Keep Looking

Recently I have been checking the FindMyPast website hoping to find new transcriptions or scanned images to check. I thought to check and see if children of Robert English might have shown up and I hit pay dirt.

Robert’s younger son, Martin, married two Catholic women and baptized all 6 of his children with them in Catholic ceremonies. Martin, his children and wives were buried at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside. I had not been able to find birth or baptismal records for Martin or his siblings and half-siblings. 

I had found an 1854 marriage between Martin’s parents at Twenty-eighth Street Presbyterian. Robert’s first wife died and he wed a widow, Fanny Wilson Mulligan. Mrs. Mulligan had married in Ireland in 1856 in a Presbyterian ceremony. No record of this second marriage has been found. 

Robert and Fanny had three daughters. These daughters and their half-siblings(two English brothers and four Mulligan siblings) were often found in Episcopalian records. 

One, Sarah, married John Rogen in 1890 at St. Raphael Catholic and baptized their daughter in the Catholic rites there in 1891. This little girl died in 1893 and was buried in Evergreen, a non-Catholic cemetery. 

Sarah’s second marriage to John Baker was at St. Chrysostom Episcopal in 1901 but their children were baptized at St Raphael in 1905 and 1907. Despite a Catholic baptism, the little boy born in 1905 was buried at Evergreen in 1906.  

Sarah had been a baptismal sponsor in 1893 at St. Chrysostom for her nephew.(Interestingly, this nephew would enter a mixed marriage and marry a Catholic woman in 1915 at St. Raphael. Their sons were baptized at St. Raphael in 1917 and 1919.)

It had been unclear what religion Martin English was raised in. He joined the Catholic Church on 27 Apr 1884 by being baptized at Holy Cross. It neighbors St. Raphael in Hell’s Kitchen. This entry recorded his middle name as Francis. He was formerly a Presbyterian. His parents were Robert English and Lizzie Morrison. He was born in 1857. His sponsors were Patrick Sweeney and Maggie Healy. This provided a tidy bit of information all because he was an adult convert to the Catholic Church. There is no notation that the baptism was conditional. It is possible that a Presbyterian ceremony may be found earlier in his life but it might be that he had never been baptized previously. He remained a practicing Catholic. He married in the Catholic Church in 1888 and 1900. His children were baptized Catholic in 1889, 1891, 1893, 1895, 1901 and 1903. He was buried in a Catholic cemetery in 1908.

Baptismal Proximity

Not surprisingly one will find family groups living, working and worshipping near each other. As I eagerly await the further uploads of the rest of sacramental transcriptions of the Archdiocese of New York at FindMyPast, scanned images of the original registers are slowly appearing online. As I compiled my family details I realized that my paternal grandfather and both his maternal and paternal first cousins frequented primarily just the Church of the Immaculate Conception and St. Gabriel.

Grandpa’s father and uncles were Joseph, Patrick and Michael Cassidy. Joseph and Michael married McKeon sisters at Immaculate Conception in 1878 and 1882. Their wives bore children that were baptized there in 1882 and 1883. Patrick Cassidy arrived in America already married but he and his wife baptized their American-born children at Immaculate Conception in 1882, 1884, 1889, 1891 and 1895. 

Joseph remarried twice more. His daughter by his second wife, my grandfather and 5 of 6 of Grandpa’s maternal cousins were all baptized at St. Gabriel in 1882, 1886, 1888, 1888, 1890, 1893 and 1893. The one Benson cousin not baptized at St Gabriel was christened at nearby St. Stephen in 1884. 

I realized too that my paternal grandmother was baptized at St Raphael in Hell’s Kitchen along with her half-brother, three paternal cousins and three maternal cousins. The Goodwins were baptized in 1894, 1896, 1896 and 1898. The Gormley half-brother in 1905. The McGinn cousins were baptized in 1903, 1907 and 1912. 

The neighboring parish is Holy Cross just blocks away. Not surprisingly Grandma’s Goodwin cousins and brothers were baptized there in 1890, 1891, 1892, 1892 and 1894. Her widowed mother remarried there in 1903. Three McGinn cousins were baptized there in 1902, 1905 and 1914. Three of the Goodwin siblings were godparents to their McGinn cousins in 1905 and 1914. 

Sacred Heart, also in Hell's Kitchen, was the site of baptism for a Goodwin baby in 1901 and a McGinn baby in 1905. A McGinn baby was baptized at St Ambrose in 1909.

It is important to check and identify the witnesses to weddings and sponsors at baptisms.  

Cousins and proximity to baptism

Cassidy Benson

Immaculate Conception

1882 Mary 

1882 Mary 

1883 Joseph M 

1884 Joseph A 

1889 Patrick 

1891 Edward 

1895 Francis

St Gabriel

1882 Dominick 

1886 Mary 

1888 Ann 

1888 George 

1890 James 

1893 Joseph 

1893 Edward

St Stephen

1884 John

Goodwin McGinn

Holy Cross

1890 Patrick 

1891 Owen 

1892 Francis 

1892 Owen 

1894 Hugh 
1902 Patrick

1905 Catherine 

1914 Mary 

St Raphael

1894 Peter 

1896 Sarah 

1896 Thomas 

1898 Catherine 

1903 Johanna 

1905 Francis 

1907 Margaret 

1912 John

Sacred Heart

1901 John
1905 James

St. Ambrose
1909 Alice

Catholic Marriage Notations at FindMyPast

FindMyPast is slowly but surely adding scanned images of the actual sacramental registers to their Catholic Archives collection. Recently I was able to view the baptismal entries for several cousins and uncles at both Holy Cross and Holy Rosary. It is crucial to always view as close to an original source as a researcher can.

The registers vary in legibility and organization from period to period. Compliance with canon law was not complete which is rather bothersome. There are several examples where children that later married in a Catholic ceremony after 19 Apr 1908 did not have the appropriate notations next to their baptismal entry. 

This notation is an excellent way to track a potentially missing relative through the years. I did find a woman who was baptized in 1874 marrying a second time in 1945. This marriage notation helped to discover her last married name and a possible death certificate. Her second husband was recorded in the register as Cornelius Hayes. The civil marriage index listed him as C. Griffin Hayes. They applied for their license on 20 Aug 1945 and wed 29 Aug that same year. 

Waiting Patiently for New Databases and New Uploads

Genealogy research has its ups and downs. Currently, I am treading water waiting for a few databases to be expanded and released for public access.

There are a few marriages I hope to find when the rest of the Archdiocese of New York's sacramental registers are released hopefully later this year. About half their holding were released recently in transcriptive form. I await the rest of the transcriptions and also the full release of the scanned images of the baptismal and marriage registers.