Too Much/Not Enough Information: Complaints

Why is it so hard to maintain an appropriate amount of information on anything in particular?  I'm living a life in which I know way too much about people I don't care about, yet I am not quite sure if my dad is married or not.  This lack of clarity can only be expressed in .gif form.

I'm frustrated because I'm trying to finish my research on my diarist, Anna.  What I need, and all I could really hope to acquire in this type of case, is her obituary.  I know her birth year, birth location, and probable location of death, which SHOULD make finding the obit fairly easy, and yet I have nothing.

Corresponding with her nephew's wife was not as fruitful as I had hoped it would be.  Once she decided that I wasn't of much use to her for her own genealogical needs, she blew me off.  SUCH TYPICAL.  I did learn that Anna remarried someone named Charles "Chick" Davis, that she was living in Phoenix at least in the late 60s, and that her daughter married a doctor, which is why I can't find her by her maiden name.  She did send a picture of Anna, though, which was worth a million dollars to me.

Ancestry.com has a social security death index entry for an Anne C. Davis (could easily be my Anna H. C. Davis), who died in Maricopa County in 1996.  None of our online newspaper databases have a corresponding obituary, however.  I think that means I have to drag myself into our disgusting main library and look at the microfiche.  Seriously, navigating through that place reminds me of the old Simpsons Nintendo game.  End of analogy.

If I can find the obituary, then it might include the married name of her daughter Colleen, which might allow me to locate her now.  But if I have to search in the microfiche, then I have to look at every paper from that year.  Because all I have is the year.  Do obituaries only come out on Sundays?  I need to locate someone who reads actual newspapers and ask them.  Looking at microfiche is incredibly tedious even when you know exactly where you're going, so I expect that looking at all of the obituary pages for all of the papers in an entire year would take months, at least.  And I'm not even sure I have the right year.  Those death indexes are often slightly off, and that might not even be my Anna.

It might be easier to apply for a copy of her death certificate with vital records first just to be sure I have the right date, but they are somewhat tough customers at that office when it comes to handing shit over to non-relatives.

I wonder, if I found everything I needed and then located the daughter, if she would want the book.  What if she packed the diary with a bunch of other Goodwill stuff because she hated her mother?

And yes, I could just ask my dad if he married his longterm banshee (actually, I have called her La Llorona for years), but he can be oddly secretive, and if he didn't tell me, then perhaps he doesn't want me to know for some reason that I suppose I will respect.  He hasn't told anyone.  He informed my uncle that he was considering doing it, then never followed up or announced anything.  I only know because my uncle told my cousin, who told me.  I assume they probably did marry because they each wear a matching Harley Davidson ring (real cool, guys) on their ring fingers.  Dweadful.

Research Research

Notes for myself, because Ancestry is very annoying for temporarily & informally documenting info.

Found Jack's obituary, he died in North Hollywood in 1954.  Almost no useful info contained in the obit, which I had to purchase to view:

I see an Anna Davis who died in Glendale, AZ in 1984 who has an almost but not quite exact birthdate.  I think it's probably her, but I have not been able to find any obituaries for her in Arizona to qualify it.  Annoying!

Since I'm at an impasse with those two, I'm branching out to her immediate family.  Not super relevant to searches, but her father's work industry in 1920 is recorded as "motion pictures".  1920 is so early!  Much earlier than that and movies were still things you paid a penny to see through a viewfinder while turning a wheel.  So that's kind of neat.

The diary was given as a Christmas gift to Anna and inscribed "from Errol".  Errol is her brother, whom the census indicates is her exact age, to the day.  A twin!

Researching him was a good idea.  I should have more of those.  Like Anna, Errol was living in Hollywood in the 50s and appears to have had some kind of stage career with his wife.  There are a couple of publicity shots of the two of them.  Haven't found anything on google yet.

Errol and wife Arlene Smith Whitney

Next on my list is to try to find Anna's 2nd husband, Charles "Chick" Davis.  Thanks for having a unique name, guy.  I'm sure it'll be easy to find you with no birthdate.

