The Well-Behaved Side of the Family

I've been trading off families every month, working on my side of the family for a month, then Steve's side the next month. This month has been my side of the family and I headed off in a direction I had neglected for quite a while, my Dad's mother's side of the family and my Mother's father's line. Both of those lines turn out to very stable, geographically, one line staying in Chihuahua, Mexico and slowly moving north into Arizona, the other side in Nuevo Leon, Mexico and moving slowly north into Texas. I've got both sides going back to the 17th century and maybe even before.

But -- I don't know anything about the people. At this stage, they are all just names in registers, being born and baptized, getting married and having children, then dying. I also don't know much about the history of Mexico, other than the bare bones, so that's another subject I'll be looking into. What strikes me about this few weeks of research is that there are a lot of records, many of them are church records, but the civil records are also surprisingly helpful, if nowhere near complete. I might not have found this remarkable except that having done a little poking around looking for Irish ancestors, have found those records to be frustratingly scattered and often nonexistent. Also, some U.S. states are better than others when it comes to vital records. Arizona is stellar in the amount of records available and that so many of them are online and easy to find. On the other hand, Nebraska is right there with Ireland in the number of records available. Forget finding and birth and death records, not unless you want to go the old fashioned route and write to the county or even better, show up in person and just throw yourself on their mercy.

I'll confess though, it has been somewhat relaxing to just rack up names and dates for the past few weeks. The other side of the family may be harder to document, but they also have more colorful stories, what with criminal records and multiple identities and mysterious trips abroad. I'll be getting back to them soon enough, and who knows, I may yet find that this well-documented and churchy line has some scoundrels and secrets, too.

How It's Going

It's been a while since I've checked in, so I'll do a recap and see where that leads. I've fallen into a routine of working on my side of the family for a month, then on Steve's for a month. Each tree is so large that there is plenty of variety even within each family. February is my family's month, and I've been looking at my father's mother's ancestors this week -- she and most of her children were born in Arizona (my father was born in California and the family eventually settled in California), and her mother was born in Mexico as were the next several generations. I've found them mostly around Chihuahua, in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso. They are there pretty exclusively right back to the 1700s, at which point the record fades away, but in some cases extends back to Spain, and there's at least one ancestor from Portugal. 

Unfortunately, I have been unable to flesh out any of the stories, for insyance with newspaper articles, so at the moment it's a collection of dates and facts without much story. I'll have to work on that.

In a way though, it's kind of a way to take a break from some of the family branches that are crammed full of stories. I have to not spend too much time on Steve's grandfather's family since they seem to have been an unhappy bunch, lots of alcohol and violence and early deaths. Interesting, but tragic. His mother's family is less tragic, in fact they have a few stories that I almost can't believe are true, such as an aunt who appeared on Broadway at age 16 and was destined for a Hollywood career, but then disappeared. And his mother apparently got engaged to a soldier as World War II began -- but he was only a pen pal, and they had never met. Don't know what happened there, but she ended up going into the Air Force after the war and then marrying Steve's father, so that worked out okay. Wonder how the proxy engagement was broken...

But that's not the family I'm working on this month, so back to the colonists from Spain. I'm afraid there will be unpleasantness in the history -- the Spanish settlers aren't known for having been peaceful colonizers. 

#MeToo 1916

From the North Platte (Nebraska) Semi-Weekly Tribune, June 9, 1916, page 3:

"Anna Yankaus, a domestic living in Omaha, has commenced a $50,000 damage suit against Thomas Towey, a wealthy retired farmer of Schuyler. She alleges that while she was employed as housekeeper by Towey's sister, who was dying from tuberculosis, Towey came up behind her and stole a kiss, which caused great mental anguish. The suit was filed in the district court in Omaha."

Thomas Towey is a distant relative of my husband, but obviously, that is not what stands out about the article. A hundred years ago, a woman working as a housekeeper had the gumption to sue this gropester for $50,000. I haven't found out yet how the case was resolved -- Towey had a lot of friends in government and in other high places and I assume Yankaus did not. But even if he settled the case or had the case thrown out of court, he had been embarrassed and inconvenienced. 

Three cheers for Anna Yankaus!

~ 

Genealogy Before the Internet

A few months ago I bought a huge box of genealogical magazines on eBay. The magazines ranged from the early 1970s to around 2011. There were a few dozen issues of Everton's Genealogical Helper and there were some British genealogy magazines, as well as Family Tree, Heritage Quest, and others. 

Obviously many of these magazines have information that is out of date, but that was the point as far as I was concerned. I wanted to know how people did genealogy before the internet. I've only started researching my family trees recently, about a year ago, and in addition to finding out more than I thought was ever possible, I've also run into many cases where there just doesn't seem to be any information at all. And that's with so many documents digitized and scanned and indexed and transcribed. How would it be possible to find anything at all without FamilySearch.org and the National Archives, etc?

It's been revealing to look through the magazines from before the internet, before personal computers, even before Roots. My impression of genealogy enthusiasts from those days is that they were generally looking for English or German ancestors, people who had been in America since colonial times. There was almost no discussion of Italian or Jewish ancestors, a few references to Scandinavian or Eastern European roots, and nothing at all about Asian or African family lines. Once in a while someone would mention the possibility of a Native American ancestor from many generations past.

Genealogy before the internet also took a lot of time. Every issue of Everton's had pages of personal ads for people requesting information about certain family names. What were the chances that someone would see your ad and have information that you were seeking?

There was a lot of advice about how to write to various court houses and libraries in Germany and England for vital records and other documents. It seems as if you had to develop a talent for writing good letters to churches and city halls in the U.S. and abroad. Your letter requesting information and documents had to be succint and precise, getting to the point quickly and being specific about what you were requesting. And it was vital to be polite, acknowledging the time and trouble the recipient would take if your request was entertained at all.

