• Archives
  • Jan6

    From the Boston Transcript

    We are glad to note that so many societies and orders of to-day are searching historical genealogy, not to find that the average American’s veins contain a minute drop of royal or noble blood transmitted from England, but in the spirit of preserving the memory of the great though humbly worked out deeds of our ancestors in the gloomy obscurities of the colonies in their forest-shadowed days. Pride in descent from men of the type of our early colonists is, we hold, entirely consistent with our democratic institutions. They were the pioneer Americans, men who under great discouragement and with vast labor planted strong and deep the foundations of the commonwealth. It is worth while to make this fact plan to our present population. There were great men before Agammemnon and there was a powerful country here built up by men of the Anglo-Saxon race before the great immigration movement of fifty years ago began.

    New York Times, Mar 15, 1896, Page 5.

  • Dec30

    I thought that I’d be able to get a few ideas written down during my Christmas vacation – wrong!

    In lieu of that, a another favorite photo post. Below is my Dad, Mike Tierney on May 29, 1941 with what looks to be a new bike. He’s got a River Phoenix thing going on in this photo…
    Mike Tierney, New Bike circa 1941

  • Dec16

    I have had absolutely no time to write the last week or so, so I will show my face with a quick photo collage I whipped together while waiting for servers to reboot…

    My grandmother’s Egan family was all from near Ferbane in County Offaly (King’s) Ireland. Her sister Kathleen went to Dublin and became a nurse and joined the church, later going to China and Hong Kong working with Caritas helping children and others in hospitals.

    She took the religious name of Sister Attracta, and the name Attracta has continued on in the family one of nieces being named after her and my sisters both taking it as their confirmation names.

    Sister Attracta Collage

    The first photo is a crop from a beautiful one of her and several sisters, the second I believe is from her time in Dublin. The third, I’m told was on the cover of a Catholic magazine, and the last two are from later in life: visiting back home in Ireland and in China. (She wrote on the rear of that last photo that the small houses in back of her on the hillside are graves.)

  • Dec7

    On my two hour round trip commute each day, I often take a few mental minutes to go over my research and think about things I might have missed or alternate ways of obtaining information. I also think about birds. and Fudge Town cookies.

    Whatever happened to those? sigh. *Ahem.*

    Well, on Monday it occurred to me that after receiving my great-grandmother Annie McDonald Tierney’s death certificate from the NYC Municipal archives, I had never looked into the possibility that there may be records left from the undertaker who took care of her.

    That thought led me to yet another research coincidence – although it is more of a “Hmm, that’s odd” than “Wahoo! Found more useful info!”

    Last year I had looked up the undertaker on my great-grandfather’s certificate and it looked like the company was still in business. Unfortunately they did not respond to my message via their web site, so I need to trek over there and talk with a live person. (Because at a funeral home, talking to the other people doesn’t help much.)

    Undertaker crop from GGM Annie Tierney's Death CertificateSo, a quick look at GGM Annie’s certificate told me that the undertaker was one Joseph M. Mulligan of 617 East 138th Street. Read More | Comments

  • Nov30

    Cabinet Card, Unknown Family, Wien One of my favorite photos in our family album – but sadly an unknown family. As our family is Czech from the towns of Zámlyní and Předmíř I am very interested to know who from the family might have had their photo taken at Burggasse 116, Wien, Austria.

    Cabinet Card, Rear, Unknown Family, WienYou have to love the beautiful design of the rear of this cabinet card…

     

     

     

     

     

     

    For future Google searchers, a transcription of the printed text on both side of the photo are as follows:

    Front of card:
    C. TH. MEYER
    JNH d. KUNST u. Verlagsanstalt
    u. Photogr.Atelier, Else”
    WIEN
    VII.Burggasse 116.

    Rear of card:
    Carl Th. Meyer
    Atelier, Elsa
    Wien
    VII/3 Burgasse No 116

    Die Platte Bleist Fur
    Nachbestellungen AufBewahrt
    Verulelfaltigungsrecht Vorbehalten
    Nachdruck Verboten