Isabella Couldn't Vote But Still Had Great Influence

Isabella Jeffry was born in Ohio in 1839 and was living in Kansas when she married Hugh Kirkendall, my husband's 3rd great-uncle, in 1862. They moved to Montana Territory by 1870 and were described by newspapers decades later as pioneer residents of Lewis & Clark County.

Although Isabella and women throughout the country couldn't vote, she was certainly active in the community. The Montana Historical Society says that Isabella "was one of Helena's little known unsung heroes. No woman was more active in the community, nor more sensitive to the needs of the less fortunate." Here are some of her accomplishments that I've found:

1881 - Founding Member, Ladies' Aid Society of the First Baptist Church of Montana at Helena
1883 - Charter Member, Helena chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union
1884 - Finance Committee, First Baptist Church of Helena
1891 - President, Montana Women's Relief Corps
1892 - named by the Mayor as Chairman of raising funds for Mississippi flood victims (her leadership helped raise money for starving Russians earlier in the year)
1893 - Leader, Women's Helena for the Capital Club
1894 - Supervisory Board, Associated Charities of Helena
1900 - President, Florence Crittenton Home, a refuge for women and girls in need

Isabella's role in the Women's Helena for the Capital Club was especially noteworthy as it showed the importance of women with respect to political issues. "Denied the vote, but far from devoid of influence, Montana's women readily took sides in the capital fight of 1894."

The Archives West website explains this historic vote: "The question of a permanent location for the capital of Montana was submitted to the voters in the general election of 1892. Seven cities entered the contest: Helena, the temporary capital; Anaconda; Butte; Bozeman; Great Falls; Deer Lodge; and Boulder. The two cities receiving the most votes, Helena and Anaconda...entered a run-off campaign two years later. The capital question overshadowed all other political issues in the 1894 election."

"The Women's Helena for the Capital Club, led by Isabella [Mrs. Hugh] Kirkendall of Helena, was a state-wide group that solicited help from women in every county. Although unable to vote, the women in the local chapters exerted pressure on the men with voting privileges through letter writing campaigns, distribution of leaflets, newspaper advertisements, and speeches. Helena won the election by a narrow margin: 27,024 votes to 25,118 for Anaconda."

Although unable to vote in the 1894 election, Montana women won the right to vote in 1914, five years before Isabella died. I'm so glad she lived to see it happen.

FamilySearch Find: Deaths in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania

Are you overlooking some online records at FamilySearch? Here's one example of a digitized non-indexed collection that isn't on the site's list of published collections.

Image from end of death register book,
Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, 1891

Allegheny City in Pennsylvania wasn't annexed by Pittsburgh until 1907, so deaths for both cities were recorded separately prior to that time. That means if you look at the FamilySearch collection "Pittsburgh City Deaths, 1870-1905," you won't find my Uncle Emil's 1903 death record. While there doesn't appear to be a similar death record collection for Allegheny City, it is in fact on the site and available for online viewing.

My French 3rd great-uncle, Emile Wey, arrived in the United States in 1871. Known as Emil in America, he would marry, have 6 children, and build a life in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. Emil died in Allegheny City on May 4, 1903, which was provided by his newspaper obituary. Knowing exactly when he died is fantastic, but I wanted to know why he died at the young age of 54.

If you click on "Browse all published collections" on the FamilySearch site, you won't see a record set for Allegheny City deaths. But FamilySearch actually does have these records digitized and available to browse in its collection called "Registrations of deaths in the city of Allegheny, 1876-1907." Each listed record group with a picture of a camera under "Format" means it can be viewed online. (A reel means you have to order the microfilm for viewing at your local Family History Center.)

Glancing at the thumbnail images will give you a sense of where the handwritten surname index starts for each volume; it's usually somewhere in the middle and not at the beginning or end due to the way the book scans were saved. And sometimes there's a second index further down in the same file where the next book of death records begins. You can use these indexes to locate the page number of the death record.

My Uncle Emil did indeed die on May 4, 1903, due to "abcess [sic] of liver." The record also states that he had resided at 707 Middle Street in the 3rd Ward for 30 years and that he was buried in St. Peter's Cemetery on May 7th (although a photo of his headstone on FindAGrave indicates that he's in Highwood Cemetery).

By browsing for other relatives, I found cousin August Huber who died in 1882 at 7 weeks of age due to eclampsia, as well as another cousin's father-in-law who died in 1903 of "mania a potu" or madness from drinking. I had their dates of death from other sources (church record for the first and a newspaper obituary for the second), but now I have more details, including where they are buried.

Be sure to search the FamilySearch Catalog for your ancestors' towns to see if digitized images are available. As this example shows, some online records don't appear on the published collections list.

