Upstate NY Excitement
Posted: September 25, 2012 Filed under: Genealogy | Tags: NY, Records Leave a comment »Read this item from the Upstate New York Genealogy Blog about interesting new advances in making New York State records available online. This is especially exciting for New York State residents, who will be able to access newly digitized records free under an arrangement between Ancestry.com and the New York State Archives.
Also of note from the article: It says the New York State Birth, Death and Marriage Index will soon be accessible through Archives.com. It is not clear at this point whether this will fall under the free-access arrangement for New York residents, or whether it will be subscription-only.
Stuff That Comes Up: Shorthand
Posted: May 6, 2011 Filed under: Genealogy | Tags: Rants and riffs, Records Leave a comment »From the Whoops! Been Meaning To Tell You About That files:
These notes are on the back of the 1946 coroner’s report filed in the death of one of my distant cousins. They’re in shorthand, I’m guessing. They cover most of the back of the page.
My first reaction was surprise, of course, but my second was surprise at my own surprise. I should have known I’d come up against shorthand sooner or later — in probate documents, for instance.
Is it Pitman or Gregg? Alas, I would not know. As a reporter I relied upon a compact tape recorder and a really, really fast longhand. Still do. I need to find an interpreter, and I might have a couple of candidates among my friends and neighbors. At least I hope so.
Or I might have to become more educated myself.
It’s always entertaining, the things you end up having to learn when you’re doing genealogy.
Gone and (Almost) Forgotten
Posted: March 3, 2011 Filed under: Genealogy | Tags: Brooklyn, Haigneys, Records 5 Comments »Many family histories, if not most, are frustratingly incomplete. People vanish, leaving behind only cryptic sentences in letters or documents – moved West; left no forwarding address. Sometimes we find them; sometimes we don’t. We can’t always know everything, much as we’d like to.
But in the case of my distant cousin Catherine Haigney, I sure wish I could.
She died in 1946, in some violent way. The death certificate was quite clear (if shocking) on that point. The death was referred to the medical examiner for further investigation.
So off I went to apply for the coroner’s report, thinking that even if I didn’t like what was in it, at least it would explain Catherine’s death to my satisfaction.
Well, yes and no.
Catherine entered her final hours on September 16, 1946 lying unconscious on the floor of her Brooklyn apartment. Her landlady found her and called an ambulance. At Kings County Hospital, they found a wound on her head had resulted in a brain hemorrhage. She died two days later, without regaining consciousness.
So where did the head wound come from?
According to the hospital:
“Patient unconscious when admitted. Impression: Subdural hematoma, multiple abrasions. Said to have been beaten up one week ago, was a patient in this hospital and released.”
According to the medical examiner:
“This is a re-currence of injuries received on Sept. 9-1946. Their [sic] is no report of a case on Sept. 9-th, 1946 in the 68th Pct.”
And also from the medical examiner:
“Deceased was brought to the Kings County Hospital on the 16th day of September, in an unconscious state, from her home, she having allegedly received head injury in some unknown manner, about one week prior to admission. Police, however, have no record of any alleged assault and report nothing suspicious.”
There is a lot more in the way of facts and figures. As a set of documents, this coroner’s report is really interesting, and I’ll write about that in another post.
But none of it says anything more about the violent act that ultimately killed Catherine. The medical examiner’s report mentions that a detective from the 68th Precinct was assigned to investigate Catherine’s death. And that’s where the story leaves off.
What happened? One big problem: The incident that fractured Catherine’s skull wasn’t reported to the authorities at the time. (Or, possibly, it was reported, but was not considered worth looking into.) So forget about it turning up as a newspaper police blotter item somewhere around Sept. 9. It seems that the next step would be finding out what, if anything, was reported by the detective who investigated after her death.
I’ve taken my time about writing this one up, because frankly, it’s just really sad and frustrating. Especially the idea that somebody could be beaten that seriously and nothing would come of it, at least judging from the papers I have so far. Could this have been considered a “domestic incident” too mundane to make a big deal of? (Tough to reflect upon, but definitely not unheard-of.) Was there something about her lifestyle that put her in the category of people too marginal to worry about? Or was it just something that couldn’t be solved?
Guesses, that’s all I have at the moment. Also, a lot of sadness.
On The Coroner’s Trail
Posted: February 3, 2011 Filed under: Genealogy | Tags: NY, Records 2 Comments »You never know when you’re going to need a coroner’s report, right?
It turned out that I needed one after I pulled an NYC death certificate and got a nasty surprise — my distant cousin had died after her skull (somehow) was fractured (by someone or something un-named).