Also, I will have to branch into her other siblings, particularly a younger one, Kathleen, who potentially could still be alive.  Very old, but alive.

Repeated searches for daughter Colleen turn up absolutely nothing, and Kay, the woman I have been emailing with, apparently has no idea as to her whereabouts.  Frustrating, as she is a family member and therefore has access to other family members, theoretically (try, Kay).

I would do this all day long if I could.  I love untangling little balls of information and reordering it into something cohesive and meaningful.

Anna in 1967.  This is just what I thought she looked like.  How amazing.

DEVELOPMENT!

Oooh, who got an email from another amateur genealogist today?  This guy.

It's so exciting to get data or evidence in a concentration to which so much is lost with a simple death.  People don't record things about their lives, especially excessively pragmatic people.  How the hell am I supposed to be a spy detective archivist when there's no material?  That's why this is exciting.

-----------------------------

Subject: RE: Anna Helen Connelly Davis Hi Brittany,  Sorry I have not back to you sooner. I just reaad the message today. Anna Ireland is my husband aunt who married John Connelly and then married again after the death of John. I know she lived in Arizona and we did visit her back in the late 60's. She had a daughter Colleen who married a doctor. We have no idea where she is living now. I will have to check my files and see what I have enter in the records about her. I will try to update them for you.  you can contact me through my e-mail.  What are the dates in the diary? I wonder why her diary was in an antique store?  Wow, you may some information in the diary that I could use.  I hope this will help for now.  Kay Connelly ----------------------------- So!  She lived in Arizona in the late 60s.  A record without a source on Ancestry says she died in 1966, and I can't find anything reliable in the Social Security Death Index.  None of those entries seem to fit her, so I can't reasonably say when she died at all. That explains how the diary got here.  She schlepped it with her over 30 years, through various marriages and moves, so it must have retained some meaning for her.  I assume that she died in Arizona, and her personal effects were boxed up and donated, diary included. I asked for a picture and for her to try to find a way to contact the daughter.  All right!  I wish someone would find some artifact belonging to one of my ancestors and send it along with some research.  Damn!

Anna Ireland II: Child Installment

I found a bit more information about my diarist, but have otherwise hit a wall in my researching.  I have to put this stuff down before I forget it all and ancestry.com kicks me out.

Additional information has been Jack's middle name (Kyle), which assists in discerning him from the jillion other John Connellys who evidently flowed from Scotland in the day.  It appears that he died in 1954 of causes unknown.  Found the ex-wife, too.  A gal from Kentucky named Robbie who also worked in a drug store and was living in Detroit with Jack in 1930.  By 1935, she was divorced and living in Tennessee.

Anna seems to have remarried.  This is why I had such a hard time finding her originally - upon her death, she was known as Anna Helen Davis.  Death date on ancestry is "after 1966".  wth.

But here is the real information: they did have another child.  And by all appearances, she lives today.  Her name is, or was originally, Colleen Ireland Connelly.  Could you have a more Irish name, Colleen?  She was born in Orange, California in 1947, ten years after the deaths of Anna's first two children.  I have been unable to find any more information about her, even with that weird middle name.  I will find her eventually, though.  No one hides from the internet.  It is often difficult to find older people, though, as they strangely don't feel the need to make multiple social media profiles.  They are the only ones able to live under the radar, hidden away from modernity with their landline telephones, cassette tape answering machines and print tv guides.  Strange to think that their lifestyles will soon seem as quaint and unbelievable as the daily lives of people living before the Industrial Revolution.  You had to get your water out of the ground, drive a horse and communicate long distance by handwriting?  Sounds like some sci fi shit to me.  So anyway, Colleen is 65 years old and I will find her as long as I remember to look.  I'm kind of surprised that I haven't already, actually, but I suppose she's probably married and using some other name.  Cursed patriarchal name-trading!

Also, is it weird to contact people to ask for gossip about/pictures of their family members because I bought someone's diary at the Brass Armadillo 15 (jesus christ) years ago?  I know - it is.  But what am I supposed to do?  Also, the kid might want her mom's diary.  This could turn into a Hallmark Network movie about a woman's reconnection with her dead mother through a curiously and fortuitously found diary.  Or maybe they already did that on Lifetime.

