Wednesday, July 16, 2008

New Paltz Rural Free Cemetery - A Field Trip

This past weekend, while visiting family back in the Catskill/Hudson Valley region of New York, I took time to return to the New Paltz Rural Free Cemetery in search of some elusive headstones.

Before my trip, I had called up the cemetery to find out in which section several McEntee or MacEntee headstones were located. I also ran a custom report on Family Tree Maker 16 and was able to sort out those names in my database buried at this particular cemetery.

On Monday, July 14th, we stopped at the cemetery again and proceeded to the left rear section as directed. With high temperatures and even higher humidity, your persevering author thought that he would right melt. And there was no place near for a restorative cocktail (let alone the time being 10:30 am). As well, the conditions along with a hoard of gnats kept me from using Jott to transcribe the headstone details as I had planned.

After 30 minutes of wandering through almost the entire left section of the cemetery, I finally came upon these gems:



Headstone of Edward McEntee and Ann (Antje) Freer. Photograph. July 14, 2008 at New Paltz, New York. Digital image. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

Edward McEntee was my 3rd great-grandfather and is buried with his wife Ann (Antje) Freer. She descends from my Freer line, one of the founding Hugenot families that settled in New Paltz, New York at the end of the 17th century. Edward is the oldest McEntee/MacEntee ancestor that I can positively identify at this time.





Headstone of Mathew McEntee and Elnora Deyo. Photograph. July 14, 2008 at New Paltz, New York. Digital image. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

Mathew McEntee was my 2nd great-granduncle and the son of Edward McEntee and Ann Freer. He married Elnora Deyo who also descends from one of the founding Hugenot families.





Headstone of Charles McEntee. Photograph. July 14, 2008 at New Paltz, New York. Digital image. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

Charles, another son of Edward McEntee and Ann Freer, was also my 2nd great-granduncle who died at the age of 25 years.





Headstone of John W. McEntee. Photograph. July 14, 2008 at New Paltz, New York. Digital image. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.



Headstone of Elmira Wood, wife of John W. McEntee. Photograph. July 14, 2008 at New Paltz, New York. Digital image. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

John W. McEntee was my 2nd great-grandfather who married Elmira Wood when he was 34. Despite her being 11 years younger, she died in 1882 more than 25 years before his death in 1918.




Headstone of Elmer A. McEntee and Margaret DeGroodt. Photograph. July 14, 2008 at New Paltz, New York. Digital image. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

Finally, and most importantly, is the headstone for my great-grandfather, Elmer A. McEntee. This is the ancestor who for some reason added the "A" to make McEntee into MacEntee. Obviously the change didn't always "take" during his lifetime or even in death as the headstone clearly omits the "A."

So I finally have some of the evidence I need to prove that the current line of MacEntees that lived in Ulster and Orange counties of New York are in fact descended from a McEntee line. I believe that one "family urban legend" stating that there was a family feud which caused one member to add the "A" can be traced back to this:



Headstone of Elmer J. McEntee. Photograph. March 10, 2008 at New Paltz, New York. Digital image. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

Elmer J. MacEntee is actually Elmer McEntee, Jr., son of Elmer A. and is buried in a separate section of the same cemetery as other McEntees. Census records from 1900 show Elmer A. as a "McEntee" yet beginning in 1910 he is listed as a MacEntee as are all 11 of his children.

In the next few days I will add another chapter to my serial posts Two Roads: Do McEntee and MacEntee Converge or Fork?

9 comments:

Kathryn Lake Hogan said...

Thomas,
Yay! I'm glad you didn't melt after all and that you found a piece of evidence you needed to prove your theory. Sounds like you had a great field trip despite the heat and humidity.

Kathryn

Becky Wiseman said...

Could we be cousins? I'm descended from Hugo Freer (Jr.) through his daughter Sara who married Evert Terwilliger! New Paltz is on my list of places to visit - especially Historic Huguenot Street.

Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...

