I'm currently reading President Obama's "Dreams From My Father" (which I highly recommend), and it has reminded me how much I don't know about my family history. I find myself with a relatively large amount of free time this year, so I'm making genealogy one of my many new projets.
One of the greatest mysteries on either side of my family is what my mother's maiden name should have been. Legally, it was Eileen McMann. The first American-born relative on the McMann side of the family was my mother's great-grandfather, a sea captain named James McMann. He lived in the second-to-last town on the North Fork of Long Island, a town called Greenport, NY. James hauled limestone into the city to build some of the great towers that dot the skyline today. He lived at 539 Fifth Avenue in a house that became known as "The Old House" and stayed in the family until my grandfather's generation.
James was born James McMahon. He changed the spelling of his last name to "McMann" because there was another McMahon in Greenport, and he got tired of the mail getting confused. (This decision-making-by-whim will become an important theme in my family history.)
Now here's the mystery: so far as we know, James' father's name was not McMahon. James took the last name of his mother, whose first name we don't know. Miss McMahon came over from Ireland, sometime during or shortly after the American Civil War. We don't know where she entered the United States, but she was sent to work as a domestic servant in the home of a wealthy Long Island family. She became pregnant with the child of some member of the family. Since James was born a bastard, he took his mother's name.
So who was Miss McMahon, where in Ireland did she come from, and who fathered her child? This is the mystery my family has never been able to solve. The only clues we have are a rough idea of when James was born (probably between 1865 and 1885), where he was born (Long Island, NY), and where he lived most his life (Greenport, at 539 Fifth Avenue). My grandfather, who was born in 1922, knew James, so we can surmise that James probably died somewhere between 1925 and 1940.
We also have an idea of where James died. This is another fun plot twist. At the end of his life, James retired to a home for old sailors called "Sailors' Snug Harbor." It was located on the north shore of Staten Island, NY. Half a century later, for completely unrelated reasons, my mother's family would buy a house about six blocks away. I would later attend preschool at Snug Harbor, which has since become a cultural center.
Where to begin? The best clue to the identity of James' mother and father would be to find his birth certificate. But the New York State Department of Health only has original birth certificates going back to 1881. (See http://www.health.state.ny.us/vital_records/genealogy.htm; http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/research/res_topics_gen_vitalstats.shtml.) It's possible but unlikely that James was born in or after 1881, since his first grandson (my grandfather, George A. McMann, Jr.) was born in 1922. James was probably born closer to 1875. But, to cover all bases, I'm sending in an inquiry. (See http://www.health.state.ny.us/vital_records/forms/doh-4384.pdf.)
We might have more luck with finding James' death certificate, which should also have parental information. But when did he die? I decided to try searching through the New York Times to look for an obituary. No luck.
It's likely that James died at Sailors' Snug Harbor, so if I can find their records I might be able to find when he died. But that search will have to wait for another day . . .
