Am I a descendant of illegal immigrants?

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.

Distortions in family history

If you are working on your family history, be careful of what you are told.  What you are told could be made up or it could be misinterpreted.  Document everything and then crosscheck it with other documents.

The most blatant tale that I can think of is what my mother told me around a St. Patrick's Day.  She said, "We are Orange Irish."  One, her ancestors were from England and Germany, not Ireland.  Two, she didn't know any of her in-laws besides her U.S. born father-in-law and German-born mother-in-law.

So far, I have found only one Magree ancestor going back four generations that was not born in the United States.  My great grandfather, John James Richard Magree, was born in Liverpool, England of an American father and an English mother.  Given that her maiden name was Pope, she may or may not have had Irish ancestors.  Many Irish immigrated to Liverpool.  However, all of the other records that I have for him say he was born in the U.S. and more specifically in Brooklyn.

I do know that the name Magree is centered in Kilkenny, Ireland and some of those Magrees are buried in a Catholic Church cemetery.  If my Magree ancestors were from there, they most likely would have been Catholic.

I was told that my grandfather was born in Poughkeepsie, New York.  But his death certificate gives Brooklyn, his parents were in a Brooklyn city directory at the time of his birth, and one of his sister's birth certificates gives that same address.  But somebody else on ancestry.com has that sister born in Poughkeepsie!

I read the death certificate of my paternal grandmother's father as his birthplace being "Schlossing"; the information was provided by one of his sons.  Knowing my grandmother was born in Germany I kept looking for a town with that name.  Then it dawned on me that it should be "Schlesien", German for Silesia.  Silesia is now mostly in Poland.  Somebody else on ancestry.com had his birth as "Schlassing".  As part of checking if my grandmother may have been Catholic, I looked up Silesia.  I learned that there is a Silesian German and the speakers call themselves Schlässinger.  I have since found out that my grandmother's town of leaving was called Osseg; it is now Osiek in Polish.

I have learned so much family history in the last thirty years, but I will need another thirty years to even fill in details about the people whose names I know.

But, regardless of where my ancestors came from, I do not consider myself Orange Irish or Green Irish or German or Polish or even Brooklynite:)  My nationality is American!
See also What nationality are you?  An irrelevant question!

Declaration of Independence is still a work in progress

For its July Fourth celebration of 1852, the city of Rochester NY invited Frederick Douglass to speak.  Danny Glover gives an impassioned reading of that speech.

The accompanying notes intimidate the speech didn't go over so well but gives no further information.

But according to one account, it went over quite well.  A letter to Douglass was "Dear Sir-The Ladies of the "Rochester Anti Slavery Sewing Society," desire me to return you their most sincere thanks for the eloquent and able address delivered in Corinthian Hall, on the 5th of July. Anticipating its speedy publication in Pamphlet form, they request that you will furnish them with one hundred copies for distribution:
In behalf of the Society,
SUSAN F. PORTER, President.

See http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=2945

As I suspected, the Danny Glover version is a shortened version of Douglass' speech.  Few 19th Century orators would give an eight-minute speech.

I admit it, my 20th Century eyes don't have the patience to read through the complete speech.  Now, will I get back to it before I read all the Federalist Papers or the Wealth of Nations?  I have my doubts I will read completely through any of the three.

So-called "Democrats" handed another U.S. House seat to the Republicans

Republican Bob Turner had "an upset win" over Democrat David I. Weprin in the Ninth Congressional District of New York. Many who call themselves Democrats just didn't show up! According to the Associated Press it was a "light-turnout election". I haven't seen any exact figures yet, but I would guess that it was way less than fifty percent. Yet here are three times as many registered Democrats as registered Republicans. Supposedly, many Democrats were dissatisfied with President Obama and didn't vote. Don't these people realize that a no-show is really a vote for the opposition?

Reconstructing family history

Genealogy once upon a time seemed to be a search for illustrious ancestors. As it became more and more popular for people just to connect back to Europe, people came just as interested in the stories of their ancestors as in the connections of one generation to another. Besides, the stories often gave clues on how to find the connections.

I've been interested in the origins of the name Magree for years, but really didn't make much progress until the 1970s when I stumbled on a whole bunch in Australia. From some of them I found that they could trace their ancestors to Kilkenny, Ireland.

My own personal search stopped with my greatgrandfather, John J.R. Magree who was born in Brooklyn in 1851. I've gathered a few stories about him and his descendants, but I gave up on searching documents to go back further.

Meanwhile, I do a Google search on Magrees and turn up a few I never heard of before. I generally don't follow up because the letter exchange or telephone calls would just eat up time from all the other activities I want to do.

Every so often my curiosity gets the better of me and I attempt to contact someone. I did this recently through classmates.com and got a reply. She gave me some information about her ex-husband. I made the connection to one of my uncles, replied to her, and haven't heard from her since. I probably exhausted her interest in the subject.

However, this led me to reflect on some decades-old issues. My family is not very good on keeping connections up, possibly because of many divorces. I had not seen my paternal grandmother since I was about 7 or 9, but I sent her Christmas cards and maybe birthday cards for a long, long time.

The year after I was married, we drove through Chicago on our way home to Cleveland. I stopped at a phone booth, looked my grandmother up, called her, and she invited us to stop by.

She was living upstairs in a duplex where her youngest son, his wife, and children lived downstairs. My wife and I remember her bitterly complaining about her daughter-in-law.

A couple of nights ago, during a sleepless period, several weeks after I received the message through classmates.com, two explanations about the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict popped into my head.

Both were born in Germany.

My grandmother had come to the U.S. when she was about six, but as an adult she spoke probably only English. Her children would ask for German words but she had a harder and harder time remembering any.

My aunt was the widow of a German soldier and the mother of a young son. She met my uncle, a G.I., after the war and came to the U.S. with her son.

I wonder if there was friction between the two women because 1) my grandmother could no longer speak fluent German and was frustrated, or 2) my grandmother had antipathy towards Germans in general because of the two World Wars.

I may never know. All the principals are dead now except possibly my aunt's first son. I may never get sufficient curiosity to follow up with people who may be reluctant to get involved with distant relatives.

And this is how so many interesting stories get lost or garbled.