Note: "Registration of births in the city of Allegheny, 1878-1907" is also available on FamilySearch, although five years are missing.

West Virginia State Police Records

From Flickr: Police Officers, 1889

The West Virginia Division of Culture & History has posted some online State Police records that caught my eye. Since one of my great-grandfathers was a police officer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I had to take a peek at "West Virginia State Police Payroll Records, 1919-1924."

If you already know from census records that one of your ancestors was with the West Virginia State Police, these browse-only files may not provide any critical information. But there are still some interesting items: officer's rank, date of enlistment, and total amount of pay for the month. In January 1922, privates in Company B made $100 for the entire month! There is also a page for "Changes Since Last Pay Roll" that shows those who were discharged or resigned.

This website also has searchable births, marriages, and deaths (which are on FamilySearch as well), so if you have West Virginia relatives, this is a key resource for your genealogy research.

Arrests of My "One-Armed" Uncle

James Baker, c. 1915

James Baker, the brother of my 2nd-great grandmother, seems to have struggled during his lifetime. It appears that he had problems with anger or alcohol, or both. James appears in several newspaper articles about fights, arrests, and marital problems.

James was born in Canada and moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his parents around 1866 at the age of 5. He married Carrie Betler when he was 22 and had two children: Clara and Harry James.

His death certificate indicates that his right arm was amputated due to an accident four decades before his death, but I haven't found any information about this incident. But newspapers provide many other sad details about his life, such as:

• 1884 - "Jacob Betler was badly beaten by his son-in-law, James Baker, the other night, and has been laid up ever since. Betler keeps a saloon on Picnic street, South Side. No arrests were made. The trouble was about a domestic misunderstanding." (Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, 24 Jul 1884)
• 1900 - "James Baker, a one-armed man, was picked up by the police at the corner of Carson and South Twenty-fifth street, last evening, under the influence of liquor. After he was taken to the police station it was found that he was suffering from a compound fracture of the right ankle..." (The Pittsburg Press, 30 Jan 1900)
• 1905 - "Baker's wife alleges he came home drunk Monday night and set fire to the feather bed in which she was sleeping. Failing to burn her alive, she says he demolished all the furniture in the house and threatened to murder her and their two children. On a former occasion she says he threw oil over her for the purpose of setting fire to her clothes, and also threatened to burn her mother's house." (The Pittsburgh Gazette, 25 Oct 1905)
• 1907 - "The master's report in the divorce case of Carrie Baker against James Baker was filed in common pleas court No. 3 and a decree recommended. Desertion was charged." (The Pittsburgh Post, 1 Nov 1907)
• 1915 - "James Baker has but one arm and while drunk last night used it in a most effective manner. He deemed it his province to be the sole occupant of the sidewalk and those who disputed his right he promptly landed on them with his fist. Naturally James landed in the bastile and he was sentenced to pay a fine of $2 or serve five days in the county jail." (The Pittsburg Press, 10 Feb 1915)
• 1925 - "James Baker, aged 60, was dubbed 'the one-armed terror' by police of the Allegheny station yesterday as a result of an altercation he had with two prisoners placed in the same cell with him. One of them...was taken to the Presbyterian Hospital with a severe cut in his cheek, and the other...suffered facial and body bruises. Baker, who has only one arm, was placed in a solitary cell after the fight. The three were originally arrested on charges of drunkenness." (Pittsburgh Gazette Times, 27 Feb 1925)

James Baker died in 1944 at the age of 82 and was buried in Pittsburgh's Oakland Cemetery. (Oakland Cemetery was moved after the land was purchased by the University of Pittsburgh. The graves are now in the Oakland Section of Mount Royal Cemetery in Glenshaw, a suburb of Pittsburgh.)

Related Post:

• Photograph: Genealogy Mystery

Clues to Great-Grandma's Birth Town

How can a woman born in 1876 be such a mystery? I don't know the parents of my great-grandmother, Alice Laubersheimer Huber (other than the names passed down in family stories). I don't know for sure where she was born. But there are some clues.

Google Map of Strasbourg,
Gerstheim, & Mulhouse in France

A birth certificate for one of her daughters says that Alice was born in "Strassburg, Alssaice-Lorraine." A birth record for her half-sister indicates that Anna Laubersheimer Milliken was born in Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, France. In between those towns (see the map), a birth record for an uncle, Frederick Waldschmidt, shows that he was born in Gerstheim, Bas-Rhin, France.

Unfortunately, I haven't found the birth of my great-grandmother in any of those towns. A search of the online records in both the Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin archives came up empty. There was no Alice and no other Laubersheimers (other than Anna).

The records for other family members often give you clues to information about your direct ancestors. But many times more digging is required.

