Last week I published a photo of Attilo Ferroni’s presumed mother, Marietta (Diamantini) Ferroni. Today, I’m posting a photo of him.
I believe he was born circa 28 September 1905, in Italy, presumably in the Marche region. He and his wife (name unknown) are believed to have had 6 children: Giovanni, Hugo, Mario, Nello, Rina, and Umberto. All were sons, except for Rina.
Prompt (from 2018, week 25): Same Name
One of the Walter Bernard’s in my family was the fourth child of William and Mary (Lamburth) Dempsey, their third son, and an older brother of my grandfather. Walter is enumerated with his family at 485 Potrero Avenue, San Francisco, in the 1910 Federal census (shown below).[1]
A few short years after the census, he was dead. The family story was that he attended a New Year’s Day parade, some of the confetti/ticker tape got up in his nose, and he died a few days later. His death certificate states he died of meningitis on 5 January 1918, his illness having lasted 4 days.[2] Possibly the family story, then, is true. He seems to have gotten sick around New Year’s Day.
Here is the only photo we have of him, reportedly taken around 1915. He definitely resembles my grandfather.
Walter’s death certificate gives his age at death as 15 years 2 months and 11 days. By my calculations, that makes his date of birth 25 October 1902, which doesn’t match the birth date provided on the death certificate as 24 October. The informant on Walter’s death certificate is the “San Francisco Hospital”, although surely they would have to have gotten information from either Walter’s doctor or Walter’s parents.
Further complicating the birth date issue is the delayed birth certificate application for his younger sister Mary Loretta, applied for in March 1949, on which Mary Loretta’s mother Mary (Lamburth) Dempsey attests that Mary Loretta’s birthdate was 24 December 1902.[3]
If Walter was born in October 1902, Mary could not have been born 2 months later. Either Walter’s birth date and age at death is incorrect (meaning he possibly was born October 1901, and thus was 16 when he died), or Mary’s delayed birth certificate application was incorrect, meaning she was born in December 1903 rather than December 1902. The next child along was my grandfather, born in December 1904, which leaves plenty of time for a full-term pregnancy to occur after a possible 1903 birth for Mary Loretta.
Given that both Walter, Mary Loretta and my grandfather Cassius were all born late in the year, the 1910 census information (with Walter being 8 years, Mary being 7 years, and Cassius being 5) seems to indicate that Walter was born in 1901, Mary in 1902, and my grandfather (correctly) in 1904.
In sum, one of the records (Walter’s death certificate or Mary’s delayed birth certificate) is incorrect. It’s a tossup as to which is correct, and in some ways it doesn’t really matter so many years later.
Cite/link to this post: Cathy M. Dempsey, “Walter Bernard Dempsey,” Genes and Roots, posted 27 Feb 2019 (https://genesandroots.com : accessed (date)).
[1] 1910 U.S. census, San Francisco County, California, population schedule, Enumeration District 29, San Francisco Assembly District 31, page 9A, family 161, William J Dempsey household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7884 : accessed 20 September 2016); citing National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm publication T624, roll 96.
[2] California Department of Health Services, death certificate state file no. 18-002555, Walter Dempsey (1918); Center for Health Statistics and Informatics, Sacramento.
[3] San Francisco County, California, Application for Delayed Birth Certificate with accompanying affidavits, 12 March 1949, for Mary Loretta Dempsey (24 Dec 1902), sworn by Mary E Dempsey, mother; photocopy in possession of grand-niece Cathy [blog author].
I’m going to continue to post photographs once a week on “Throwback Thursdays”, starting with some of my Italian relatives, about whom I know very little.
One thing I do know is that my Diamantini kin came from in and around the town of Fano, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, in the province of Pesaro e Urbino, in the Marche region.
Google Maps. “Fano, Province of Pesaro and Urbino, Italy”, Google (https://www.google.com/maps/place/61032+Fano,+Province+of+Pesaro+and+Urbino,+Italy/@43.4913364,14.8439515,7.01z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x132d105e7324a691:0x477a64d9766b3c0a!8m2!3d43.8398164!4d13.0194201?hl=en : accessed 7 Feb 2019).
This photo is of a woman believed to be my great-grandfather Guiseppe Diamantini’s sister, Marietta, who married Enrico Ferroni. She was born 12 February 1887 and died 16 December 1980. I believe Marietta and Enrico had 3 sons: Attilo, Hugo, and Gino. That’s all I know.
In memory of my mom’s first cousins on her mother’s side. This photo was taken circa 1940:
Siblings – Ann Shirley Holst (1936 – 1994) and Robert Perry “Bobby” Holst (1932 – 2009)
Neither had any children.
