penny by his would-be captors for watching their horses, since they didn't recognize him. Whether or not there is a direct blood relation to him, as Mary suggested, isn't clear, but it's unlikely. The MacPherson Clan is massive and it's doubtful most members can be connected to his particular family unit.
The last thing she told me was that Geraldine Swift, a relative from the Stanton/Burke line, did quite a bit of genealogy research years back. According to Mary, she had discovered that one of the Burkes in the family was a murderer! I immediately thought of William Burke, one of the infamous serial killer duo, Burke & Hare. They notoriously killed vagrants and sold their bodies to the anatomy lecturers at the medical school of my very own University of Edinburgh. Hare turned "King's Evidence" (i.e. he squealed) and Burke was publicly hanged in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. Burke's body was then dissected in the same anatomy lectures to which he had so faithfully supplied bodies. In, what seems to me, the sickest turn of all, they then made a leather pocketbook out of his skin, which is still on display at the Surgeon's Hall Museum, just up the street from where I live!
As dark as this story is, I almost hope I'm connected in some way. It might be my one chance at a claim to fame (or infamy, rather). Again, I think it's improbable, but I'll certainly look into it. Specifically, I'm going to try to track down who might have Geraldine's papers today - she has since passed away. That could be a real gold mine of information, since she's several generations closer to those she would have been researching.
UPDATE: I wrote earlier that Mary was one of the children of John and Mary McPherson that disappears after the 1880 census and that I suspected that she had married and taken a different name (rather than move west and become a prostitute!). I had forgotten that I'd already found a notice of her death in 1881. That's a good reminder that I'll need to be sure the others were still living before I go on a big search for them in the West.
She recalled meeting her great-uncle John McPherson (the one born in 1865) once when she was very young, but she didn't remember ever meeting any of the others. As she remembered it, any of the others (she didn't know who or how many) had "gone west". That is, "West", with a capital 'w', as in the Wild West!
That really got me interested, as they could have gone out there in the time of the Deadwood, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, the frontier and all the rest! Tracing their move out there won't be easy, but hopefully I can dig up something. It would be fascinating to be connected to that history in some way.
From the census records, it looks like James, Mary, William, and Joseph disappear after 1880. I'd be surprised if Mary would have gone out there on her own (not many women did that in those days, unless of course she became a prostitute! - unlikely in such a pious Catholic family), so I suspect she probably married and took a different name. The three men, however, may well have gone. The other four, Agnes, John, Alfred, and my great-great-grandfather Henry appear on the 1892 NY state census, but Alfred may have joined them later because he doesn't appear on the 1900 census. I've been limiting my search to the City of Buffalo, thus far, so I'll need to extend things to get more information - it's always possible they just moved out of the city but stayed relatively local. For now, I'd just like to believe that they were in the thick of the Old West, which is not improbable given the story relayed by Mary.
Mary also told me that a distant ancestor of ours was quite well regarded in the Buffalo (and wider) community for starting a school for the deaf. She was a nun, Mother Mary Anne Burke, who Mary McCourt said was always a respected member of the family for her charity work. Since Jessee's sister is a sign language interpreter in New York, I asked her if she'd ever heard of the school. Apparently it's pretty well known in the deaf community, St. Mary's School for the Deaf (presumably named for the Virgin Mary, not my ancestor). She pointed me to their website, which sure enough indicates that Mary Anne Burke was involved in it's early days! She was sent to Philadelphia for deaf education training in 1861 and had become the principal of the school by 1863.
Mary also said we're related to "Cluny MacPherson", or rather Ewen Macpherson of Cluny, a significant figure in Scottish history. He aided Bonnie Prince Charlie's (failed) attempt to reclaim the British Throne in the Jacobite Rising of 1745. He was a fugitive for almost a decade after Prince Charlie was defeated and famously was paid a penny by his would-be captors for watching their horses, since they didn't recognize him. Whether or not there is a direct blood relation to him, as Mary suggested, isn't clear, but it's unlikely. The MacPherson Clan is massive and it's doubtful most members can be connected to his particular family unit.