So the ideal family genealogist in pre-computer days would have English roots, be patient, and polite. Since I'm 0-for-3 in those departments, it's just as well I waited until now to get into genealogy! 

~

Boxer, Actor, Laundryman, Chef

Crisogono de la Garza was my grandfather's half-sister's husband and since I don't think there's such a thing as a half aunt or uncle, I guess that makes him my great uncle. Whether we're related or not, he was a whirlwind of energy. 

Born in 1893 in Mexico to academics, he left home at 17 to become a boxer in Los Angeles. His parents would have preferred he go to university, but Crisogono needed to get some life experience first, as well as some cash for college. He claimed to have won a national title in 1912 and to have worked as an actor in 1914, working on location in Africa for a major U.S. movie studio. This was the era of boxing champions with names like Fireman Jim Flynn and Gunboat Smith. Cris styled himself Jack Rivers.

He registered for the draft in 1917, stating that he worked at the Marfa, Texas Steam Laundry, and that he was married with no children, and had served in the Red Cross in 1909 in Mexico. He was still married to Petra in 1924 when he became a naturalized United States citizen in San Antonio, Texas, but now he said he was a student. In the 1920s he opened a radio shop but it went under with the onset of the Depression. By 1926 he and Petra had split up and he married Bertha Romeo, daughter of Louis Romeo, previously profiled here, in New York City.

By 1930, Bertha and Crisogono had three daughters under four years old and Cris was working in a restaurant as a baker and applied to the Columbia University School of Medicine. The 1930s took a toll on the family's finances as the family grew to include seven daughters and a son. In 1940 Cris was working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a draftsman and researcher. Money was tight and his medical school dreams were long gone.

Bertha and Cris returned to San Antonio sometime after the war, but split up. Cris resumed his job as an electrician and died in 1966.

 

Existential Mysteries in the Family Tree

There are the usual unanswered questions all over the family tree -- dates, locations, cause of death, etc. But a few relatives are especially stubborn and downright mysterious.

Take my great grandmother, for instance. She and my great grandfather, Jesus Cota, had five children by the time of the 1900 census. But she does not appear on the census. Jesus says he is married, and only one of the children has a birth certificate that I have been able to find. Michael, my grandfather, got a delayed birth certificate for his 1900 birth in 1936, likely to apply for the newly instituted Social Security Act. His sister vouched for him, and the birth certificate says his mother's name was Jesus Chacon. But that is the only time I see the name. Meanwhile, three of her children used the name Martinez as a middle name, the way many Hispanic families use the mother's maiden name as a middle name. So perhaps her name was Martinez. Jesus Cota's mother was Elena Martinez -- were the children using their mother's last name as their middle name or father's mother's last name as their middle name? Is the mysterious "Jesus Chacon" a mirage? Several women? Someone had those children! Who was she?

Then there's Patrick Towey, my husband's great grandfather, who arrived in the U.S. from Ireland in the late 1880s or early 1890s. He married Nora in 1896 and they had ten children and several farms in Nebraska that were perhaps not entirely successful. In 1925, for unknown reasons, the family broke up, with everyone leaving the farm. The children were mostly grown up by then and not one became a farmer. Most of them moved to Omaha, the city where Patrick and Nora had married. But Patrick did not return to Omaha. He disappeared. He turns up in 1927 on a return ship from Ireland -- he had gone back to the old country for a visit apparently. And then he stayed with his sister in Tarrytown, New York. But then he disappeared again. Maybe he went back to Ireland yet again. He did not reappear for any of his children's marriages or for the death of his oldest daughter. Where did he go?

My favorite for being mysterious is George, my own grandfather, who was born in Mexico in 1892 or 1893 or 1894 or possibly 1895. He arrived in Texas around 1903 with his mother and sister. He started playing around with new names in his twenties, styling himself as George Leele, then as George Lee Monsive. As far as I can make out, he was born Marcos Leal, so the Leele and Lee are easy enough to see, and George is a bit of a stretch, but since no one else on earth had ever called himself Monsive before, I would sure like to know how he settled on the name. He started a dynasty with the name, since he married at least six times, maybe seven, and had at least six children, most of whom also had children and grandchildren. Some of the marriages were conducted simultaneously, so George had a lot to keep track of. I can only theorize that George and Marcos are the same person, there is no paper trail.

Mysteries all. Will I ever crack these cases?

 Bethlehem via Broadway and Hollywood

My husband's aunt, Texas Gail Paulus, started singing and dancing as soon as hse could walk and talk. She taught the other kids in her Bethlehem, Pennsylvania neighborhood dance routines and they put on shows. She was in every church and school production and by the time she was in her teens she was ready for the Big Time. At age 15 she was making regular trips to New York City to act in live radio plays and sing in variety shows. In 1942 at age 16, she made her Broadway debut in "The Three Sisters" as one of the leads.

World War II was well under way by then and she was a regular in USO shows and dances in her home town. Another article told of her meeting in New York with a Hollywood agent who was impressed with her moxie and signed her up for a movie with dancer Ray McDonald. The movie, “The Army Rhythm,” was apparently never made and Texas does not appear in the Internet Movie Database or the Internet Broadway Database.

 

The next time Texas appears in the genealogical records is in 1952 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a husband who was an engineer at a nuclear facility, and no sign of her Broadway or Hollywood exploits. However, her artistic side was still in evidence with a newspaper item listing her as one of those exhibiting jewelry at the New Mexico Art League Exhibition.

Later, Texas would divorce the engineer and marry two, possibly three other husbands, and have a son. After all that adventure and travel, she died in 1992 in the same town where she'd been born, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.