In the meantime,

Party like it's 1933 from superheidi on 8tracks Radio.

Anna Ireland

This is a five year diary started by a girl named Anna Ireland in 1936.  I found it tucked deep into a shelf full of forgotten, bad fiction in an antique store in the mid 90s.  As with many of my thrift & antique store purchases of that time, I bought it to protect it.



Anna wrote in impossibly tiny script in order to save enough room for her future entries.  The lines are challenging, but mostly legible, and the pages are in decent condition.  The book must've been tucked somewhere safe and dark for a lot of years.



She wrote every day from January to mid March of 1936.  After that, only major events were recorded.  The back of the book contains the addresses and birth dates of her friends and family.



For as few entries as there are, it's a dramatic book.  The first few weeks of entries consist of bland updates about her home life interspersed with many pained lines about someone named Jack, who doesn't pay her as much attention as she'd like.  She wishes she didn't like him as much as she does.

Wednesday, Jan. 1, 1936.  First entry.
Well here I am. Last night was our first New Year's Eve and it wasn't so good. We were up until 10 in the morning. I was terrible disappointed because Jack didn't come after me or call.  I do like him so much, we didn't get up until late & mama slept with me. Tonight the place was dead, hardly anyone there.  See you tomorrow.

Inferred from the entries, Anna works with some kind of theater group and gives music or dance lessons to children.  Jack works in a drugstore where Anna hangs out.

Sunday, Jan. 26, 1936
Well I didn't sleep all night as my back & sides pained so but I got up at 11 and waited for Jack. He came at 12:10, his car was frozen so he had to go on the streetcar. Still we went & oh I was so glad. My back hurt so all through mass I could hardly sit there but as Jack was there, nothing could keep me from staying. We came home & had coffee, he went as soon as the folks got up. Well he was at the cafe tonight and made me wrap something around me. He was drinking quite a bit. John the barber was there also so he drove us home and I made them stop in & have some coffee, then they talked to papa a long time. They just left, I hope I see Jack soon again, I will miss him.

Business as usual for the next month.  Anna begins each entry with "Well," and complains of sickness and pains a lot. Endometriosis?  Whatever it is, she tries to conceal from Jack how often she is ill, and lies to him when he asks her if she's feeling badly one day, then feels "rotten" for lying.  A mention of how much she misses & would like to see Jack goes at the end of each entry.  Eventually I may transcribe them all, but that tiny script, man.  It's tiny.

Saturday, Feb. 22, 1936
Well I got up at 6 & wasn't tired & oh the trip was terrible. The fog, I have never seen anything like it. It was terrible, there was so many accidents. I wanted to turn back but we went on.  We got home O.K. I sure am tired. I went right out to the place as the 15 cent charge went on and we packed them in. The show lasted one hour and everybody said it was great. Jack came up & I am worried about him as he was sick. I hope & pray he will be all right. I am going over to his home tomorrow. Oh dear god have his folks like me, it means so much. I am afraid to go in a way, I guess I am a coward but I am afraid they won't & I couldn't stand that as I love him so.

There are no entries after mid March, until this:

Aug. 16, 1936
I was married today. Jack and I are so happy. I pray to god to keep us always that way.  "I love him so."

Then she only updates on their anniversary date.



Aug. 16, 1937
Today is our first year of marriage and I am happier than ever. We are at Bald Eagle Lake. We still haven't had our first fight.

Aug. 16, 1938
Today is our second year and I love him more only he is very sick, his heart is very bad. I pray to god he will get well. We are in the trailer at New Baltimore.

Aug. 16, 1939
Today is our third year, somewhat better than last. Jack is working at Kinsels & a little better. We lost our darlings last year. I hope god will give them back to us before many years.

The only other entry after 1936 that isn't a wedding update refers to the loss of the children.