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| Ewen Macpherson of Cluny, painting in the Clan Macpherson museum in Newtonmore. |
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| Me. Can you see the resemblance? |
The last thing she told me was that Geraldine Swift, a relative from the Stanton/Burke line, did quite a bit of genealogy research years back. According to Mary, she had discovered that one of the Burkes in the family was a murderer! I immediately thought of William Burke, one of the infamous serial killer duo, Burke & Hare. They notoriously killed vagrants and sold their bodies to the anatomy lecturers at the medical school of my very own University of Edinburgh. Hare turned "King's Evidence" (i.e. he squealed) and Burke was publicly hanged in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. Burke's body was then dissected in the same anatomy lectures to which he had so faithfully supplied bodies. In, what seems to me, the sickest turn of all, they then made a leather pocketbook out of his skin, which is still on display at the Surgeon's Hall Museum, just up the street from where I live!
As dark as this story is, I almost hope I'm connected in some way. It might be my one chance at a claim to fame (or infamy, rather). Again, I think it's improbable, but I'll certainly look into it. Specifically, I'm going to try to track down who might have Geraldine's papers today - she has since passed away. That could be a real gold mine of information, since she's several generations closer to those she would have been researching.
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| A "portrait" of William Burke, housed in the Surgeon's Hall Museum, Edinburgh |
UPDATE: I wrote earlier that Mary was one of the children of John and Mary McPherson that disappears after the 1880 census and that I suspected that she had married and taken a different name (rather than move west and become a prostitute!). I had forgotten that I'd already found a notice of her death in 1881. That's a good reminder that I'll need to be sure the others were still living before I go on a big search for them in the West.
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| Death Notice for Mary McPherson (1853-1881) |
02 July 2012
Death Certificate
Recently, I wrote that I was pretty sure I'd located records of my McPherson ancestors in Scotland. I found two birth records and a marriage record that fit the names and ages of the four that originally emigrated. The records showed that Mary McPherson had been Mary Johnston before marriage and that they lived in Paisley. Since all the names were so common, though, I wanted to locate a record to corroborate what I had found. Mary's US death record, I suggested, would indicate her maiden name and confirm the connection.
I managed to track down a death record, but it was lacking the information I needed. Apparently the person who reported the death did not know Mary's parents' names.
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| Death Record: 11 June 1887 |
This was quite disappointing because it can't confirm what I had hoped it would. Of course, it doesn't refute it either. In fact, there's nothing on the death record to know that is actually the correct Mary McPherson either (it's not signed by John or any of the children and the address isn't the one that shows up on the US census records, although it is just around the corner). An obituary for the same date would have more information, but I haven't located one yet. All I managed to find was a Report of Death that is rather unhelpful for such common names.
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| Report of Death: 11 June 1887 |
On further consideration of the Scottish birth and marriage records, however, I am fairly certain they are the correct ones. The names and ages of 4 people match, which despite the common names would be rather unusual. I'm confident it's them, so I'll pursue it further, but I'll still keep trying to find more evidence to support it.
As just a start, I've already found John and Mary on Scotland's 1851 census. John was a "Draper's Assistant" and born in Linlithgow, not 20 miles from where I currently live in Edinburgh. He must have moved to the Glasgow area and met Mary because the census puts them at 25 Gauze St in Paisley.
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| 1851 Census |
13 June 2012
11 June 2012
The Gorbals
Two weekends ago I took a walk around The Gorbals in Glasgow, where my Lithuanian relatives first settled after arriving in Scotland. Nothing of the neighborhood they would have known remains. The area has been the target of urban redevelopment, twice now. Only a small part of the street they lived on still exists. The rest is buried under fairly new looking apartment buildings.
I found an old map, dated 1896, that shows the neighborhood largely as it would have been when they arrived, around 1900. It's incredible to see just how dramatically the place has been altered. The old tenement buildings have been completely removed and some of the street names have been changed.
In visiting this place, I couldn't help but feel a sense of injustice in the way it looked. The neighborhood had been unsafe and filthy, by all accounts, but it was all they had. It was a working class neighborhood filled with immigrants, mostly Irish Catholics and "Russian" Jews, but also a fair number of other eastern Europeans like my ancestors. These people came to Scotland with virtually nothing, leaving their homes and their families behind. They labored in the factories and mines for dismal pay and often in deadly conditions. But at the end of the day, they had little to show for it. Fortunes were made, but the workers saw none of it.
In boom times, they could survive, but each time bust inevitably came, they lost everything. Factory and mine owners could weather the storms on accumulated wealth, but the workers were abandoned. Without a daily wage, desperation comes quick. Urban decay leads to violence and crime and, soon enough, a place like the Gorbals gets a reputation.
