I found the marriage certificate for Emmanuel de Guehery and Marion Cuthbert, my great-great-grandparents. Both are from Chalk River. Emmanuel was born in Waterloo County, Ontario and was a fireman for the railroad. His parents were Rudolph and Goddlikin de Guehery. Marion was born in London, England. Her parents were Thomas and Margaret Cuthbert. Their marriage was 25 February 1884 in Pembroke. They were Presbyterian.
This is the death certificate for my great-great-grandfather, Emanuel De Guehery. He was killed in a railroad accident in 1894 at the age of 30, leaving his wife Marion to take care of six children, including a newborn. Some of the children went to live with Marion's family back in Chalk River, Ontario, until the family could be reunited several years later.
This gives some of the gruesome details of his death.
The chief and determining cause of death was "body crushed and cut to pieces".
Consecutive and contributing cause was "RR Engine".
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I received the death certificate for my great-great-grandfather, Emanuel De Guehery today. Not a lot of new information on it.
Emanuel De Guehery worked for the railroad and was killed in an accident on 14 Nov 1894.
Dinty Elliot has copies of the Buffalo Morning Express and Buffalo Evening News stories from 15 Nov:
“RAILROAD MAN KILLED Conductor de Guehery Caught his Foot in a Frog Late Yesterday and Met His Death. Edward de Guehery, a conductor in the freight yards of the Erie and East Buffalo, met his death in a horrible manner yesterday. He was pulling pins out of a train when his foot caught in a (switch) frog. Before he could get free Engine 686 struck him. He was killed instantly. He leaves a wife and three children. Coroner Tucker will hold an inquest.”
“RAILROADER KILLED Edward de Guehery Caught his Foot in a Frog in the Erie Yards and was Shockingly Mangled. Another railroader met his fate in the Erie Yards at East Buffalo yesterday afternoon. About 4 o’clock Edward de Guehery, a conductor for the Erie, was pulling pins near Babcock Street, when his right foot became caught in a frog. Before he could extricate it Engine No. 686 bore down on him and killed him instantly. He was shockingly mangled.
“de Guehery was 40 years old. He leaves a widow and three children. Coroner Tucker removed the body to the Morgue.”
The death certificate may explain why the story refers to "Edward" instead of "Emanuel". Since this was an accident, perhaps someone at the railroad yard – a supervisor perhaps – thought his name was Edward since the death certificate initially said "Edward DeGuehery". That was crossed out and "Emanuel DeGuehery" was written in its place. Clearly, they didn't get information from his wife since there is nothing written for father's name (Rudolph) and mother's name (Gottlieben/Katherine).
In addition, in the Saturday 17 Nov 1894 edition of the News, was the following notice:
“By Resolution of Hobab Lodge No. 681, I.O.O.F.
Whereas, Our worthy brother, Emanuel de Guehery, aged 30 years, while employed as a conducter in the Erie yards at East Buffalo, came suddenly to his death on Wednesday afternoon.
Resolved. The Hobab lodge feel with deep regret the loss of our brother, who leaves a wife and six children, the oldest 10 years and the youngest 5 weeks, to whom we extend our heartfelt sympathy.
Resolved. That Hobab lodge attend the funeral in a body on Sunday afternoon at 2 o’clock, from Glass Street, South Buffalo, and the resolution be published in the daily papers and a copy sent to the bereaved wife of our departed brother. The Committee.”
According to Dinty's genealogy, "This must have been a tremendous shock to Marion to be widowed at age 30 with six children. She was a small woman, and rather frail, but she must have had a mighty strong spirit. Her brother, William Cuthbert, of Chalk River, immediately came to Buffalo by train, and made the funeral arrangements. Marion decided she would have to go to work to provide for her children. She chose to train as a nurse. Uncle Willie, as he was known, took five of the children back to the farm in Chalk River, by train, leaving Marion to care for her 6-week-old Edna, and commence her nursing training."
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Until a few months ago, I was 1/2 Italian, on my dad's side, and 1/4 Irish and 1/4 French, on my mom's side. My mom's parents were both 1/2 Irish and 1/2 French.
Now, things are a little different. My dad is still full Italian. So that 1/2 is intact. My mom's side is a bit more complex now.
My maternal grandmother is a Wilson and Cruice. I now know that Wilson side is probably "Scotch-Irish" since census records list Samuel Wilson's parents as being from Belfast and since Samuel Wilson listed his religion as Presbyterian on his marriage record. The origins of the Scotch-Irish lie primarily in northern England and the lowlands of Scotland. They came to Northern Ireland in the 1600s. According to lore, the Cruice family escaped the French Revolution to Ireland. While we considered that part of the family "French", given that Patrick Cruice's wife is Bridget Sweeney, and given that Patrick Cruice's mother appears to be Mary Golden, both decidedly non-French last name, it seems likely that the Cruice side is more like 1/4 French and 3/4 Irish.
