Still More Genealogy

Tierney, John J. grave marker, Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, North Andover, Essex, Massachusetts, USA; photograph by D. J. Goldman, 23 Apr 2008. Digital copy privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Linden, California. 2009.

Nicholas John KOHL and Bertha WEYRICH KOHL with their grandson, P H Tierney, July 1945.

Kohl, Nicholas and Bertha, with P H Tierney, Tipp City, Miami County, Ohio, USA; photographer unknown, Jul 1945. Photograph privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Linden, California. 2009.

My encounter with the Clark County [Ohio] Public Library should have been the first clue. I wrote them to order a batch of obituaries I found on the RB Hayes Obituary Index (a source no Ohio researcher should be without). At the end of the note I added that I was hoping to find an obit for John KOHL, whose death date had been narrowed down to sometime between the 1900 US Census and 1904. I thought this was overly optimistic of me, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Well, I sure enough got. Not only did I get the obituary, I got a photocopy of a register page of deaths in Springfield, showing the record of his death. This is material that a respected professional firm didn’t come up with in a microfilm search of the FHL’s Clark County records.

But yesterday I was preparing for some film to come into my local FHC, so I was trying to set up the correct sources in TMG ahead of time. I went looking for the Greene County (Ohio) archives on the web. I found them here… and discovered that the early birth and death records originally generated by the Probate Court are available online!

Now, as pleasant a surprise as this is, I probably shouldn’t complain. But I wouldn’t be the technologist I am if I didn’t have better ways to do things. The software they appear to be using to serve up the images looks similar to that used by the NEHGS, and I find its lack of drag and drop support annoying beyond words. Instead of being able to move a rectangle representing the visible subset of the enlarged page, one has to click. And wait. And click. And wait. Heck, my browser handles large graphical files better than that. Just serve up the raw images and let me at them, ok?

Complaints notwithstanding, I see lots of browsing (and clicking, and waiting) in my future, to see if I can find the TIERNEYs born in the village of Osborn.

William James TIERNEY and Margaret Theresa KELLY TIERNEY

TIERNEY, William James (1870-1937) and Margaret Theresa KELLY TIERNEY (1872-1911), standing center. Robert Emmett KELLY (1885-c. 1940), seated right. Photographed c. Apr 1908 by unknown photographer, Union City, Indiana. Privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Linden California. 2009.

Tierney, Margaret grave marker, St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, Union City, Randolph, Indiana, USA; photograph by Suzanne Stamper-Youmans, 23 Apr 2008. Digital copy privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Linden, California. 2009.

This photo resulted from my first encounter with the website Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. The amazing Suzanne Stamper-Youmans looked up obits and took photographs, which gave me not only the death date for great-grandmother Margaret Theresa KELLY TIERNEY, but the link to her mother’s LEAHEY family.

Thanks again, Suzanne!

I had known the family story that my grandfather had been adopted as a small child because his mother had died, but I hadn’t been clear on the relationships involved. The evidence came together bit by bit, but now we know that Margaret married William James TIERNEY in Apr 1908, and my grandfather was born in Dec 1908. Margaret died of TB (“from a bad cow,” my mother theorizes) 11 Sep 1911, but not before she had arranged for her son to be cared for by Will’s sister Nellie TIERNEY MCKINNEY and her husband Herbert Vincent MCKINNEY, who eventually adopted him. The formal adoption played a big part in a family tussle over the estate of another of Will and Nellie’s siblings, but that’s another story that hasn’t been properly researched yet…

The KELLY Siblings

TIERNEY, Margaret Theresa KELLY (1872-1911), seated third from left. Robert Emmett KELLY, standing far left. Also present: Catherine A., Ellen C., Thomas Francis, Mary, Edward Joseph, Anna S., Cecelia and Josephine KELLY. Photographed c. 1908 by unknown photographer, Union City, Indiana. Privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Linden California. 2009.

Submitted to the 10th Edition of I Smile For the Camera at Shades of the Departed.