The greatest injustice of all, however, is that it is the people themselves - including my ancestors - that shoulder the blame for it all. The Lithuanian immigrants were described in this way in a newspaper editorial from 1900 (cited here):
But this understanding is too complex, too nuanced for it to be picked up readily by those without some knowledge of the longer history of a place. It is far easier to fault those most immediately associated with the problem. So those in power sell the solution of redevelopment: move the people out, tear down their crumbling homes, and put something clean and productive up in their place.
Injustice is what I see when I look at a place like the Gorbals. Human histories have been wiped away. Hard working people have been exploited and abandoned, and worst of all, they have been blamed for all that has happened. I only wish the older generations of my Lithuanian-Scottish relatives were still living so that I could hear from them, firsthand, about what happened there.
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| By my estimation, this building sits on top of where my family once lived. |
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| They lived at 178 Rose St, which became 178 Florence St while they were still living there, and eventually was mostly built over with new apartment buildings. |
I found an old map, dated 1896, that shows the neighborhood largely as it would have been when they arrived, around 1900. It's incredible to see just how dramatically the place has been altered. The old tenement buildings have been completely removed and some of the street names have been changed.
 |
| South Glasgow, 1896 |
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| Gorbals, 1911 |
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| Side-by-side, 1896 and 2012. Notice that not just physical human histories (buildings, etc) were erased in redevelopment, but also cultural ones. Shamrock Street was re-named Pine Place, undoubtedly in an attempt to remove all traces that this used to be a hotbed of Irish Republicanism. |
In visiting this place, I couldn't help but feel a sense of injustice in the way it looked. The neighborhood had been unsafe and filthy, by all accounts, but it was all they had. It was a working class neighborhood filled with immigrants, mostly Irish Catholics and "Russian" Jews, but also a fair number of other eastern Europeans like my ancestors. These people came to Scotland with virtually nothing, leaving their homes and their families behind. They labored in the factories and mines for dismal pay and often in deadly conditions. But at the end of the day, they had little to show for it. Fortunes were made, but the workers saw none of it.
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| Gorbals, 1950s |
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| Gorbals |
In boom times, they could survive, but each time bust inevitably came, they lost everything. Factory and mine owners could weather the storms on accumulated wealth, but the workers were abandoned. Without a daily wage, desperation comes quick. Urban decay leads to violence and crime and, soon enough, a place like the Gorbals gets a reputation.
The greatest injustice of all, however, is that it is the people themselves - including my ancestors - that shoulder the blame for it all. The Lithuanian immigrants were described in this way in a newspaper editorial from 1900 (cited here):
They are most filthy in their habits of life, being a source of danger to the health of the community with their primitive ideas of order and cleanliness... They are fearfully intemperate in their habits [and] appeal to the knife... They are in short a most barbarous people and ... we seem to have the very scum of their nation.But I just can't accept that the blame was attributable to the people themselves being somehow intrinsically different from everybody else. In reality, the problem is rooted in unfair pay and uneven distribution of wealth. It is a social problem stemming from broader inequity, not the result of personal failings and individual shortcomings! They are the victims of social injustice, not simply the perpetrators of crime.
But this understanding is too complex, too nuanced for it to be picked up readily by those without some knowledge of the longer history of a place. It is far easier to fault those most immediately associated with the problem. So those in power sell the solution of redevelopment: move the people out, tear down their crumbling homes, and put something clean and productive up in their place.
Injustice is what I see when I look at a place like the Gorbals. Human histories have been wiped away. Hard working people have been exploited and abandoned, and worst of all, they have been blamed for all that has happened. I only wish the older generations of my Lithuanian-Scottish relatives were still living so that I could hear from them, firsthand, about what happened there.
22 May 2012
Kisielius Siblings
Among the many Kisielius records that I frantically downloaded before close-of-business on my last visit to the archive was one for Marrie Valaitis, maiden name Kisieliute (family name Kisielius, using the Lithuanian naming conventions).
This one caught my attention because "Valaitis" was one of the names mentioned by my Uncle Jimmy (actually my great-uncle-in-law) when I was home last December. He explained that Kazimiras Sr, my great-grandfather, wasn't the only one of the Kisielius' to emigrate to Scotland. He had 5 brothers who went with him (Andrew, John, ???, ???, ???) and a sister who they saved money to bring over later. He told me she married and took the name Valaitis. I'm quite certain the record above is her!