My paternal grandfather is a Burke and de Guehery. The Burke family is Catholic Irish, but we don't know what the Brady family is (Anthony Burke married Maria Brady), but we'll list her as Irish until we know more. We now know more of the history of the de Guehery family. Margaret de Guehery's mother was Marion Cuthbert, who was Scottish. Her father was Emmanuel de Guehery, who was 1/2 French and 1/2 German.
So that makes me:
1/2 Italian (1/8 Palmeri, 1/8 Giambrone, 1/8 Millonzi, 1/8 Parisi)
7/32 Irish (1/16 Burke, 1/16 Brady, 1/16 Sweeney, 1/32 Golden)
1/16 French (1/32 de Guehery, 1/32 Cruice)
1/32 German (Mack)
1/16 Scottish (Cuthbert)
1/8 Scotch-Irish (Wilson)
I received the chapters on the de Guehery and Cuthbert families from the genealogy written by Johnston Clayton "Dinty" Elliott, entitled Some Branches & Twigs of an Elliott Family Tree.
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I made contact with the gentleman who posted the snippet about the de Guehery family 20 years ago.
Ten years ago he wrote a family history called “Some Branches and Twigs of the Elliott Family Tree”, which is on file in the OGS archives in Toronto. His mother, Edna Mae de Geuhery, was the sister of my great-grandmother, Margaret Ogilvie de Guehery. His book has a chapter on the de Guehery family and another chapter on the Cuthbert family (Margaret and Edna Mae's mother was Marion Cuthbert).
He is going to send me the chapters soon.
He also put me in touch with another cousin and this is where it gets even cooler.
His grandfather did a lot of genealogical research in the early 1930s with the genealogy research division at the library in Dresden before that institution was destroyed during WWII. His father continued this research during the 1980's with genealogical researchers in Paris. Apparently, the family tree is complete in detail back to the mid-1700s.
The story includes the de Guehery family's escape from the French Revolution, a beheading, and the loss of a noble title.
I can't wait to get more information.
Never underestimate what another pair of eyes can find.
Every 6 months or so I upload my family tree to ancestry.com. This time I shared it with a couple dozen family members. One of my cousins poked around the tree, pointed out a couple of obvious errors, and did some searching on his own. He unlocked an important discovery.
My great-grandfather on my mother's side, Arthur Burke, married Margaret Ogilvie de Guehery. Family lore had it that the de Guehery family escaped the French Revolution to Germany, then went to Canada, and then the United States.
Last year sometime, while searching familysearch.org I found a marriage record for Margaret de Guehery's parents, Marion Cuthbert and Emanuel de Guehery. It listed Emanuel's parents as Rudolph and Goddlibien de Guehery. More searching turned up nothing else on Rudolph and Goddlibien, including Goddlibien's last name.
This is where my cousin's searching comes in.
He thinks to do a search of google books. And finds this interesting snippet:
My great-great-great-grandfather, Rudolph de Guehery, was born abt 1820 in Dresden, Germany. My great-great-great grandmother was Gottlieben Mack.
There looks like there could be more.
So I email the Ontario Genealogical Society, where this snippet was published, to see if there was a way to find more information from wherever this snippet came from.
The OGS reply with more: Gottlieben Mack was born in 1838 in Mendelsheim, Wuerttenberg, Germany and that Rudolph and Gottlieben emigrated to Canada via Hamburg, Germany. Rudolph died in 1889 in Petawawa, Ontario. Gottlieben died in 1922 in Ebenezer, NY.
They also gave me the name of the person who posted this entry in the "Families" newsletter more than 20 years ago. That's the topic of the next post.
My mother's father, my grandfather, was Donald Burke. His father, Arthur Burke, was Irish. His mother, Margaret De Guehery, was French.
Or so we thought.
For my initial pass at filling in our family tree, it was a treasure hunt whenever I poked around on ancestry.com, hitting the jackpot whenever I found a distant cousin researching part of my family tree. But as I grew more serious about genealogy, I wanted to make sure that any distant cousins I might find were as serious as I am about documenting records. So now I contact them directly. Some never respond. Many have. Now I have a small network of distant family sharing finds and working on the same problems.
One of these distant cousins is related to Margaret De Guehery.
I knew that Margaret's parents were Emanual de Guehery and Marion Cuthbert. I even had some very old pictures of Marion from my aunt. A search on familysearch.org had revealed their marriage record in Ontario, with Rudolph and Goddlibien de Guehery and Thomas and Margaret Cuthbert listed as their parents.
