Finding a Hole in One of Bonnie's Brick Walls

Information Mary Agnes Lynch, one of Bonnie's maternal great great grandmothers, has been in short supply. The family story is that she was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland, but nothing further was known about her parents.

Fortunately her obituary confirmed the date and place of her death but her name didn't appear on the death index or a death certificate. State-level registration began in 1900, six years before her death so where could the records be?

[The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 1 July 1906, page 6. Source: NewsPapers.com]

Using her date of death I was able to locate her death certificate indexed as Mrs. Mary E. O. Conner.
Now that we know her parents' names maybe we can find out more about her heritage.

[Ancestry.com. Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899-2011 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.

Original data: Indiana State Board of Health. Death Certificates, 1900–2011.

Microfilm. Indiana Archives and Records Administration, Indianapolis, Indiana.]

This branch of Bonnie's family was Protestant which may make it harder to find out more about them.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Trainer/Fitzgerald/O'Brien/Tancey/O'Connor

In today's search for an appropriate image for my "Sunday Drive" I decided to take a look at this family photograph from my best friend's collection. Once again her Aunt Janette has provided a lot of genealogical data about the people pictured and even the place where they were gathered on that long-ago day. A quick glance might lead one to think that they were in an automobile...but no.

[Courtesy of B. Poppe]

[Detail of photo above]

On closer inspection it's clear that the group have posed behind a prop painted to look like a car, apparently outdoors because the trees behind them look convincing. What kind of park would have such a thing?


Janette got the place-name (slightly but understandably) wrong--it was Robison Park*, an amusement park opened in 1896 by the Fort Wayne Consolidated Railway** seven miles northwest of Fort Wayne on the St. Joseph River.

[Pavilion, Robinson [sic] Park; source: delcampe.net]

[The Rest, Robison Park, Fort Wayne, Ind.; source: CardCow.com]

[The Blue Streak, Robison Park, Fort Wayne, Ind.; source: delcampe.net]

And over the years Robison Park was in operation*** there were other options for visitors to pose in novel settings.

[From "Allen County in Vintage Postcards" by John Martin Smith, Arcadia Publishing, 2001]

The impulse to have one's photograph taken sitting in one of those newfangled automobiles wasn't restricted to residents of Indiana either. Here's an example of a family in Scotland:

[William Lees, (Family group sitting in a studio car prop), cabinet card between 1898 and 1914] Portobello, Scotland,

source: Ryerson University Library]

As to the names of the folks in the first photograph, Janette has done such a good job of identifying them in her legible handwriting, I'll leave it to her, except to point out that my friend's mother Mary Elizabeth Trainer is the youngest child in the group.


*A short illustrated history of Robison Park can be viewed here.
**The first electric trolley company in Fort Wayne.
***1896-1919
****To learn more about cars in early photographs, go here.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday - Genea-Envy Edition: Fitzgerald/Leonard/O'Brien/O'Connor/Trainer

Not only does my best friend have some enviable records about several of her paternal ancestors, she also has the benefit of a family scrapbook lovingly created by her Aunt Janette* filled with genealogical treasures.

[Courtesy of Bonnie Poppe]

(I'm sure we all wish we could find something like this about our own families.)

*Her mother's sister, Josephine Janette Trainer (1904-1980)

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.