The Slow Erosion of a Brick Wall Yields John Healy as my Newest Ancestor

 

 This blog is for a prompt from Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks genealogy workshop.   This week’s prompt is “Newest.” 

 

 Do you have a messy brick wall you are trying to work through?   Here’s an example of using minimal online information, coupled with what I’ve learned in genealogy to make good judgment calls, going back to the hard copy vital records office, and adding in a lot of patience, which eventually brought me to success.  It might inspire you to tackle one of your brick walls.   This story is about the newest ancestor added to my Clark family tree, John E. Healy.    

 

Who was the father of this adorable girl?  My grandmother, Agnes Rose Healy, pictured at about the age of 6.  Photo likely taken in Long Island City, Queens County, New York, circa 1896. 

The search was for my paternal grandmother’s father in New York City and there were plenty of challenges.  Both of Agnes Rose Healy’s parents died at a young age in the early 1890s, but I did not have an exact death year nor a birth year.   Raised by her Grandmother, my Grandmother (Agnes) did not speak about her parents so my father did not know much more than that his grandfather was a stone cutter and died when his mother was a small child.  My research uncovered that Agnes listed her father’s name as John on her 1917 marriage certificate, yet on her 1979 death certificate (completed by others), her father’s name is listed as Edward.   

 

As a 1917 bride in Queens County New York, Agnes listed her deceased father's name as "John" on her marriage certificate.  One month later, on Christmas Eve, her new husband shipped off to WWI in France. 

Complicating research is the complete lack of newspaper articles on this family.  This is not too surprising, considering New York City had a rapidly growing population of 7 million people in 1890, and that his parents were Irish immigrants, likely poor, who immigrated to the US in the mid-1850s, along with millions of other Irish following the potato famine in Ireland.  Newspaper research was no help.  There are several missing vital records in this family also.   My search for Agnes’ birth certificate has never yielded results. 

There was some solid information about his sister, Mary, who married into a well-documented family, and his parents, Lawrence and Rose, were living in Queens County in 1900.   My first strategy was to research these people as much as possible for every potential hint to his identify, in other words research the people surrounding the brick wall person.   Moderate progress over months was made on this group but no break-through. 

Turning to my mystery great grandfather again, I decided to focus on the first name of John rather than Edward, following the genealogy advice that information documented closer in time to the event is probably more accurate.   Agnes indicated her father’s name was John on her 1917 marriage certificate.  My Ancestry searches turned up no good leads for a John Healy or Healey in Queens or Manhattan.  Maybe the computer algorithms were against me.  It was one of Amy’s online classes on breaking brick walls that inspired me to try searching on another service, in this case Family Search, which did provide a potential good lead.  There was a John E. Healey who died in 1892 at the age of 29 from pneumonia, had an occupation of stone cutter, and listed parents of Lawrence and Rose. 

 However, the last name was spelled incorrectly (we know this happens in vital records) and the location was Manhattan, not Queens, but an adjoining county.   The specific address was East Harlem, which was a frequent neighborhood for poor Irish at that time, so that made sense.  Since the time frame and occupation was correct, and we know spelling errors are common, I ordered the certificate in April 2020 from NYC Vital Records.   There might be more information on the certificate itself. 

 

East Harlem in Manhattan circa 1900, on the block where John Healy died in 1892.  At that time, East Harlem was a popular neighborhood for the Irish. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NYC Vital Records Office was closed for the non-digitized, older records and so I waited patiently.   After a 5-month wait, the certificate arrived on September 2, confirming all the online information but adding nothing new.   In the end, I am satisfied that this person is the missing great grandfather, due primarily to the death date, occupation and parents’ names, and have added him to the Clark family tree as the newest member.  

 

It is still an exciting day when a hard copy certificate arrives in my mailbox from NYC Vital Records Office.  

Reviewing the strategies I used in this case, some were successful and some were not.   Newspaper research produced nothing, likely because they lived in a very large city.  Researching the people around the brick wall person did help, for example it identified his parents’ names.  Choosing the first name that was closer in time to the event, John over Edward in this case, proved correct, as did accepting the mis-spelled last name because we know that happens.   The most successful strategy was Amy’s suggestion to try searching on a different service, Family Search in this case, which provided the record I needed.   Hopefully this article and these strategies can benefit your family tree as well.