Next step: a coroner’s report, which is not held at the Municipal Archives. But they will forward a request to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, if you find a report number. (The Archives holds microfilms of coroner-related records, although not for all years and all localities.)
This search had to wait until my next visit to the Archives, which came about because an American Girl doll had had an unfortunate accident and needed a trip to the doll hospital at American Girl Place in Manhattan.
Immediately, I thought of the coroner’s log. Wouldn’t anyone?
Typically, the trip went less than swimmingly, especially at first:
1. Run out of house with my youngest, briefcase over shoulder, crying “Go Go GO!” Ignore child’s snickers.
2. Run to school. Hug child goodbye (that was correct child, wasn’t it?) Sprint for bus stop a block away. Realize I am carrying mod pink lunchbox. Sprint back to school.
3. Hop bus, get to archives. Explain search to extremely nice, extremely brisk staffer, who points to Cabinet 8 on the far side of room. Kings County coroner’s logs are in there, she says.
4. Stare intently at rows of drawers labeled many things, but not “Brooklyn” or “Kings.”
5. Explain to second staffer what I’m looking for. Second staffer says those records aren’t at this facility. Despair.
6. Staffer No. 1 strides over and rolls eyes. She eyes the cabinet, pulls open drawer marked “Richmond and Queens” and points.
7. Yep, there are the films of the Brooklyn logs for 1946. Don’t ask why. Just grab microfilm machine and get going.
And yes, I did find the coroner’s report number, shuddering a bit along the way. (Random entry: “Unidentified bones found in water at foot of 58th St.”) Incidentally, you can bypass the coroner’s logs if the death certificate includes the coroner’s report number — so check.
Then it was time to file and pay for the request. If you ever end up doing this, you will give the nice people at the Municipal Archives a check for no more than $30. Specifically, in the field where one generally writes stuff like “Ten and xx/100 Dollars,” you will write “Not to Exceed $30.”
I’m mentioning this so that I can spare you (and the nice folks at the Archives) a repeat of my torn-up checks while I internalized this concept. This oddly-written check will cover a $10 search fee and the copying of up to 20 pages at $1 per page. If there are more than 20 pages, you’ll be notified of the fee so you can decide if you want to go for it.
So after the checkbook confetti cleared, the request was filed and I was on my way to the doll hospital.
The doll, by the way, recovered beautifully.
And the coroner’s report came a couple of weeks later, but that’s another story altogether.
Untimely End, Unanswered Questions
Posted: January 19, 2011 Filed under: Genealogy | Tags: Haigneys, Records 3 Comments »Catherine was a first cousin twice removed, which means her father, William Haigney, and my great-grandfather, Joseph, were brothers. I was so excited to learn of her existence.
William (1867-1930) remains a blurred image on the family chart, somebody unknown to the older relatives I’ve been able to ask. But … he’d had a daughter, born about 1905. And although experience should have taught me otherwise, my head instantly filled with fantasies of collateral kin, rediscovered cousins and unmined troves of memorabilia.
Unfortunately, the first sign that these would remain fantasies came early: a 1946 entry in the New York City Death Records Index that looked an awful lot like Catherine. I jotted down the certificate number and put it on a list of items to look up on an upcoming trip to the New York City Municipal Archives in downtown Manhattan.
This was actually one of those times that I half-hoped I had the wrong person in the index. My inner schoolteacher told me sternly that it was best to know the facts, however disappointing: Most likely she’d perished, unmarried and childless, of pneumonia, or cancer, or whatever. The dreamer inside me responded: Yes, yes, of course – but what if?
Funny how when you’re mulling two pet possibilities, you get blindslided by a third. This is what happened when I scrolled through the microfilm and hit Catherine’s death certificate.
Father: William Haigney
Mother: Sarah Dowd King Haigney
Sigh. It really was her. Oh, well.
Cause of death: Fractured skull, subdural hemorrhage, lacerated brain.
“Holy @#$@,” I said to the microfilm machine.
“Excuse me?” said the person next to me, who very fortunately was plugged into an MP3 player and was only reacting to the sight of my lips moving. (I hope.)
I re-read the cause line. It said what I thought it said.
Very dramatic, I thought, my brain going temporarily foggy. But let’s not get carried away. Maybe it wasn’t really sinister. Maybe it was a chronic disease of some sort that … that fractures skulls and lacerates …
Never mind that. Back to facts. Who was the doctor, and where had he examined her?
