My great-grandfather, John J. R. Magree, was supposedly born in Brooklyn, New York, at least according to all the census records from 1870 on, his obituary, and other records. Brooklyn has no record of his birth.
Because John C. Magree was a mate in New York harbor in the 1850 census and master of the Ship Ivanhoe in Jan. 1851, I assumed that John C. Magree was his father. The Brooklyn city directories of the 1850s list a Margaret Magree, widow. Was she the abandoned wife of John C. Magree? John C. Magree was still alive during the Civil War.
However I did find records of the marriage in Liverpool, England, of John C. Magree and Margaret Pope, and then of the birth to this couple of John James Richard Magree. Given the rarity of the name Magree, isn't the probability rather strong that this is the John James Richard Magree who became known as John J. R. Magree as an adult?
But I can find no record of Margaret Magree and John J. R. Magree traveling on John C. Magree's ship or any other ship. Did John C. bring them as unlisted passengers? Did they not need to be on the manifest because they were the master's family? As far as I can tell, the same manifest did not list any of the crew, either.
So, do we follow the rule that Barack Obama, born in Hawaii of an American mother and a Kenyan father, is not born in America? Or do we follow the rule that Ted Cruz and John McCain, born in Canada and the Panama Canal Zone, respectively, of at least one parent who was a U.S. citizen, are born in America? I guess, sarcastically, since I am white we follow the Cruz/McCain rules.
However, if we follow the "Obama" rule, then I am the descendant of illegal immigrants. Not only was my great-great grandmother presumably born in England, but we have have no birth certificate to prove that John C. Magree was born in the United States. The only "proof " is that on his marriage application in England, John Cornelius Magree gave his father's name as Vinsent Magree. There was a Vincent Magree in the 1840 census with at least one male around 12 years old.
That's all rather slim evidence that my paternal line has been born of legal immigrants.
If that makes me an illegal immigrant too, where should I be deported to? England, Germany, Poland? I have traced ancestors to all three of those countries.