I love it when bloggers connect like this. I hope you and Becky have common notes to compare!

And I'm glad you didn't melt ;-)

Thomas MacEntee said...

Sara(h) Freer is my 6th great-grandaunt so you and I are probably cousings. I descend from Hugo Freer Sr as follows:

Hugo Freer & Marie Haye
Hugo Freer & Maria Anna Leroy
Hugo Freer & Brejen Terpenning
Sara Freer & Jacob Freer (see below)
Jacob J. Freer & Margaret Ean
Annatje Freer & Christian Freer (see below)
Ann E. Freer & Edward McEntee
John W. McEntee & Elmira Wood
Elmer A. McEntee & Margaret DeGroodt
Abraham Craig MacEntee & Loretta Slattery
Richard MacEntee & Jacqueline Austin
Thomas MacEntee

Other descendant lines include

Hugo Freer & Marie Haye
Hugo Freer & Maria Anna Leroy
Elizabeth Freer & Johannes Van Wegenen
Sara Van Wegenen & Jeremias Freer
Christian Freer & Annatje Freer
Ann E. Freer & Edward McEntee
John W. McEntee & Elmira Wood
Elmer A. McEntee & Margaret DeGroodt
Abraham Craig MacEntee & Loretta Slattery
Richard MacEntee & Jacqueline Austin
Thomas MacEntee

and

Hugo Freer & Marie Haye
Hugo Freer & Maria Anna Leroy
Hugo Freer & Brejen Terpenning
Hugo Freer & Esther Deyo
Jacob J. Freer & Margaret Ean
Jeremias Freer & Sarah Van Wegenen
Christian Freer & Annatje Freer
Ann E. Freer & Edward McEntee
John W. McEntee & Elmira Wood
Elmer A. McEntee & Margaret DeGroodt
Abraham Craig MacEntee & Loretta Slattery
Richard MacEntee & Jacqueline Austin
Thomas MacEntee

Becky Wiseman said...

My Goodness! Having duplicate ancestors certainly cuts down on the number of people you have to research doesn't it! I've got two lines where I have double ancestors, but don't have any with triple ancestors.

Hugo Freer Sr and Marie Haye are my 8th great grandparents. Looks like Hugo Jr is our common ancestor though:

Hugo Freer & Marie Haye
Hugo Freer & Maria Anna Leroy
Sara Freer & Evert Terwilliger
Jan Terwilliger & Maria Van Wagenen
Elisabet Terwilliger & Jacob Van Keuren
Henry Van Curen & Rebecca [-?-]
Rachel Van Curen & William Alexander
Amanda Alexander & Samuel Bray Wiseman
Charles Wilson Wiseman and Elsie Shuder
Jack Wiseman and Virginia Phend
Becky Wiseman

Thomas MacEntee said...

Sweet! Becky - you and I are 8th cousins! We aren't even removed or anything!

Becky Wiseman said...

Hi Cousin! I should probably have added a disclaimer to my previous post - I haven't actually done any research of my own on the VanCuren, Terwilliger, and Freer lines. My information comes from a first cousin, published books and online info. It seems legit but you never know...

Anonymous said...

Thanks for leaving your encouraging comments on my blog. I enjoy your writing style and I see the preserverance paid off nicely. The heat is easily forgotten with such interesting results to investigate. I am told I have Huguenot ancestry but have not been able to confirm that. Looking forward to finding out for sure.

Anonymous said...

It was the tradition in our family to write 2 little lines (like = sign)under the c in McEntee, which denoted that the "a" had been omitted. I, myself, for a period of time follwing a divorce.started using Mac instead of Mc, mainly because I was SOOO tired of people mispronouncing it. It didn't help, however, and I have reverted back to the Mc spelling. I don't know what connotation this has on the national origin of the family, considering Mac would probably be Scottish. I was always under the impression that some ancestor was actually born in Glasgow, maybe Edward's father??
(Becky McEntee Gorres)