Prompt for 2019, week 1 — “First”.
My great-grandfather, William Cornelius (aka Willie) Colbert, was the eldest of 13 children. He was baptized on 31 January 1877, in Moanlena, Mahoonagh Parish, Co. Limerick, Ireland, to Michael Colbert and Hanora Josephine McDermott.[1]
William had 7 sisters, and 5 brothers, one of whom was Con Colbert, who was executed on 8 May 1916, after the Easter Uprising.[2]
Sometime in 1890 or early 1891, the family moved from Moanlena to Athea, as William’s youngest two siblings, Dan and Bridget, were baptized at Templetathea West, Athea parish, Co. Limerick. Williams’ mother Hanora died in childbirth with the last child born, Bridget, on 17 Sep 1892.
As a young adult, Willie became attracted to a young dairy maid named Eileen Houlihan, daughter of Charles Houlihan and Anna Carmody, also of Athea, Co. Limerick. The story goes that William’s father Michael wanted no part of William being involved with Eileen, so Michael paid the passage for Eileen to go to San Francisco[3], where her older sister Margaret had immigrated to in 1897.[4]
As one might suspect, that got Michael nowhere, as Willie soon headed to San Francisco himself. I found a passenger record for a William Colbert from Athea, who traveled to New York from Queenstown on the SS Etruria in July 1899, at the age of 22[5]. That fits with what I know of my great-grandfather. It also fits with the stated immigration date given on the 1910 Federal Census.
Here is a zoomed-in look at the same record:
However, what doesn’t fit William is his stated final destination: the home of his sister Maggie Collins, at 513 Hicks Street, Brooklyn, New York. While William did have a sister Margaret, she was only 15 and living in Ireland in 1899. And given that Eileen’s sister Margaret was already in San Francisco for roughly 2 years when Eileen traveled to the U.S., Eileen had no reason to stop in Brooklyn either. In other words, Margaret Houlihan was not Maggie Collins/Cullins. Finally, William was aiming to meet up with Eileen, so why delay in Brooklyn? Long story short, this may or may not be “my” William Colbert. Some facts fit, some do not.
In any case, Willie is not found on the 1901 Irish census, and by November 1901 he had met up with Eileen in San Francisco, as the filing of their marriage license on 7 November 1901 was recorded in the newspaper.[6]
William and Eileen lived fairly close to each other, as the image below indicates. It was a half-mile walk from one house to the other. (The addresses are based on the newspaper article above.)
William Colbert and Eileen (Houlihan) Colbert, my great-grandparents, ca. 1901
Their first child was Marie Honora, born 27 May 1902. She was followed by Anita in 1903, my grandmother Margaret in 1908 (click here for the profile on her), and William in 1910.[7]
In May 1905, two of William’s siblings, John Michael and Johanna (aka Nan), sailed together on the SS Campania from Queenstown, Co. Cork, Ireland to New York, and then traveled to San Francisco.[8] John and Nan are listed on rows 2 and 3 of the passenger manifest below, and state their brother William paid their passage, and their ultimate destination was his place in San Francisco. They, like William, would live the rest of their lives there.
William was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in June 1905; the records were destroyed in the Earthquake of 1906. In May 1929, he apparently submitted the necessary paperwork for his naturalization to be restored.[8a]
Eileen died in December 1911.[9] William remarried sometime after the 1920 census, in which he is enumerated as a widower[10], and before 30 August 1923, when his daughter Cornelia (aka Connie) was born.[11] His wife’s true name was Harriet H. (Maley) Buchan, a native of England, but the name given on the birth certificate for Cornelia was Dorothy O’Maley, a native of Scotland.
William with his youngest child, Connie, circa 1930
My grandmother and her brother William (aka Babe) knew the woman as Mrs. Buchan. Mrs. Buchan had a daughter Dora, roughly my grandmother’s age, and by tracing Dora’s passenger records, I was able to find a link to my great-grandfather’s San Francisco address, helping to tie the two families together even when personal information (names, birthdates) varied.[12]
The family is intact at the time of the 1930 census enumeration.[13] William is living with “Dorothy” (aka Harriet), and four of his 5 children: Marie, my grandmother Margaret, William, and Cornelia. Only Anita was not enumerated with the family.
By October 1931, however, my great-grandfather was dead, his body found in the San Francisco Bay.[14] When I was first finding out more about my great-grandfather’s life, I asked my dad about William’s death. William died 18 months before my grandmother married, so Dad never him. He said that accounts varied.
I may have it wrong as to who said what, but my grandmother said it was suicide, one of her siblings said it was murder, and another sibling said it was an accident. (Or vice versa – maybe my grandmother was the one who said it was an accident.)
