{"id":2963,"date":"2013-02-25T16:34:18","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T16:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=2963"},"modified":"2018-09-27T14:45:41","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T18:45:41","slug":"tracing-my-unknown-ancestor-in-the-martin-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/tracing-my-unknown-ancestor-in-the-martin-family.html","title":{"rendered":"Tracing My Unknown Ancestor in the Martin Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong>: In this article, Scott Phillips discovers the name of an ancestor he never knew about\u2014and turns to old newspapers to fill in this blank on his family tree. Scott is a genealogical historian and owner of Onward To Our Past\u00ae genealogy services.<\/em><\/p>\n

Recently my sister phoned me to ask some questions about certain members of our family who had passed through Ellis Island. As I was talking to her, I pulled up some of the documents I had for our grandparents and started reciting facts and information about them. As I was wrapping up our phone call a bell was ringing in my mind telling me something wasn\u2019t quite right.<\/p>\n

I looked at all the information again and there it was: on her Ellis Island documentation, my future grandmother had listed her brother-in-law, Thomas Martin of Cleveland, Ohio, as her contact in the U.S. Since I knew that her sister, my Great Aunt Rose, had married a Martin, finding this contact listing was not a surprise. As I looked at our family tree, however, I could see that the Martin her sister had married was named William, not Thomas.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
The author\u2019s Great Aunt Rose Cottle Martin Jones on the left, with her sister (and the author’s grandmother) Ina Cottle Phillips on the right. Photo from the author\u2019s collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So who was the Thomas Martin my grandmother had listed at Ellis Island?<\/p>\n

I needed to look into this! I went to GenealogyBank.com first to see what I might discover. As the old saying goes, \u201cbe careful what you wish for.\u201d This family history search led me down a very long\u2014but delightful\u2014path.<\/p>\n

First I discovered the old obituary for William Martin, my Great Aunt Rose\u2019s husband. It was quite a genealogical find.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/a>
Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 26 October 1933, page 23<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In just its seven short lines, it provided my great aunt\u2019s name complete with her maiden name. It also gave the names of their two daughters (Edna and Dorothy) and William\u2019s three siblings (Grace, Charlotte and Jessie). The obituary listed the street address where William and Mary Rose lived. I was about ready to move on, when that last item caught my attention.<\/p>\n

I went back to the Ellis Island passenger manifest that I had been reading to my sister, and noted that the street address listed for Thomas Martin happened to be the very same as the street address given in William\u2019s obituary. Nice way to close that circle! The link was looking quite strong, but still a puzzle remained: there was no mention of a brother named Thomas in the obituary.<\/p>\n

Next, I started a search on the three siblings listed in William\u2019s obituary. First up, I searched on Grace Bowhay. What I found was mention of her name in her sister Charlotte\u2019s obituary.<\/p>\n

\"Charlotte<\/a>
Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 17 September 1944, page 78<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This old obituary not only made reference to Grace Bowhay and siblings Jessie and William, but also listed the so-far elusive Thomas (deceased). Oh, and don\u2019t let me forget to tell you that it also included three additional siblings: three sisters (complete with married names) all still residing in England<\/em>!<\/p>\n

With Thomas Martin being such a common name combination, I decided to make a quick check of the Cuyahoga County Recorder\u2019s Office<\/a> website for Thomas Martin. Sure enough, not only did I get a \u201chit,\u201d but it was for the purchase of a home on\u2014again\u2014the same street as all the other notices. Plus, the property record informed me that this Thomas had a wife, Mary.<\/p>\n

While I am still on the trail of Thomas Martin and have more searching to do, I am more convinced than ever that I am on the right path! And I am bound and determined to find this ancestor that I never knew about and add more information to our family tree!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Scott Phillips discovers the name of an ancestor he never knew about \u2013 and turns to old newspapers to fill in his family tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12557],"tags":[12,2020],"class_list":["post-2963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-stories","tag-genealogy","tag-newspaper-archives"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/photo-0225-2013-featured-graphic-jones-phillips.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}