Hearty August Greetings!
Hope you are all enjoying at least some summer fun and staying virus-free!
Our household has been very fortunate during the pandemic. After about a month with none of his usual movie/TV/stage/trade-show work being available, Marty started to get jobs again, as the demand for live webcasts began to grow. Other opportunities have emerged, too, so Marty has stayed reasonably well-employed. His stagecraft union, I.A.T.S.E., is struggling, and it looks like we'll have to pay a lot more for health coverage for a while, but we consider ourselves very blessed to be neither ill nor broke!
Since the middle of March, most of my time has been spent at home redecorating our home office and puttering with other household needs, cooking a lot more, and of course working on my Genealogy projects. I was supposed to have visited the Midwest in the spring for field research and to meet with cousins and colleagues in Ohio and Kentucky, but that has been put off until at least mid-September.
Diggin' Down Into More DNA
Recent entries in this weblog have recounted my search for the mysterious "Tom Ford" who was supposed to be my 3rd great-grandfather. In that case, I was able to take our family's common knowledge about my illegitimate 2nd great-grandfather's disappearing Dad and attach some DNA evidence to his identity. This month, I encountered a scenario that took research the other direction.
It is a good idea to take periodic peeks into our DNA matches, in search of new developments. Recently I was doing just that, when I encountered a close match that mystified me. Most 2nd- and 3rd-cousin matches are easy for me to place in our tree, especially if the matching person has a few grandparents listed as a guide. That didn't work for this cousin. GH, as I will call him, did kindly leave a bit of family tree for me to peruse, but I puzzled with it for a few hours, until one of the names in his tree reminded me of a story Aunt Beverly, my father's sister, has told me.
[Numbers in parentheses refer to source references at the end of this blog post.]
The (Sort-Of) Lost Uncle
My great-uncle William O'Brien (an elder brother of my paternal grandmother, Mary Jane O'Brien) had served about three years in the British Army during the Great War (WW1) and had been wounded a few times, when the day came that he decided to stop participating in the war. Uncle William acted upon that decision, deserted His Majesty's Army, and assumed the name Sidney Russell.
The family story has included speculation about whether Uncle William switched "dog tags" with a deceased comrade and assumed his name, but that part of the tale is probably apocryphal.
All we know for sure is that Uncle William took this new name and ended up in the region of Buckinghamshire, England, where he had a relationship with a young lady named Beatrice Billingham. In 1919, the couple married in Buckinghamshire, and their daughter Margaret was born in Birmingham (1,2,3).
Post-War Exodus: UK to US
The family of my grandmother, Mary Jane "Jenny" O'Brien, was from Manchester, England. Grandma Jenny's parents, John and Mary Jane, and all but one of their nine children, had been gradually emigrating to the U.S., with her eldest brother John already living in Minneapolis by the time Jenny, her parents, and her two sisters arrived in the U.S. in 1920. Uncle John's home was their first American residence (4).
Uncle William--now Sidney Russell--emigrated to the U.S. with his wife and daughter, as soon as Margaret was old enough to travel, in 1921 (4). Uncle William/Sidney went on to Minneapolis with his wife and daughter, following their arrival in Philadelphia. His father John O'Brien was already living in Minneapolis. On their ship's passenger list, Uncle William/Sidney named his Minneapolis contact as his father, John "Russell" (5).
How much contact William/Sidney had with his parents in Minneapolis is not known, but it appears that he wanted to make sure his family knew where he was, and that he and his family were okay. Uncle William/Sidney and Aunt Beatrice stayed in Minneapolis long enough to have a son there in 1923, named Gerald William (6). In 1925, they were living in Illinois and had a third child, Barbara (7).
The Los Angeles Convergence
Early in the 1920s, the O'Brien family abandoned the frigid climate of Minneapolis and moved to Los Angeles. In 1924, Grandma Jenny married my grandfather, John Schaack, in Los Angeles (8). Before the decade was over, the Russell family made their way to L.A., as well.
In 1928, Great-Grandma Mary Jane O'Brien died of breast cancer at age 60. According to the death certificate, she died in her home, 938 East 111th Drive in Los Angeles (9). It is in this same house that her unmarried children Edward and Margaret are shown to be living, in the 1930 Census (10).