The idea that it might be suicide came from the fact that “Dorothy” (aka Harriet) had reportedly taken off to Shanghai, China, with little Connie, and Willie was going to go after her.
The idea that it might be murder came from the fact that my great-grandfather reportedly had a stash of cash with him (perhaps $5,000?) and that money was nowhere to be found when his body was retrieved.
Finally, the idea that it might just have been an accident was due to the likelihood that he had been drinking.
Potrero Point is close to the foot of 20th Street and the Bay.
At the time I first heard this story, roughly 25 years ago, I decided to just order his death certificate from Sacramento. And so I did. But the certificate is equally vague on the reasons leading up to Willie’s death by drowning, stating “whether accident-suicide or murder, jury unable to determine”.
A few years ago, I found the coroner’s report online at FamilySearch.org.[15] It’s not significantly different from the death certificate. Willie’s brother John was an informant in both cases. Willie’s car was missing, and while members of the family thought he might have driven overboard into the Bay, the car was later found to be at the intersection of Mason and O’Farrell Streets.
William was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, in Colma, California.[16] I cited the Find A Grave memorial, but I’m the one who created and maintains that memorial, so I am citing myself! The photo of the grave is one I took; what I have mislaid is the location of his grave. The cemetery office will have that information.
Cite/link to this post: Cathy M. Dempsey, “William Colbert, First of 13,” Genes and Roots, posted 12 Feb 2019 (https://genesandroots.com : accessed (date)).
Citations
[1] Diocese of Limerick, Parish of Mahoonagh, 31 January 1877, baptism of William Cornelius, son of Michael Colbert and Honora McDermott.
[2] For a brief overview, see such sites as: https://ireland-calling.com/con-colbert-easter-rising-1916/, https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/easter-rising-hero-con-colbert, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Con_Colbert, and https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4272.
[3] The story has come down to me through my father via his cousins, children of the late Anita (Colbert) Foley. The reasons for Michael’s resistance to Eileen Houlihan are unknown.
[4] Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1597, microfilm publication T715, 8892 rolls (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 5, 4 September 1897, SS Etruria, List B, page 54 (stamped), line 15, Margaret Houlihan; digital images, “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” Ancestry (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7488 : viewed 21 October 2018), image 94. As noted on the manifest, Margaret’s ultimate destination being San Francisco, where her cousin Ellen Walsh lived.
[5] Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1597, microfilm publication T715, 8892 rolls (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 76, 30 Jul 1899, SS Etruria, List A, page 177, line 16, William Colbert; digital images, “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” Ancestry (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7488 : viewed 30 January 2019), image 252.
[6] “Marriage Licenses,” San Francisco Call (San Francisco, California), 8 November 1901, page 13, column 3; digital images, California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside, (http://cdnc.ucr.edu : accessed 30 October 2018).
[7] For additional sources on the children of William and Eileen, see Cathy Dempsey (cathymd) “Dempsey Family Tree” tree, Ancestry.com.
[8] Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1597, microfilm publication T715, 8892 rolls (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 567, 1 May 1905, SS Campania, List L, page 114, line 2, John Colbert; digital images, “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” Ancestry (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7488 : viewed 30 January 2019), image 464.
[8a] Restoration of Naturalization Record, Judgement Book A-No. 2, William Colbert, 29 May 1929 referencing 27 Jun 1905,
Instrument in Writing, County Clerk, San Francisco; digital images,
FamilySearch (https://https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSM1-ZJTX?i=602&cat=612802 : accessed 18 Jun 2018)> img 603 of 883; citing San Francisco City Archives, San Francisco History Center, Public Library, San Francisco.
[9] California Department of Health Services, death certificate state file no. 11-034498, Ellien [Eileen or Helen] Colbert (1911); Center for Health Statistics and Informatics, Sacramento.
[10] 1920 U.S. census, San Francisco County, California, population schedule, Enumeration District 120, San Francisco Assembly District 23, page 2A, dwelling 25, family 25, William Colebert household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=6061 : accessed 29 October 2018); citing National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm publication T625, roll 135.
[11] City and County of San Francisco, California, birth certificate local registered No. 6057, dist. No. 3801, Cornelia Colbert (1923); City and County of San Francisco, Office of the County Clerk.
[12] For additional sources on William Colbert’s daughter Cornelia and her mother’s relatives, see Cathy Dempsey (cathymd) “Dempsey Family Tree” tree, Ancestry.com.
[13] 1930 U.S. census, San Francisco County, California, population schedule, Enumeration District 43, San Francisco city, page 16B, dwelling 355, family 365, William Colbert household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=6224 : accessed 29 October 2018); citing National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm publication T626, roll 195.
