My Jackpot - This Is Why We Blog

I was very happy to see Jasia's post Found Aunt Josie's Grave over at Creative Gene and it got me to thinking about one of my own blogging "gambles": my theory that the MacEntee and McEntee families of the Hudson Valley, New York area are, in fact, descended from the same common ancestor.

If you remember from my posts entitled Two Roads: Do McEntee and MacEntee Converge or Fork? back in February and March 2008, I had no conclusive proof of a name change by my great-grandfather Elmer MacEntee. All I had were copies of two census reports from different years, one with the last name spelled McEntee and the other one with the last name spelled MacEntee. In addition, there were various tales passed down from generation to generation as to why the name was changed: an ancestor moved from Canada to New York and since they weren't hiring "Irish" he added the "a" to make the name look Scots; an ancestor had a religious dispute with his father who was Roman Catholic and added the "a" when he became a Protestant; etc.

One way to get such a topic and a theory as to the change noticed and discussed is to post, and keep posting, about it in your blog. My jackpot payoff came last night when I received the following email from someone who turns out to be my 2nd Cousin and still lives in the mid-Hudson region:

"I was reading through your blog and came upon the entry regarding the McEntee/Mac Entee split. It made me smile as I recalled my Dad telling me about the name change. This was a big deal to him. As my Dad explained, the name change was deliberate. Dad said Elmer was a builder and his livelihood depended on word of mouth references. Apparently, McEntee was mispronounced often enough so as to prompt Elmer to make a change that would reconcile the pronunciation and name spelling. My dad was always very insistent about the space being placed in the name -- which makes sense given Elmer's intention. That said, I don't think his idea worked so well because my name is mispronounced as often as stated correctly. That's the explanation I have -- could be off the mark completely but seems plausible."

While this still offers no conclusive source evidence, it at least confirms what the census reports show me: it was Elmer MacEntee who made the name change.

And my new found cousin also offered me some great insights on Elmer from stories passed down through the years within his family:

"My father was eight when Elmer died, but he did have a strong bond with him. Dad said he was an excellent musician, played several instruments, including the coronet for the trapeze artists when the circus was in town. My father had also shared an endearing story about him. As a builder, Elmer was not always paid on time. One Christmas, the family went without gifts. In early January, he was paid and came through the door with a sack full of presents -- telling the children that the toys were late because Santa had gotten stuck in a snowbank."

All I can say is WOW! These "wins" make it all worth it. Now I'm sending out some genea-blogger karma to all my colleagues waiting for their own jackpots - I hope it happens soon!

Living Relative Connections: Follow-up Number Two

In my post on Living Relative Connections: Follow-up, I discussed my motiviations for and attempts at contacting my brother as well as my father. As readers might remember I have not had any contact with my brother in close to three years and with my father for close to 35 years.

I have some good news on the brother front. Since my post on February 2, 2008 sending my brother birthday wishes, I have received word, via e-mail, that he is alive and well and safe. That is really all I asked for, so I do believe that wishes and wants can come true. The person who reached out and made contact with me was not Michael but someone close to him who knows his current situation - and they even sent me a current photo! Thrilled and relieved is not the word.

My brother may or may not have valid reasons for not communicating with me or the rest of the family but I can't be the one to judge their validity. I believe that over time he will make a decision to initiate contact and I just want him to feel comfortable doing so. The person who knows him has my email address and I need to just let the matter sit as it is now. And trust that he will contact me when he is ready. I just want him to know that I love him and that I will be here for him.

Living-relative Connections: Follow-up

Many people have expressed to me that I should keep them updated on my attempts to resolve some family rifts, as I stated in my January 9, 2008 post Living-relative Connections. I do have some information but the process has not yet run its course - nor did I have expectations that it would be completed in a matter of days or even weeks.

I tried to contact my brother with whom I've not had contact for the past three years. The problem is, short of hiring a private investigator, I don't have any contact information nor can I find any. I have a pretty good reputation among friends as being the "Harriet The Spy of The Internet" in that I can usually find anyone or anything in a short amount of time while web-surfing.

However, I'm pretty sure that my brother is intentionally covering his tracks, not so much so that I or other family can't contact him but for a far more damaging and selfish reason: he has not been keeping up with child support payments for several years. Obviously he didn't learn any of the lessons that I did growing up and how our own father fled to another state strictly to avoid child support payments. I'll get off my soap box on this issue but I'm sure many of you have the same "cads" on your family tree.

As for contacting my father, for whom I do have contact information, I am holding off for now - thanks to many of the kind comments and emails from my earlier post. I really do need to sort out the "why" rather than the "how" of making contact. I want to thank Terry Thornton over at Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi for his post about A Man's Journey To Simple Abundance. Namely, the prompt to list Ten Things I Wished I'd Said To My Father. I've been putting this one off for the longest time but I think I need to work through the list in order to realize whether or not contacting my father would be fruitful.

Now for good news. In most of my fellow genea-bloggers' posts on making living-relative connections, the contact was initated by the blogger. This weekend, I was able to be on the receiving end of contact! My first cousin Lisa in Spokane, Washington, who is the daughter of my father's brother John MacEntee, sent me an email asking if I was related to the "New York MacEntee's." Well, my surname is not a very common one and often it is mangled into McGinity, McEntee, McIntire, etc.

Our emails progressed to each of us creating a Facebook profile and sending more emails. We confirmed that we are related and she caught me up on some info for my database such as birthdates, names of children etc. We are slated to talk on the phone later today which should be fun.

As usual, I will keep my genea-friends posted. Cheers!

An Answer Back

Well, I didn't expect this so soon, but I received an answer back from an email to a long-lost cousin, so-to-speak. Earlier today I went through a folder of old family emails and tried to re-establish contact with some cousins that I've not heard from (or I've not tried to contact) in years. Mostly I just updated them on Mom's condition, where I am and what I am doing these days, and of course asking for some info on recent births, marriages, deaths, etc.

One cousin, Ronald Mulholland, who is actually my second cousin once removed, is someone I remember growing up. He is the son of my aunt Dorothy Austin Mulholland(actually my 1st cousin twice removed) who I remember fondly - we went to her huge house on Elm Place in the Bronx (more about the family home on Elm Place in a later post) and often saw her at my great-grandmother's house in Grahamsville during the summers. A photo of Ronald Mulholland with Catherine O'Keefe Austin c 1942 is shown above.

Well, I received an email response back from him in only a matter of hours! I did a search on Google and landed on an alumni site for Marist College where he went to college. Luckily they had an email address and I figured I'd give it a chance. Ron wrote me back and said he wondered why his mail to my mother kept getting returned.

Mom was very close to Aunt Dorothy - in fact while I was cleaning out the house this summer, I found a picture of the last visit Mom made to see her in Wheeling, West Virginia. Not soon after Aunt Dorothy passed away.

I remember all the older women in my family - Aunt Dorothy and her dog Tilly, Aunt Loretta McGinnes Murtha(my great-grandmother's sister) and her Parliament cigarettes, Aunt Ethel McCrickert

Hannan who lived in Ft. Myers, FL and many more. These women were wise beyond their years, very opinionated - which was cool, and really held the family and its traditions together. Gosh, I miss them.