June 12, 1937
I lost my darlings. I had twin girls. Why, oh why. What did I ever do to have a thing like that happen. I lay awake and try and think but can't. Oh please god take them and keep them for me & please, please god have Jack love me.



Such private pain and feelings that I hesitate to even record that here.  Still, real life.

When I first read through this, I was desperate to know what had become of Anna.  It was considerably more difficult to research people (from home) back then, and since she had lived in Detroit, it seemed impossible.  Since then, I have become skilled at getting all up in dead peoples' business, and have finally gotten around to finding out some more about her.

My findings are still pretty sparse.  Fortunately, you can find just about anyone in the census data, so I see her in 1920, 1930 and 1940.  There are several Anna Irelands out there of the same age, but our Anna had immediate family members with unusual names which make it easy to pick her out.

What I found:

She was born in 1913.  Happy centennial.  This makes her a little older than I had originally assumed.  She is 23 or 24 at the start of the diary.  Her middle initial is H.  Probably Helen.  Not a lot of H names out there.

She was born in New York.  If I knew what county, I could possibly find her birth certificate.  Both of her parents were born in Ireland so I wonder if they got their last name at Ellis Island, in which case, wth?  I know people were sometimes re-named after their point of origin, but considering the amount of people coming from Ireland at the turn of the century, it seems a little strange.

In 1930, her father identifies his occupation as a stage producer, which also helps to confirm that I have the right Anna.  The real confirmation was thanks to her address book, which lists the names of her family and boarders who appear in the census record with her.  Exciting!  Unfortunately, this is where the Anna info ends.

Again thanks to the address book, we have Jack's full name: John Connelly.  I found him in the 1930 and 1940 censuses, too.  He was 13 years older than Anna, and had emigrated from Scotland in 1929.  He had also been married before, but we don't know what happened with that, only that the prior marriage was in 1924.  In 1940, he is shown living in Detroit with Anna.  His occupation is druggist, and the census indicates that he has a college education.  No children.  Anna is listed as a housewife.

There are ship passage records for several John Connellys, so we don't know which is him, but it's not that important.  It seems like his family followed him here as the 1930 census shows a single woman named Helen Connelly living in John's rooming house, but she can't be his wife as he is listed as married.  Anna refers to his folks in the diary, so they must have come after that.  Yes, I do enjoy the speculative moments in historical research, thanks for asking.  More of that: did Jack go through the trouble of getting divorced, or did he just leave the ex in Scotland?  Did Anna know about her?  Other children?



I see a number of death records for women named Anna Connelly, and it is impossible to know which, if any, is her.  There is one Anna H. Connelly buried in Ohio that may very well be her.  Same birth year.  How to know, though?  Same for Jack.  On ancestry.com, you can look through digital family trees created by others, and I noticed that Anna is featured in only one tree, with a very bare entry.  It's for this reason that I don't think they had any more children as one would assume they would be appearing in more trees if they had.  For someone who lived semi-recently and came from a large family, it is strange that she is not in more.  One option is to research her siblings and see where that takes me.  It might give me access to living relatives of hers, which could solve all of my questions.

And anyway, how the hell did her diary end up in an antique store in Arizona?



To be continued, possibly.

Fun facts: You can find census data for free instead of paying for it on ancestry.com here: familysearch.org.  Only difference is you can't see images of the handwritten pages, which are helpful to view given the frequent (frequent) errors made in their transcription.

County and state archives have tons of information that ancestry.com does not have.  Only some of them have put portions of their records online, unfortch.  Also, they want you to pay them to even look and see if they have your record.  & don't rule out the county recorder.  There's all kinds of historic data in there, providing they put it online.  Oddly, Maricopa county was really good about this.  Wayne county not so much.

Findagrave.com.  Actually useful.

Fun observations:  Maybe I'm missing something here, but I think 70 years is a little long to wait to release census data.  What exactly are we protecting that people alive in 1950 wouldn't want anyone to know?  Who lives in the same place they did in 1950!  What other info does the census reveal that is so personal?  Annoying.  Not to get all ~NSA~ up in here, but cmon.

hashtag amateur genealogist.