[14] California Department of Health Services, death certificate state file no. 31-061761, William C. Colbert (1931); Center for Health Statistics and Informatics, Sacramento.
[15] “California, San Francisco County Records, 1824-1997,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-G5FQ-9Z96?i=340&cc=1402856 : accessed 13 May 2015), Coroner’s Records > Coroner’s register, Oct, 1931 > image 341 of 428; San Francisco Public Library, California.
[16] Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 31 January 2019), memorial page for William Cornelius Colbert (31 Jan 1877–21 Oct 1931), Find A Grave Memorial no. 10411679; citing Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Colma, San Mateo County, California, USA; Maintained by cmdempsey (contributor 46568461).
If you’ve tested at 23andMe, have you checked out your ethnicity results lately?
In a recent post[1], Judy Russell mentioned 23andMe’s latest ethnicity update, which somehow I missed completely!
Naturally, I had to go check it out, fearing a bit that my ethnicity percentages might be “messed up”. Even though I know they are estimates, 23andMe has for some time had the percentages closest to what would be expected by my family narrative. My dad is “all Irish”; my mom is “half Italian” due to her father being from Italy. Et cetera, et cetera.
Very little has changed in my ethnicity percentages. Here, I’ve noted in an Excel spreadsheet my former ethnicities per 23andMe (as of November 2018) and my current ones as of today when I reviewed the changes.
What is interesting, though, is that they seems to have taken a page from Ancestry’s “genetic communities” playbook, and zeroed in on specific areas in Ireland, Britain and Italy where my ancestors possibly lived in the past 200 years.
Let’s take a look. We’ll start with Ireland. On my paper trail, both my dad’s parents have Irish roots. My paternal grandfather’s family left Ireland, depending on the branch of his tree, around the time of the Famine and shortly after – say, the 1850 to 1865 range. My great-great grandfather, Patrick Dempsey, reportedly came from Kings County (now Co. Offaly) – per his obituary. I don’t have more details than that. His wife Hanora Hurley (or is it Hanora Riordan) – whom he married in the U.S. — may have come from anywhere in southern Ireland. Best guess is Co. Cork or Co. Limerick. On my grandfather’s maternal line, her father’s Lamburth ancestors likely came from England, while her mother Eliza (Landrigan) Lamburth came from the town of Garryrickin, Windgap Parish, Co. Kilkenny.[2]
My paternal grandmother’s father came from Athea, Co. Limerick, as did his father, while his mother came from Cooraclare, Co. Clare. My grandmother’s mother came from Athea, Co. Limerick, as did her father, with her mother coming from Beale, Co. Kerry.[3]
In sum, my Irish heritage on my Nana’s side is from the province of Munster, specifically southwest of Ireland, around the River Shannon, while my Grandpa’s Irish heritage is from the province of Leinster, specifically Co. Kilkenny and Co. Offaly.
And 23andMe’s ethnicity determination – for the moment at least – largely agrees.[4]
County Kerry, County Clare, County Limerick and County Kilkenny are all in the top 10.
As far as Great Britain/the U.K. is concerned, I have no idea where my ancestors came from. My paternal grandfather’s Lamburth line, here in the U.S. since at least 1800, likely came from England but none of us researching this line have yet “crossed the pond”. My mother’s maternal grandmother’s Wright line has been here in the U.S. since at least 1730 or so; researchers on this line have not yet crossed the pond either. Here is what 23andMe estimates[5]:
Perhaps these areas could be clues, but it would be silly to jump ahead of myself and start researching Wrights and Lamburth/Lamberts over in England without knowing more about the family here in the U.S. in the 18th century. The references to Scotland surprise me a bit, but could be related to the Gaelic / Celtic heritage of my Irish side.
With respect to Italy, my grandfather’s parents came from the province of Marche. My great-grandfather was from Fano, and my great-grandmother was from Sant’Elpidio a Mare[6]. Some of us in my family have even gone to Marche and met our living cousins – that’s a story for another blog post.
Here is what 23andMe estimates[7].
Pretty wild, huh? Marche!! Still have to take it with a grain of salt – my brother’s estimated places of origin in Italy are completely different from mine – but still, right now, today, it “fits”.
[1] Judy G. Russell, “And still not soup…,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 27 Jan 2019 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 28 Jan 2019).
[2] For sources, see cathymd, “Dempsey Family Tree“, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/17377380/family : accessed 26 Dec 2018).
[3] Ibid.
[4] 23andMe, Inc., “Cathy, your DNA suggests that 56.8% of your ancestry is British & Irish”, 23andMe.com (https://you.23andme.com/reports/ancestry_composition_hd/british_irish/ : accessed 29 Jan 2019).
