For this post to make any sense at all, read Part I.

Very often, after you finally hit on the one little clue that’s the key to a genealogy puzzle, confirmation of it seems to start pouring in from all sides. I can’t even remember exactly what I tweaked in the search I’d been running on census reports, but very shortly after confirming that Mary Geisler’s eldest daughter was named Catherine Jack, an entry from the 1880 census popped up right in my face: Mary Jack, widow, born 1849, with German-born parents (the Geislers were German), eight-year-old daughter Kate and six-year-old daughter Mary. (And, handily, a sister-in-law Elizabeth Jack sharing the household to give me an additional lead.) It looks like Catherine “Kate” Jack was recorded on the 1880 census twice, once at her mother’s house and once at her grandfather’s—an unusual but not impossible occurrence if someone changed jobs or went to stay/live with relatives in a census year; I’ve seen it happen more than once.

And we’ve cracked it! On the 1875 census, there is David L. Jack, wife Mary, and three-year-old daughter Kate Frances. It’s all smooth sailing from here. I find a newspaper item announcing the marriage of David L. Jack and “Miss Mary Guysler [sic] of Albany.” I trace David back to childhood via census returns (yes, he had a sister Elizabeth Frances). I find David’s Find a Grave page, which has a curious mix of correct and incorrect information—it lists his death date as 1868, based on newspaper items clearly referring to the death of his father, also named David Jack. I find a military headstone record which firmly establishes the death date for David Jr. (a Civil War veteran) as 1878. The description on the Find a Grave page says that his widow Mary remarried to “William Gregory of Watervliet”!

Now, what about the William C. Gregory whose 1912 obituary we discovered in Part I? Was he really Mary Geisler Jack’s second husband? [Read more…]

For somebody with a passion for history and a taste for detective stories, genealogy is a very logical hobby. Piecing together a family tree is a puzzle that often takes real detective skills, and reading between the lines of the births, marriages, and deaths, with the occasional nugget of a newspaper item or a picture to shed a flash of light on the story, is one form of time travel for the imagination. Although I only just got my first Ancestry subscription, I’ve been pursuing this hobby for years now, using the limited free resources from Ancestry itself and places like Family Search, Find a Grave, online newspaper archives, et cetera. And you know, I’m actually glad it turned out that way. Working under limitations really sharpens your wits—you learn to dig and sift and work around obstacles instead of having information easily handed to you, and perhaps learn not to take things for granted and repeat other people’s assumptions or research mistakes.

This month, I spent a weekend working out perhaps the most challenging puzzle I’ve solved yet. It was on the German side of my family; not even in the direct line, but I like to flesh out the side branches as much as I can in the hopes that eventually I might come upon something in one of them that points backwards towards our overseas roots. Besides…once I’m launched on a really good puzzle, blood relative or no, I keep going for the sheer thrill of the chase. This time, it was so complicated that I started keeping notes along the way—it actually began as a query I was going to post to a genealogy message board, but I decided to hold back on it and see if I could find out more by myself before asking for help. I ended up solving the whole thing on my own and finished with three pages of slightly tongue-in-cheek notes. So I thought it might be rather fun to turn them into a blog post giving a behind-the-scenes look at the adventures of an amateur genealogist.

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The initial beginning of the quest is several years ago; I can’t remember exactly how many. (I am not the best person with dates in everyday life.) I wish to confirm the maiden name of a woman named Catherine, born about 1872, the wife of a German-born tailor named John Hoffmeister who lived first in Troy and later Albany, New York.

At first glance, it looks obvious: on the 1900 census, their household includes a girl named Clara Gregory who is listed as “sister-in-law.” By 1905 they’re joined by another sister-in-law, Jennie Gregory. (In-laws sharing a household are a boon to the amateur genealogist—they’re usually the best and easiest way to learn a woman’s maiden name.) But there is a tiny seed of doubt in my mind. Usually when you know a woman’s maiden name and date of birth it’s easy to locate her on an earlier census in her parents’ household. But I can’t find a Catherine Gregory anywhere. And my inquisitive, perfectionist mind wants to be sure I have the right name listed in the family tree. So I begin to dig.

On a lovely spring day last year, I make my first visit to the local-history research room at the library—a small room filled with bound copies of church and cemetery records, city directories, maps, books on local history, filing cabinets loaded with miscellaneous records…I could spend hours in a place like this, for research or just for fun. (I can’t remember how much time I spent on this occasion, but I know it was longer than I was supposed to.) I glean a number of useful family-tree leads from church records, including the baptism record for John and Catherine Hoffmeister’s first child. Oddly enough, it seems to confirm the obvious: Catherine’s maiden name is listed as Gregory, and one of the sponsors is Clara Gregory. But for some reason, the tiny doubt remains. (I can’t recall why, as I made no note at the time.)

The next clue: I find Jennie Gregory on the 1900 census. She was living with a married aunt, but the household also includes her grandfather, Caspar Geisler. A little further digging turns up a marriage record between Clara Gregory and Hugo Wagner, which lists Clara’s parents as Mary Geisler and William Gregory.

A quick check of an earlier census confirms that Caspar Geisler did indeed have a daughter named Mary, born about 1849. And searching an online newspaper archive that I’m just learning how to use, I find an item on Caspar Geisler’s will which lists among the legatees his granddaughter Catherine Hoffmaster [sic].

But here there comes a catch. On the 1880 census, Caspar Geisler’s household includes a granddaughter born in 1872, whose name is…Catherine Jack. Right age, right first name…wrong surname. Could it just be an odd mistake by the census-taker? Such things are not unheard-of. [Read more…]