I also knew that the de Gueherys and Cuthberts had lived in Chalk River, Ontario, both from our own family history, and from the familysearch.org records I found.
What I didn't know was that the Cuthberts were Scottish.
At some point in my search a few years, I had found a Marion Cuthbert in England but rejected that as nothing more than a false alarm.
Well, my fourth cousin had discovered that both Thomas and Margaret Cuthbert had both been born in Scotland. Thomas in Bathgate. Margaret in Glasgow. At the same time, someone in the Upper Ottawa Valley Genealogical Group found Margaret's obituary in a search of their records for me, confirming that Margaret Ogilvy (Downie) Cuthbert had died at age 80 and that she was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
The family had moved to London, England, where Marion and some of her siblings were born. So my find from a few years ago was spot on.
We're Scottish. A small part Scottish, to be sure. After all, it's only my great-great-grandmother who is Scottish. But that's still 1/16.
My cousin also had some photos to share, including a group picture that includes my great-great-great-grandmother, a picture of my great-great-great-grandfather, and a picture of the Cuthbert family farm in Chalk River that had appeared in the newspaper.
He is a descendant of the gentleman at the left of the photo below, William Cuthbert, Margaret's son and Marions' brother. William took over the Cuthbert farm. What's kind of cool is that my cousin just recently bought the farm for himself and his family.
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Margaret Ogilvie (Downie) Cuthbert, my great-great-great-grandmother with William Cuthbert's family
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Thomas Cuthbert, my great-great-great-grandfather
the Cuthbert family farm
Gravemarkers are an excellent source of basic genealogical information. I've called and written cemeteries and I've recruited my sister, who still lives in Western NY, to photograph markers for distant relatives who lived and died near Buffalo.
That's not an option when it's a family member who lived and died hundreds of miles away.
My mom's paternal grandmother was Margaret Ogilvie de Guehery. She was born in Chalk River, Renfrew County, Ontario. I had found a marriage record for her parents, Emanuel de Guehery and Marion Cuthbert on familysearch.org. To track down additional information on Margaret and her parents, I wrote several cemeteries and parishes around Chalk River.
Someone from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pembroke gave me a link to the Renfrew County Gravemarker Gallery: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~murrayp/renfrew/index.htm
While the search capabilities are relatively spartan, this seems to be a fairly complete visual record of all the cemeteries in Renfew County. My sincere thanks go to those who did all the hard work putting this gravemarker gallery together.
I was able to find gravemarkers for several relatives, including my great-great-great-grandparents.
my great-great-great-grandfather Thomas Cuthbert
born 20 Sep 1813 in Bathgate, Scotland
died 19 May 1893 in Wylie, Renfrew, Ontario
my great-great-great-grandmother Margaret Ogilvie Downie
born 11 Apr 1822 in Glasgow, Scotland
died 28 Jul 1901 in Chalk River, Renfrew, Ontario
Thomas and Margaret's son, William Cuthbert
brother to my great-great-grandmother Marion Cuthbert
born 6 Mar 1863 in London, England
died Jul 1943 in Chalk River, Renfrew, Ontario
The very first step in any genealogy project is to ask your parents and grandparents for any information.
Sadly, most of my grandparents were deceased when I started this, and the only one still living was in a nursing home. I remember putting together a basic genealogy when I was in school. I talked with my great-grandmother and she gave me the names of her parents and some of her grandparents. Like many school projects, that's long gone.
On my dad's side, I knew my grandmother's parents, Carmela (Parisi) Millonzi and Rosario Millonzi. My great-grandfather died when I was a few years old. My great-grandmother died when I was on a teenager.
My dad said his father's parents were Angelo and Maria Palmeri, but did not know Maria's last name. I might have met one of them when I was little, but I don't remember.
On my mom's side, I knew my grandmother's mother, my great-grandmother, Gramma Wilson. I might have met my grandfather's father, my great-grandfather, Grampa Burke. But maybe not.
My mom knew that there was something like a Cruice and a de Guehery, but wasn't quite sure how to spell the names, or who went with whom, so she had me get in touch with one of my aunts, who was the family historian. She sent me this family tree with another couple of pages with some of the birth and death dates.
After spending most of my efforts working on and off on digitizing and adding to my wife's genealogy, I used this as a starting point for uncovering my own.
Based on what we knew then, I was 1/2 Italian, 1/4 French, and 1/4 Irish. My mom's parents were both 1/2 French and 1/2 Irish. According to family lore, both French families fled the French Revolution, with the Cruice's escaping to Ireland and then to the US, and the de Guehery's escaping to Germany, then to Canada, and then to the US.
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original Burke family tree