For the first couple of decades from the time they settled in the Los Angeles area, members of the O'Brien family lived only short distances from each other. By 1930, Sidney Russell's household was living in the same neighborhood. A perusal of the 1930 addresses of the O'Brien and Russell family members is easily accomplished using Google Maps, since the layout of most of the City of Los Angeles has changed little in the last 100 years.
The 1930 Federal Census has the family of Sidney Russell living at 315 E 110th Street in Los Angeles, a 1-mile drive from the home in which his mother had died two years before, and where his brother and sister were still living (11).
Google Map showing the distance between the home of Sidney Russell (315 E 110th)
Sidney's home was a 1.9-mile drive from his brother James's place at 9225 South Figueroa, and a 2.5-mile drive from the home of his sister Jenny and her husband John at 914 East 88th Street, according to the 1930 Census (12,13).
The 1940 Federal Census showed the households of Edward O'Brien, John Schaack, and Sidney Russell still residing very close to each other. Sidney's sister Jenny and her husband had moved and were now living less than a mile's drive from Sidney's new residence. Edward still lived in the same house on East 111th Drive, with his wife Maude (14,15,16). Other O'Brien siblings had moved away from the immediate neighborhood, although most of them would remain in California for the majority, if not the entirety, of their remaining lives.
Their father John O'Brien has not been located by me in the 1930 or 1940 census records, partly due to his common Irish name making it difficult to distinguish him from many other men. From the accounts of my father and his siblings, their grandfather was a frequent visitor to their Los Angeles home. The elder John O'Brien died in 1944, and his home address is given on the death certificate as 112-1/2 East 29th Street in Los Angeles (17).
It is apparent that Sidney Russell's children were aware that he had taken an alias, as evidenced by information given by his daughter Margaret C. on his death certificate. She claimed that his parents names were James O'Brien and Sarah; but she was a child when her grandmother Mary Jane passed away, and it is likely her contact with the O'Brien family was minimal, such that she would forget that her grandfather's first name was John, not James. On the certificate, his birth date is given as April 11, 1895, and he is shown to have died at his home at 445 South Western Avenue in Los Angeles on April 2, 1957 (18).
Sidney Russell's birth date on his Death Certificate matches the date of birth for William O'Brien in his baptismal record from Saint Matthew Parish in Ardwick, Manchester, England (19).
Bravery, Love, and Sacrifice
Grandma Jenny reported to her children that she would occasionally spot her brother William/Sidney around the neighborhood, but there was apparently a pact between the siblings that they would protect their brother's alias, and his wife and children, by denying their relationship. Aunt Beverly told me our uncle feared the British government would come after him as a military deserter.
Uncle William did honorable service for King and Country for many months, but he must have reached a point of desperation, in which he was willing to risk his life in order to save it. Had he been caught deserting the British Army, he would have been executed. Clearly, William/Sidney was motivated by love for his bride, his children, and the large family in which he was raised.
To Tie A Lost Connection
What does all this have to do with my mysterious cousin match, GH?
GH showed up in my DNA Matches on Ancestry as a 2nd or 3rd cousin. The tree he provided revealed grandparents that should have easily led me to where he belonged in our tree, since our relationship is so close. After a few of hours trying to find in my tree the names in his tree, I stopped and wondered whether there was an adoption or illegitimacy issue. Finally, it occurred to me to look at our shared matches. It was foolish of me not to have done this sooner, because the shared matches provided the strongest clue!
The presence of my sisters in our shared matches was expected, but when I noted that my father's siblings Howard and Beverly also matched GH, it hit me that the tree GH provided contained the surname Russell. Of course! Uncle William!
Below is a tree sketch showing how GH and I are 2nd cousins 1x removed, beginning with our most recent common ancestors (my great-grandparents, GH's 2x great-grandparents):
John O'Brien (1868-1944) -- Mary Jane Pixton (1868-1928)
Sidney Russell/William O'Brien (1895-1957) -- Beatrice Billingham (1894-1942)
Margaret Russell (1919-?) -- Earl C. (1917-1980)
CC (b 1945) -- RH (1941-1994)
GH
I will endeavor to share this blog post with Sidney Russell's descendants, because they deserve to know the story.
