{"id":664,"date":"2010-09-11T17:02:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T22:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/who-knew-a-visitation-register-could-be-so-helpful\/"},"modified":"2013-07-07T15:43:42","modified_gmt":"2013-07-07T20:43:42","slug":"who-knew-a-visitation-register-could-be-so-helpful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/who-knew-a-visitation-register-could-be-so-helpful\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Knew a Visitation Register Could Be So Helpful"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am fortunate to have many family artifacts upon which much of my initial research is based.\u00a0 There are two visitation registers in my possession: one for my great-grandfather, George Rottman, and one for my great-grandfather, John Ward McMahon.\u00a0 When I initially found them I entered relevant family information in my database, such as the residence recorded for visitors.\u00a0 The past few weeks have been spent fixing sources throughout my database, which sometimes has forced me back to the original source at which point I re-analyze it.\u00a0 This is where my story begins.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Today I revisited the register for John War McMahon\u2019s visitation for when he died in 1962.\u00a0 There are pages of names and addresses of those who attended.\u00a0 Years ago when I first reviewed it, there were many names I didn\u2019t recognize.\u00a0 Given the addresses of some, I concluded they were neighbors.\u00a0 But there were still many unknowns that remained.<\/p>\n

\"register\"<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I went on doing my research using a variety of sources.\u00a0 This led to the discovery of a \u201chalf\u201d family I had no idea existed.\u00a0 My third great-grandmother, Margaret RYAN, had been married prior to her union to my third great-grandfather, Timothy McMahon.\u00a0 From her first marriage, at least two daughters were born: Mary and Margaret Murnane.\u00a0 The only evidence (which is what I originally found that tipped me off to this half family) is the 1880\u00a0 census for Margaret (Ryan) McMahon.\u00a0 [1]\u00a0 I did not believe it to be shaky evidence despite the fact that her husband, Timothy, was not listed in the \"census\"household (nor have I been able to find him anywhere in the 1880 census).\u00a0 There was Margaret, with sons Timothy and John, all of the right age and birth location.\u00a0 But there under the two sons were two daughters, Mary and Margaret Murnane.<\/p>\n

So I began to research these half-siblings and, long story short, learned that a friend from high school descended from Margaret\u2019s union with the unknown Murnane making us cousins.\u00a0 Obituaries for Timothy J McMahon, son of Timothy and Margaret (Ryan) McMahon, tied him to his \u201csisters\u201d Mary (Murnane) Franklin and Margaret (Murnane) King.\u00a0 Margaret King\u2019s obituary tied her to \u201csister\u201d Elizabeth (McMahon) Francoeur, a daughter of Margaret and Timothy McMahon.\u00a0 I was pretty satisfied with the research completed to date, keeping in mind that most of it had been completed almost two years ago.<\/p>\n

\"franklin\" Back to today and John Ward McMahon\u2019s visitation register.\u00a0 (John is the son of Timothy J. McMahon, who is the son of Timothy and Margaret (Ryan) (Murnane) \"condon-curran\"McMahon.)\u00a0 As I was combing through all the names in the register, one stuck out at me.\u00a0 It was F J Franklin.\u00a0 Having not looked at this particular family for awhile, I was surprise that it caught my attention.\u00a0 So I headed to my database to see if there was an F J Franklin tied to Mary (Murnane) Franklin (aunt to John Ward McMahon).\u00a0 I found Francis J Franklin and was pretty sure they\u2019re one in the same.\u00a0 As I continued to go through the names, two other names stuck out:\u00a0 Mr. and Mrs. H L Condon and Beatrice Curran, right next to one another.\u00a0 These are daughters of Margaret (Murnane) King (also aunt to John Ward McMahon).<\/p>\n

Knowing that these three people attended the visitation for my great-grandfather further establishes proof of the relationship between the half families.\u00a0 It also shows that even though I knew nothing of the half family, they evidentially intermingled at least until 1962 when John Ward McMahon died.<\/p>\n

As I continued to examine more names, I found two in a row that had \u201c(Grafton)\u201d written to the side; a third followed that had \u201c(Mary Grafton)\u201d written to the side.\u00a0 So off I went to my database to \"grafton\"look at my Graftons, and sure enough there they were.\u00a0 This family is related through John Ward McMahon\u2019s wife\u2019s side of the family.\u00a0 Again, these names were foreign to me when I looked at the register years ago.\u00a0 This is another family group that was researched with traditional sources and further supported today by the register.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad I took another look at this artifact.\u00a0 Sure it gave me more clues about particular family members, such as where they were living and that there with alive in 1962.\u00a0 But more importantly, the register further proved connections to two other families, which were initially found through basic research and typical sources.\u00a0 This basically solidifies my confidence that I know what I\u2019m doing when it comes to genealogy research.\u00a0 Hallelujah!!\u00a0 I must be doing something right!<\/p>\n

\n

Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. 1880 U.S. census population schedule, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, enumeration district (ED) 96, p. 23, dwelling 129, family 295, Margaret McMahon; digital images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed December 17, 2008); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T9, roll 192.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am fortunate to have many family artifacts upon which much of my initial research is based.\u00a0 There are two visitation registers in my possession: one for my great-grandfather, George Rottman, and one for my great-grandfather, John Ward McMahon.\u00a0 When I initially found them I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,25,26],"tags":[322,333,392],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","category-genblog","category-personal-research","tag-family-mcmahon","tag-family-ryan-tipperary","tag-location-us-illinois","cat-27-id","cat-25-id","cat-26-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3HcLI-aI","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3509,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions\/3509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}