[5] 23andMe, Inc., “Cathy, your DNA suggests that 56.8% of your ancestry is British & Irish”, 23andMe.com (https://you.23andme.com/reports/ancestry_composition_hd/british_irish/ : accessed 29 Jan 2019).
[6] For sources, See cathymd, “Serafini_Diamantini1“ tree, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/19505554/family : accessed 29 Jan 2019).
[7] 23andMe, Inc., “Cathy, your DNA suggests that 12.6% of your ancestry is Italian”, 23andMe.com (https://you.23andme.com/reports/ancestry_composition_hd/italian/ : accessed 29 Jan 2019).
I posted my dad’s NodeXL clustering results a few weeks back (here). As promised, now I am posting my mom’s NodeXL clustering results, focusing on just a few of the most intriguing (puzzling?) aspects. (You can read a step-by-step how-to on using NodeXL to cluster your Ancestry matches here, at Shelley Crawford’s blog.)
Mom’s matches for this clustering exercise were limited to those with 15 cM or greater shared; it simply gets too cluttered if I include everybody down to 6 cM.
Also in the photo below I have turned off the display for all clusters with less than 4 people. (NodeXL’s algorithms will cluster in groups of two, while other algorithms like Jonathan Brecher’s Shared Clustering tool use three as a minimum.)
Let’s look first at “Group 13”, the cluster at the bottom in navy blue that looks like 2 separate clusters to me. (I don’t fully understand how the algorithm works.) Below is group 13, zoomed in and with inter-group links turned off so you can look at the cluster itself more closely. Clearly, only one match links to both halves of this group. So, they’re not related as closely as one might think.
The additional photos below bear out that theory. On the left, “Cousin X” is highlighted; you can see that “X” shares a match with only 2 people (in addition to my mom). On the right, “Cousin B” is highlighted. “Cousin B” only matches others in the one subcluster, and nobody in the other subcluster.
Another group that looks intriguing is one to my mom’s cousin “Sally Sue” (alias) who is fairly closely related to Mom. (You can tell she is more closely related to my mom by the size of the blue square. These matches look like a hub and spokes. “Sally Sue” is in the middle with the largest square; the others are more distantly related to my mother. (As an aside, the option to size the squares or dots by the shared cM amount is available in the NodeXL tool, but is not automatic.)
“Sally Sue’s” group, shown below with the outside links removed, is one in which she matches every single person in her cluster, but each of them only matches her (or, not shown, at least one person in a different cluster.)
The last cluster that is intriguing is shown below. This cousin, let’s call her Jane, appears to be in the “wrong” cluster. While she does have matches in her own cluster, she has many more matches in a different cluster.
One reason this might happen is that Jane and Mom could share DNA on, say, chromosome 1 (possibly with others in her group); the cousins in the other cluster could share DNA with mom on, say, chromosome 9, and then share DNA with Jane on chromosome 4. We don’t know for sure, since we don’t have segment info.
However, since clustering my mother’s matches in NodeXL and starting the draft of this post, I used Jonathan Brecher’s Shared Clustering tool, which groups “Jane” with the cluster where she has most of her matches.
On the face of it, that makes more sense. However, seeing “Jane” in a separate group (as below) could be useful for realizing that she may be connected on a different ancestral to my mother than the bulk of her matches. This suggests I need to be careful in analyzing Jane’s tree and ancestral surnames, vis-a-vis the matches in the other cluster.
In fact, I am finding that it is useful to cluster your shared DNA matches with more than one tool, as each uses different algorithms. (More on other clustering methods in a later post.)
The certificates for the Fall 2018 BU Genealogical Research class have been arriving this week in the mail — and I finally got mine! Just have to share…
Still a long way from true certification, but I sure did learn a lot from this course.
I did a DNA test for my cat Simba back in 2017 (available here for a nominal fee), and below are the results of Simba’s ethnicity.[1] He is descended from Western European cats!
Now, the real reason I did a cheek swab on Simba — he was less than impressed with being swabbed, by the way — was to donate his genome to science. At the time I had read (somewhere, can’t remember now where) that there were many more samples of canine genomes than feline genomes for scientific research, so I decided to contribute on Simba’s behalf.
Below is Simba with his best buddy Leo. Both were adopted as “teenagers” (over 6 mos. old but less than 1 year) from the local city shelter in December 2013, shortly after our long-term feline companion Rory died.
[1] Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine,
“Cat Ancestry [Report] Simba”, case CAT92330; (https://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/cat/ancestry/ : accessed 1 Mar 2017).
Genes and Roots 