Old Tool Made New in the Genealogical Toolbox

This past month's genealogy research has almost entirely been commandeered by new discoveries within the Heddendorf and Osterndorf family trees.  With the thanks to the last post on the William Henry Heddendorfs, which brought connections to unknown fourth and third cousins, I was redirected to a website I had not used in while and broke down another Brick Wall!  

That website: FultonHistory.com; it may appear simplistic in it's layout but the power is undeniable.  The site provides a straight forward search of over 26 MILLION old New York newspapers, for FREE, and you can see scanned images of the full page as well as zoom in for details.  The best method for searching a person is starting with exact phrase with last name, first name or initial.  For example, "Heddendorf, W" or "Heddendorf, William," though you actually do not need to worry about case sensitivity, thus, "heddendorf, W" will also work.  These searches will not highlight where on the page the match was made, sadly, but the search results will list a year for each associated "find" and the link turns purple after viewing, which means you do not have to remember exactly every result that you examined.  I do recommend using the website in anything but Internet Explorer since IE does not zoom well and takes a while to load.

Here is a screen shot of an exact search for "Heddendorf, W D" with the second result showing.

What we are looking for is in the bottom of the second column here, under the Obituary and In Memorium sections.

Zooming in even further, we can now clearly read Walter D. Heddendorf's obituary, who was also known as George Walter Heddendorf in the census records.

And just look at all the information we get out of this obituary:

• Location and date of death;
• Spouse's maiden name;
• Approximate year of birth from age-at-death;
• Funeral location and date;
• Social groups of which he was a member.

That knocked out two brick walls with this one record: George's date of death and his wife's maiden name in the Heddendorf family tree!  All this information I can now add AND cite in my genealogy family tree software (i.e. Ancestry, FamilyTree, etc).  When adding the citation, remember to cite the newspaper the information comes from (eg. newspaper title, volume/issue, page, column/section) with the repository being fultonhistory.com.  If the text is not too lengthy, it is also worthwhile to transcribe the text with the digital record/citation.

Oh, and if the paper you are viewing appears fuzzy even after you zoom in, do not worry, it is probably not you.  There are a couple of pages in my own search that were less than clear, making letters indistinguishable and impossible to read names.  Hopefully there are more good views than poor ones for your query.

So hop to it!  What will you find in your search?

Gadzooks!

I cannot believe it has been over a month since the last post.  I don't know if any body else has suffered the recent flu or if they have a fridge that wants them to lose weight without all the hard work, but I sure have!  Ugh, there were two days (a night and a morning) where it felt like I lost 10 lbs just by going to the bathroom.  (Sadly that did not actually happen.  Back to the Brazilian Butt Lift videos!)

Well, I can tell you that whilst I may not have made any breakthroughs on the family tree, I have watched a number of Legacy FamilyTree Webinars and gained a few pointers and resources I had not considered.

Plus, I just became addicted to the television series Copper, set in New York City's infamous Five Points during the later half of the Civil War.  Great sets (filmed in Ontario, Canada), costumes and of course acting.  Just waiting now for season 2 to arrive in the mail to find out what happened to the characters!  The gritty realism of the show made me reexamine all of my records on both sides of the tree to see if any of the family lived in that area.  The result was a resounding "NO".  The only possibility would be through John Aloysius McCue but without knowing more of his parents, I cannot get passed the 20th century.

Speaking of Five Points, that oh so notorious, immigrant area of lower Manhattan, one of the webinars covered GoogleEarth and their ability to add historic map layers, similar to the methods used by ArcGIS, that I might just reinstall GoogleEarth.


....Since this is a slow process, if anyone has a particular person they are looking for and do not see them in the tabs or one of the posts, please feel free to ask me in the comments or via email.

Happy Hunting!

The Bemusing Case of the William Henry Heddendorfs

Or, How to Keep It In the Family

This is the story of a side branch of the McCue family tree that was lately brought to my attention and quite hijacked my time for the past couple of days, weeks really.  Hopefully I will be able to keep everything straight and understandable with this side branch of the family tree, the Heddendorfs.  The last posting of the McCue side was of Eben William Osterndorff and his family; what I should like to relate now is in connection to Eben's wife Margaret Blohm.  

Here is your Genealogy Road Map.  Sorry it was hand written, on the fly, with the Blohm children placed unintentionally out of order.  If you are able to follow this then the daughter of William H. is a fourth cousin to my Mom, making me a fourth cousin once removed from the daughter.

Back Story
Margaret was the middle child in a household of five daughters and one son: Mary E, Anna, John (passed away at the age of 2), Minnie and Augusta Caroline, all born in New York City to German immigrant parents of Lutheran faith.  Their father, Claus Henrich Blohm, who sometime went by C. H., C. Henry or Charles Henry, was a baker and liquor dealer for the 16 years he resided in New York before his passing at the early age of 40 in 1858.  The eldest daughter, Mary, was only 12 at the time of his death, whilst his youngest, Augusta, was just born.  There is some evidence that C. H. Blohm may have extended his business into Blohm & Co with his brother-in-law but the evidence is not substantial.  A group of businesses more than merely a bar owner would explain how the Blohm daughters were able to have control of a number of properties around Manhattan 10 to 15 years after their father's death.  Sadly Claus' Letter of Administration cannot be located, despite being in the Index, which would have provided information on how the courts settled business affairs in the absence of a will.

In the years between Claus Blohm's death and the daughters appearance in the mortgage records, three of the daughters marry:

• 1865  Mary (age 19) to Leo Zimmerman
• 1868  Margaret (age 18) to Eben Osterndorff
• 1874  Anna (age 25) to Wilhelm Heddendorf

Minnie appears not to have married or married much later in life, whilst Augusta married in 1882 at the age of 24 to George Weilage.  Two of couples continued the liquor business, with one couple thriving, the Heddendorfs.