Stay well, everyone, and thanks for sticking with me for this rather long post!
--Annie
SOURCES:
(1) Birth record for Margaret Russell. "England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2007," 1919, Q3-Jul-Aug-Sep, R, p 314; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 69 of 71.
(2) Marriage record for Sidney Russell to Billingham in Wycombe. "England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005," 1919, Q4-Oct-Nov-Dec, R, p 146; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 78 of 81.
(3) Marriage record for Beatrice A Billingham to Russell in Wycombe. "England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005," 1919, Q4-Oct-Nov-Dec, B, p 103; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 63 of 149.
(4) Listing for passengers John, Mary Jane (wife), Ellen, Mary Jane (daughter), and Margaret O'Brien, sailing from Liverpool June 1920 aboard SS Haverford, ultimate destination Minneapolis MN. "Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1800-1962," T840 - Philadelphia, 1883-1945, from NARA roll 136; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 477-479 of 683.
(5) Listing for passengers Sidney, Beatrice, and Margaret Russell, sailing from Liverpool 11 May 1921 aboard SS Haverford, ultimate destination Minneapolis MN. "Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1800-1962," T840 - Philadelphia, 1883-1945, from NARA roll 142; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 1037-1039 of 1124.
(6) Draft card of Gerald William Russell, naming birthplace of Minneapolis MN and father's name Sidney Russell. "U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947," California, Roshko-Saavedra, from NARA RG147, Box 1570; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 1893 of 2096.
(7) Birth record for Barbara Russell, 11 July 1925. "Cook County, Illinois Birth Index, 1916-1935," file number 6029017, Cook County Clerk; database on Ancestry.com.
(8) Marriage of John Schaack and Mary Jane O'Brien, 30 Aug 1924. "California, County Marriages, 1850-1952," Los Angeles County; database with images, FamilySearch.org; FHL film number 5698423, image 1421 of 2523.
(9) Death record for Mary J. O'Brien. "California County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994," Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co, Death Certificates, 1928; California State Archives, Sacramento; database with images FamilySearch.org: FHL film 5597703, image 308 of 2497.
(10) Household of Edward and Margaret O'Brien. "1930 United States Federal Census," California, Los Angeles, District 560; database with images, Ancestry.com; FHL film number 2339888, image 52 of 83.
(11) Household of Sidney Russell. "1930 United States Federal Census," California, Los Angeles, District 570; database with images, Ancestry.com; FHL film number 2339889, image 42 of 51.
(12) Household of James O'Brien. "1930 United States Federal Census," California, Los Angeles, District 554; database with images, Ancestry.com; FHL film number 2339888, image 21 of 43.
(13) Household of John Schaack. "1930 United States Federal Census," California, Los Angeles, District 535; database with images, Ancestry.com; FHL film number 2339889, image 35 of 65.
(14) Household of Sidney Russell. "United States Census, 1940," California, Los Angeles Co, Los Angeles City, Assembly District 60-1223; database with images, FamilySearch.org; FHL film number 5456510, image 7 of 34.
(15) Household of Edward O'Brien. "United States Census, 1940," California, Los Angeles Co, Los Angeles City, Assembly District 60-1226; database with images, FamilySearch.org; FHL film number 5456510, image 7 of 34.
(16) Household of John Schaack. "United States Census, 1940," California, Los Angeles Co, Inglewood, District 19-331; database with images, FamilySearch.org; FHL film number 5456301, image 25 of 72.
(17) Death record for Jack O'Brien. "California County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994," Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co, Death Certificates, 1944; California State Archives, Sacramento; database with images FamilySearch.org: FHL film 5599879, image 2161 of 2827.
(18) Death certificate for Sidney Russell. “California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994,” Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co, Death certificates, 1957, no 1450-6650, certificate 6516; database with images, FamilySearch.org, FHL film 5597991, image 2863 of 3032; from California State Archives, Sacramento.
(19) Baptism of William O'Brien. “Manchester, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915,” Ardwick, St Matthew, 1890 Aug – 1905 Jul, page 94, image 51 of 154; database with images, Ancestry.com; from Anglican Parish Registers, Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives.