Kazimiras and Zose's marriage record reports "Michael" Kisielius and "Catherine" Arn???iute as his parents. I had already suspected those were just Anglicized versions of their Lithuanian names because Motiejus Raulinitis came up as "Matthew" on the same record. Marrie's death record confirms it, listing them as Mykolas and Katarina.
It's a pretty exciting find because now it is quite likely that I'll find relatives from Kisielius branch living here as well. More to come as I sort through these records further.
[UPDATE: The rest of the records didn't contain any other Kisielius's that I think I'm related to. That's a disappointment, but it makes sense. They would have all been in the age range that would have been affected by the Anglo-Russian Military Convention, just as Kazimiras Sr was. I'm pretty sure some of them ended up in the United States, in the coal mining region of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in order to avoid military conscription (if the living memories are correct). I just didn't know if some stayed behind. Apart from Marrie Valaitis, it doesn't appear that they did. So far, though, I've only searched the death records. There's a chance that I might still get lucky and find some marriage records to help track them down in the US.]
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| Death: Marrie Valaitis (Kisieliute), 1975 |
This one caught my attention because "Valaitis" was one of the names mentioned by my Uncle Jimmy (actually my great-uncle-in-law) when I was home last December. He explained that Kazimiras Sr, my great-grandfather, wasn't the only one of the Kisielius' to emigrate to Scotland. He had 5 brothers who went with him (Andrew, John, ???, ???, ???) and a sister who they saved money to bring over later. He told me she married and took the name Valaitis. I'm quite certain the record above is her!
Kazimiras and Zose's marriage record reports "Michael" Kisielius and "Catherine" Arn???iute as his parents. I had already suspected those were just Anglicized versions of their Lithuanian names because Motiejus Raulinitis came up as "Matthew" on the same record. Marrie's death record confirms it, listing them as Mykolas and Katarina.
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| Marriage: Kazimiras and Zose, 1917 |
It's a pretty exciting find because now it is quite likely that I'll find relatives from Kisielius branch living here as well. More to come as I sort through these records further.
[UPDATE: The rest of the records didn't contain any other Kisielius's that I think I'm related to. That's a disappointment, but it makes sense. They would have all been in the age range that would have been affected by the Anglo-Russian Military Convention, just as Kazimiras Sr was. I'm pretty sure some of them ended up in the United States, in the coal mining region of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in order to avoid military conscription (if the living memories are correct). I just didn't know if some stayed behind. Apart from Marrie Valaitis, it doesn't appear that they did. So far, though, I've only searched the death records. There's a chance that I might still get lucky and find some marriage records to help track them down in the US.]
Lithuanians in Scotland
Here's an interesting BBC radio story about a Lithuanian immigrant to Scotland: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mr0rj. The program starts about 1 minute in and is about 6 minutes long.
It mentions some interesting points that might be useful to me. First, they entered at the port of Leith from Hamburg, Germany. Surely, many different routes would have been used, but Leith is the logical port for coming from the Baltic. I suspected this would have been where my ancestors entered, and while this doesn't confirm that they did, it's good to know that it's a likely possibility.
It also says that all immigrants had to report to Customs and Excise. This is good news because it suggests that there should be a record of their entry. If I can find that, hopefully it will answer the question of whether or not Zose and Jessie are the same person.
There is also a funny commentary about how the immigration officers changed the names of the immigrants. Fortunately, my relatives appear to have gotten through with their names intact, making my job today considerably easier.
It mentions some interesting points that might be useful to me. First, they entered at the port of Leith from Hamburg, Germany. Surely, many different routes would have been used, but Leith is the logical port for coming from the Baltic. I suspected this would have been where my ancestors entered, and while this doesn't confirm that they did, it's good to know that it's a likely possibility.
It also says that all immigrants had to report to Customs and Excise. This is good news because it suggests that there should be a record of their entry. If I can find that, hopefully it will answer the question of whether or not Zose and Jessie are the same person.
There is also a funny commentary about how the immigration officers changed the names of the immigrants. Fortunately, my relatives appear to have gotten through with their names intact, making my job today considerably easier.
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