Oh. He was a coroner. And he’d seen her at the Kings County Morgue.
Well, then. That does sound legitimately dramatic.
It took a while to settle down and actually look critically at the certificate, so hard did I have to work at readjusting my expectations. I’m a big girl and I know that not everyone dies in their beds. Still, I had trouble assimilating the intense contrast this certificate posed to what I’d hoped to find.
And the facts on the death certificate don’t help. Catherine’s job was listed as “usher, theater,” similar to the occupation listed for her in the 1930 census – cashier, theater. The date of death was September 18, 1946 in Kings County Hospital. On that same date, a Kings County medical examiner took charge of her remains at the morgue. But the death certificate wasn’t filled out and filed until Oct. 1, and the informant was Catherine’s maternal uncle, James Dowd.
So why the gap between the date of death and the filing of the certificate? Had Catherine’s body lain unidentified in the morgue for two weeks, or was this just the result of having to wait for an investigation to run its course? And how did she receive the fatal injury?
According to the certifiate, Catherine’s death was turned over to the medlcal examiner for investigation. There was a number for a coroner’s case file, which I’ve requested. It might have some answers. Until then, my questions (and my unruly imagination) will have to be put on hold.
So When Were He Born Again?
Posted: November 26, 2010 Filed under: Genealogy | Tags: Haigneys, Military, NY, Records 2 Comments »We now have officially entered the holiday season, which means that if anyone is vaguely interested in all this genealogical poking around we’re doing, now is the time they’re going to ask about it.
Just before Turkey Day, in one of those feast-planning phone conversations, my sister Mary and I got to talking about the genealogy stuff and about our ancestor Martin Haigney in particular. (I know, I know: The last half of this year has pretty much been MartinFest, but his Civil War pension file has just had so much interesting stuff in it.)
One of the questions my sister and I discussed is a classic: When was he born, exactly?
And even better: You mean he didn’t know either?
It’s so interesting to contemplate the radically different relationship our ancestors had with concepts such as vital statistics. Not being sure exactly when you were born? To me it feels dislocating, upsetting. How much in my life would be difficult, if not impossible, if I could not prove when I was born?
To Martin, it did not appear to be something one thought about at all. In fact, I’ll bet he didn’t worry much about it until his old age, when somebody at the Bureau of Pensions noticed a discrepancy in the ages Martin had reported on various pieces of paperwork.
The result was this 1907 affidavit, which neatly illustrates the vague relationship many of our ancestors had with their own birthdates, and the subsequent difficulties we can have trying to establish a timeline for them. In my Part II post, I’ll discuss Martin’s various ages, as stated by himself and others.
-0-
GENERAL AFFIDAVIT.
State of NEW YORK
County of STEUBEN
In the matter of Pension Ctf. #592,963 of Martin Haigney, Ord. Dep. U.S.A. – Claim for pension, Act of Feb. 6, 1907.
Personally came before me, a Notary Public in and for aforesaid County and State Martin Haigney aged 75 years Citizen of the Town of Bath (S. & S. Home) County of Steuben State of New York well known to me to be reputable and entitled to credit, and who being duly sworn, declares in relation to aforesaid case, as follows:
I am the above described claimant for pension under the Act of Feb. 6th, 1907, and in reply to official letter of March 18th calling for proof of my age, I have to state that I cannot get proof of same by record evidence or otherwise, and hereby wish to ammend [sic] my claim on account of a slight discrepancy and error discovered by me. I have figured back and well remember now that I was 22 years of age at my first enlistment in the Regular army on March 7, 1854. According to that I must have been born in 1832 instead of 1831 as I thought when filing my claim on age on or about Feb. 12, 1907.
Therefore, I wish to amend said claim so as to have my pension commence at the rate of $20 per month from the date of the filing of this statement in the Pension office; and that a rating of $15 per month be granted me commencing from the date of filing said claim, on or about Feb. 12, 1907, because I was more than 74 years old at the date of said filing, and supposed I was 75 years old, but as before stated, I now recollect well that I was 22 years old at the time of my first enlistment, and the records in Washington no doubt will corroborate my statement.
I am unable to furnish proof of my age, and respectfully ask that my claim be amended as above requested.
Witnesses to Mark: Daniel J. Orcutt Thomas B. Hannon
His
Martin X Haigney
Mark
[Receiving stamp at Pension Office: March 27, 1907]
Note: Martin sent this affidavit not from Watervliet (West Troy), his longtime home, but from Steuben County, New York, where he was a resident of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ home in Bath. I wrote a little bit about the home here.
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