Anna Blohm Heddendorf
Anna Blohm, born 1848, remained with her family until her marriage at age 25 to Wilhlem Heinrich Diedrich Heddendorf on 24 Feb 1874, though he is often recorded as William Heddendorf.  Thankfully for us, Wilhelm's profession and location are quite immutable: always living on West Broadway, Manhattan and dealing in liquors.  By 1880, Wilhelm and Anna have four children: William Henry, Maria/Mary Auguste, Henry Blohm and George Walter.  This is where it gets complicated, hence the Genealogical Road Map.

William Henry Heddendorf
William Henry follows in his father's profession of dealing in liquors but would appear to take full control of his father's and mother's liquor businesses after the death of Wilhelm in 1896.  William H. continued to build up his liquor business with his brother Henry and the Lion Brewery company on the Upper West Side where the family had resided.  After the acquistion of a number of tennant and store front buildings, William Henry is elected the second vice-president of the Waldamere Club, a social club comprised of the most prominent business men in Harlem, in 1901.  It is at this time that William goes into the business of stabling horses, primarily as the third largest for the police in Manhattan.  By 1909, William has given the liquor business to his brother Henry and branched out into the undertaking business.

Heddendorf Siblings
Maria or Mary took on the profession of piano teacher before marrying at the age of 25 in 1902 to Christian Gottlieb Loffler/Lofflier/Loeffler and having one son, Eugene.  Maria and William's brother Walter, as he was often listed as, was married the year before to May and quickly had two sons, William Henry and Henry Walter.  Sadly, Walter dies in 1906 with his wife following soon behind in 1912; the two sons were only aged 11 and 9, respectively, when their parents passed.  Records show that the sons William H. and Henry W. went to live with their aunt Maria and her son.

Maria's brothers marry later in life, with Henry marrying in 1912 to Henrietta G. Hahner (no known children) and William marrying in 1925 (age 52) to a widow Victoria, producing two daughters, Edith and Victoria.

Business Continues
Perhaps it was the lack of interest by certain members of Anna Blohm's grandchildren or mayhaps it was the fact of being the namesake, but it would appear that William H.'s nephew, William Henry, took over the some responsibility, if not the profession, of owning and operating a bar.  It should not be a surprise that William H.'s business started to fail at the start of Prohibition with debts being called in, and by the early 1930s, William H.'s marriage of less than ten years also crumbles.  William H. passes in 1937, leaving an estate worth more than $8,000 personal and $32,000 in real estate, which is entirely left to his surviving family members.  

The nephews William Henry and Henry Walter both move to Florida after World War II, where William H. continued the bar owner profession and had two sons of his own William Henry (Jr.) and Richard.  It is believed that Junior also took on the bar owner profession.  Edith and Victoria are known to have married though it is uncertain whether either produced any children.  It is also uncertain whether their cousins Eugene Loeffler or Henry Heddendorf married or had any children.  All four latter individuals are believed to have continued to reside in New York.

Sources:
US Federal Census 1850 - 1880, 1900 - 1940; New York, Florida

New York State Census 1855, 1905

New York County, Letters of Administration Index, 1743 - 1875

Trow's City Directory, Manhattan and Bronx

New York Times, Obituary

New York Times, Real Estate and Mortgage

New York Times, Wills for Probate

The Tammany Times

From the Archives of Anna - Post 1

Here is a list I encountered whilst confirming the locations of Anna Guy Selye's movement.  The list is from her collection of writings and consists of "Kin - also girlhood friends - & playmates & neighbors," as Anna describes the names.

Eugene Doncette
Edward      "       (later French Priest)
Augusta Middlebrook
Allie Wilson (Albert)
Elisabeth Wilson (Libbie)
Minnie Fraser - & John
John Carman (Preacher) older
Dr. & Mrs. Duncan Carman D.D.
Edward Carman Divinity Student much older than I 
Rosie Francis
Kate & Mary Noonan (older)
Mr. & Mrs. Fisher (Ponsant French)
Dr. & Mrs. John R. Barber Md.
Elisabeth & Susan (Su) Miller
John Carman
Aunt Adeline & Julia Hampton
Calvin Hampton - Uncle
Grandfather - Alexander T. Guy
born 1796 - ran away at 16 to join the Army 1812 - later "Indian War"

Searching for free through the 1875 New York State Census on FamilySearch.org, I was able to locate five individuals from the list residing in Rochester, Monroe, New York.  They include the following:

• Allie (Albert George) Wilson, age 7 (born 1868), whose father is a Real Estate Dealer;
• John and Mary Fraser, age 7 & 8 (born 1868 & 1869), whose father is a cabinet maker;
• Kate (Kity) and Mary Noonan, age 18 & 16 (born 1857 & 1859), work as Box Shop Hands.

The latter individuals are most interesting as Anna's notes have stated that as a child, Anna was sent to work in a milliner's shop winding spools of thread where some of the women took pity on her.  Perhaps Kate and Mary Noonan were two of these women.

Another interesting find was sorting out Calvin Hampton, Aunt Adeline and daughter Julia Hampton.  Prior to Anna's list, I had known of her Aunt Adeline but had thought that it might have been her sister Julie who married Calvin.  This new research has further confirmed that nearly all of Anna's paternal family members moved from the Livingston Co, New York area to the Hillsdale, Jonesville Co, Michigan area in the mid 1800s.

But it is just past midnight now and all the remaining finds will have to wait until the morning...