Cross-Checking Crowns

Anybody using a computer for their genealogy in this day and age is likely reading information that has been abstracted and transcribed from original records.  Somebody else is reading our ancestors' records and we're taking their word for it.  We're also sparing ourselves the time it takes to read the fading ink of old-time handwritten script which might have been written by a priest who was left-handed and using Latin abbreviations if he was in a hurry. But if the research question matters and/or you might die from curiosity, locating original records becomes important.  At least half the time when I look at a record for myself, I find information that was not included in the abstract and/or a word or phrase that was mistranscribed or mistranslated altogether.  Luckily for us, digital images of many Catholic registers, especially in Ireland, are now available online and for free.  What could be better?

This post is going to give you a quick example of how this methodology made me very happy today:

• In a previous post, I mentioned the obituary of Michael Crowne who died in 1936 in NJ.  That news clipping mentioned that Michael had a sister, Mrs. Patrick McMurray.  The unfortunate tradition of identifying women solely by their relationship to men doesn't really help genealogical pursuits.  All my searches for any Patrick McMurray in that vicinity as well as in Ireland from 1920-1940 were fruitless.
• I went back to Michael Crowne's family group to review his siblings. There were two sisters who I couldn't account for, Mary and Bridget.  I started with Mary.  The only information I had about her was that she was baptised at the Killargue Church in County Leitrim in 1877.
• In reading the actual baptism, I came very close to missing something.  Above the original handwriting was a notation made in a smaller and different handwriting which reads "married to Patrick McMorrow 20.9.1908 in Brooklyn by [can't decipher]."  It took several minutes before I realized that the 1936 newspaper obituary of Michael Crowne had misprinted his sister's married name.  We're looking for McMorrow, not McMurray.
• I located the New York marriage certificate for Mary Crown and Patrick McMorrow which was acquired a few weeks before the church wedding.  But strangely, I found no other record of them in any U.S. or NY census. Finally, I found a U.S. passport application dated 5 Jul 1924. The applicant was Patrick McMorrow to be accompanied by his wife Mary whom he had married on 20 Sep. 1908 at the St. Thomas Aquinas RC Church in Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY.  Patrick provided much more information about his origins and his occupation in NY, and Mary McMorrow, housewife, attested that she had known Patrick for 20 years.  And then, affixed to the application, are photographs of them both.  Wow.

So there you have it.  I have read that priests in America would often inquire to the home parish overseas about those seeking sacraments.  So the priest in Brooklyn wrote to the priest in Killargue and asked if Mary Crowne had been baptised there.  The priest in Killargue looked her up in the parish register and confirmed.  The priest in Brooklyn then married the couple, and he subsequently notified the home parishes of the marriage.  In our case, the Killargue priest went back to Mary's baptism record and also made note of her marriage.

I can't say much more about whatever happened to Patrick and Mary, or whether they had children.  The passport application said they were going to Ireland "to benefit health" and would return within two years. We know that Mary was still alive in 1936 when her brother, Michael, died in Hoboken, New Jersey.  Whatever Mary Crown McMorrow's fate, it was likely recorded in some Catholic register somewhere.