Related Posts:

• Find French Birth Records
• Family Clues in Birth Certificates
• Lost Sisters
• Is Frederick Waldschmidt My Uncle?

Who Lived in Your House?

Ghost Image from The
Funny Side of Physic, 1874

I've written before about how helpful it is to search for your ancestors' addresses and not just their surnames. Searching for a specific address in newspapers can be especially enlightening, since it can tell you a little bit about the people who used to live there, including non-relatives.

I used this tip recently in searching for information about the house of one of my sisters. To protect her privacy, I won't share the address, but it was built in a Pittsburgh suburb around 1930. At one point, my nephew thought the house was haunted. And my sister mentioned that she heard vintage music after getting into bed that stopped when she sat up. So great! (Well, at least I think so, but I don't have to live there.)

Anyway, by searching Newspapers.com for the address, I found a few mentions of some of the people who used to live there. One was a young soldier who died in a car accident overseas and left behind his parents and two brothers (1964). Another was offering Dachshund puppies for sale (1938). One was an amateur photographer (1955). And most interesting, there was a young lady in the early 1930s who used to host bridge parties in the house when she was home from college. Hmm, perhaps with music?

You never know what you might find by searching for an address...

Related Post:  Search for Old Addresses, Not Just Names

Hockey Night in Pittsburgh

As lots of Pittsburgh hockey fans hope for a huge win tonight, it appears that the love of this sport has been around for a while. Here's an excerpt from an article that was published in The Pittsburg Press on March 15, 1903 (from Newspapers.com):

The Pittsburg Press, March 15, 1903

"Pittsburgers are great admirers of hockey. Ever since the game has been played here it has been popular, and its popularity is not decreasing nor the interest dying out. It is only recently, however, that local athletes have taken great interest in the game. Formerly the people depended on imported skaters to entertain them, but of late years young men and boys of this city and county have organized teams, and are on the ice almost daily. Duquesne Garden is practically the only available place in the county where the game can be played to any great advantage, and it is, therefore, the headquarters of the sport. Of course, the chief teams are those belonging to the Western Pennsylvania Hockey league, made up of the Bankers, Pittsburg Athletic club, the Victorias and the Keystones. But other teams are coming to the front, and it will not be long until Pittsburg will boast of a championship team made up of purely local talent."

Distracted by Maryland's Online Indices

I've always considered myself to be organized and a planner, but some days I'm easily distracted. Does this happen to you, too? Over the weekend, I found some new family facts by browsing Maryland's online vital record indices. But I can't even remember how I ended up there...

I was researching a lead in the hopes it would shed some light on my 2nd great-grandfather's German town of origin. Two brothers with the same unusual surname as my ancestor arrived in the U.S. from Frankfurt in the late 1920s and settled in New York and then New Jersey. That was more than 70 years after the arrival of my ancestor, but the lead looked promising.

How I got from there to Maryland is a mystery to me! I somehow stumbled upon the Maryland State Archives website and saw it had links to scanned indices for vital records. I don't have many family connections to Maryland, but I remembered that my 2nd great-aunt had a brother-in-law who lived in Maryland starting in the 1860s. I couldn't help but see what I could find about Franz "Frank" Nehren. Was it important to my family research? No. Could I resist this temptation? NO.

Since the indices aren't searchable, I had to use some logic to narrow down the years and county that I needed to browse. I started by looking for his marriage. All I knew was that Franz married a woman named Lizetta and that their first child was born in Maryland in 1865. By 1870, the Nehren family was living in Baltimore.

I used the Baltimore City marriage index for males for 1851-1885 and clicked on the link for the surnames "Moore to Owens." I was excited to see that it wasn't just a list of the couples' names and date of marriage. The file contained scans of cards with a little more detail than I expected, like this one below:

Interestingly, the marriage I wanted (below) was mostly blank! It didn't even show the marriage date. However, it did provide me with one fact I didn't have yet: the bride's maiden name.

Baltimore City marriage record of Franz Nehren & Lisette Gardner, 1863

Next, I decided to look for Franz's death. A Baltimore city directory showed that Elizabeth Nehren was a widow by 1885. The last city directory that mentioned Franz as living seemed to be 1883. Although the Archives website is a little confusing in places, I found my way to the online Baltimore City Death Index for 1875-1972. I scrolled down to the letter 'N' and clicked on the link for 1875-1888. Franz H. Nehren died on Dec 5, 1883, and the index provides the certificate number, volume, and page in case I want to order a copy.

Franz was only 41 when he died, so it's possible that Lisette remarried. I couldn't find her in the death indices under Nehren. If she did remarry, I would need the surname of her second husband to make it easier to locate her marriage since the female index isn't online.

Sometimes it's fun to get distracted! Please post a comment if you've ever found anything interesting when your research got side-tracked.