Never Assume in Genealogy – It makes a “genea” out of a “log” but “y”?

… and tales of family aristocracy.

A while ago, I was trying to figure out the family of my Grandfather Gentry’s first cousin, Charles V. Gentry (1870 Oh. – 1931 WV).  He appeared to have only one daughter, Lindsay Kelly Gentry (b. 1904), but the daughter’s relationships puzzled me.  She appeared to have two step-sons, pompously named Carl Anton Philip von Saltza and John Warren Hardenbergh von Saltza but despite the uncommon names, I had trouble confirming who, exactly, was their birth mother as well as the name of their father who later married Lindsay Gentry.  Also, why did the father have custody of the children? Did the mother pass away?  Everything about this family confused me.  I could not find enough clues that made sense to me.  Of course, I was then reminded of Melanie’s frequent admonition “None so blind as those that will not see”.

As I often do, I kept my notes but moved on to other parts of the family to find cousins who were easier to figure out.  Yesterday I returned to dear Lindsay to try again.  Sometime in the past few weeks, I became enlighted.  Looking at the clues again, a little more closely, it hit me.  Lindsay Kelly Gentry was male, not female.  Who knew?

Now that I could work quickly, I was led to discover part of the story of a woman who seemed to be near as many interesting stories as Forrest Gump.  Katherine Warren Hardenbergh was Lindsay’s first wife but that was not the beginning of her life’s journey.

Katherine was born on 17 October 1887 to John Warren Hardenbergh and Lilliam Williams Wilson.  The Hardenberghs were an old New York / New Jersey family that was started in America when Jan van Hardenbergh emigrated from Holland before 1644 to a young Dutch colony called New Amsterdam (you may know it by the Lenape tribe’s name for the island, i.e., Manhattan).  Fortunately, Jan started buying land as soon as he arrived and his descendants are still spending the fortune.  To further bolster the family’s standing, John Warren Hardenbergh’s father served in the US House of Representatives.  His great-grandfather was the founder and first President of Rutgers University.  His great-great-grandfather was a field officer who served with distinction under George Washington (unfortunately, he was also the owner of Sojourner Truth, the slave who later escaped and became a famous abolitionist).  His great-great-great-grandfather bought 2 million acres of land in the Catskill Mountains in 1709.

In the first decade of the 20th century, old Dutch money met and fell in love with old Swedish money.  In 1910, Katherine married Count Philip Wencelaus von Saltza in New York City.  Philip had been born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1885 and immigrated to America with his parents and sister when he was only six years old.  His father was a professor at Columbia University where Philip would later study and star on the football team.  The von Saltza family were titled aristocracy in Sweden and Katherine was now a Countess.  Besides being a count, Philip’s father was also well-known artist, painting portraits and murals.

Katherine gave birth to Philip’s two oldest sons as noted above, Carl in 1911 and John in 1912.  At first Philip worked as a mine engineer but war got in the way of life.  During 1915 to mid-1916, Philip was involved in protecting American interests during the Mexican Revolution.  During the latter part of that period, he was actively fighting the infamous revolutionary, Pancho Villa.  Soon after the Mexican Punitive Campaign, Philip was off to Europe to fight in the Great War.  He was captured by German forces in the Battle of Argonne Forest in September 1918.  Fortunately, this was the last major battle of the war and he was only a prisoner of war for a short period.  He fared much better than the 26,000 Americans who died during this 47 day battle.

After Philip’s return to America in April 1919, he was re-united with Katherine and his children.  All was not well though and in 1922, the couple divorced.  War can change you.

Katherine appears to have taken the boys westward and on 6 August 1927, she married 23 year-old Charles James Griggs in Washington state.  Now, I can imagine the problems that could potentially arise when a young man marries a 40 year-old woman bringing in tow her two teenagers but I have no facts of what things were like in the house.  I do know that they soon moved to the San Francisco area and Charles found part-time work in a bank.

You can now use your own imagination to figure out what happened next because sometime in late 1932, Katherine and Charles divorced.  Charles quickly married Charlotte A. Dobson and she gave birth to a son, Peter James Griggs on 28 July 1933.  Within the next week or so, this family’s fortunes turned greatly.  Charles was rewarded with a full-time position and promotion at the bank.  Unfortunately, it was during the Great Depression and the new position came with no additional salary.  Also, Charles was informed by the doctors that Peter had a medical condition that was going to be expensive to rectify.  Charles must have worried greatly over this during the next few days because on 4 August 1933, he walked into the bank’s vault, grabbed the revolver in there that was supposed to be used to deter robberies and he shot himself through his temple.  He left a note explaining to his wife that she should now use the $20,000 from his life insurance to pay doctors to save his son.  Wow.

Meanwhile, Katherine wasted little time of her own.  She finally decided it was time to join the Gentry family.  She married Lindsay Kelly Gentry at the Bishop’s home in Point Loma, California on 21 October 1933.  The Gentry’s made their home in Monterey, California and included 22 year-old Carl until he was married in 1937 as well as John, until his July 1934 marriage to Betty Joyce and again after his divorce shortly thereafter. John married again in July 1941 to Margaret Kathryn Test to prove two things.  First, he liked getting married in July and, second, he was a good judge of athletic genes.  These two produced a star swimmer, but that will come a little later.

This is where the story becomes muddy.  In 1944, Lindsay and Katherine were still listed together in the San Jose phone directory.  The next thing I see is Lindsay’s April 1948 death notice, mentioning his wife’s name as Eleanor.  Later, I see in phone directory the additional clue that her name is actually “Eleanor H.”  Thanks.  I have no clue when Lindsay and Katherine divorced or if Katherine died.  I have no idea when Lindsay and Eleanor married or what happened to her after Lindsay’s death.  I know that an auction company sold off the furniture and artwork of Katherine’s impressive estate in 1960 but that’s all I know about each of them.

There is more to the story though, through Katherine’s son, John Warren Hardenbergh von Saltza.  As noted, he married Margaret Kathryn Test in July 1941.  This couple had two daughters, the first being Karen Lindsay von Saltza who was born 26 August 1942.  Her middle name hints that Lindsay Gentry was still a strong positive influence on his step-son.  The second daughter, Susan Christina “Chris” von Saltza, was born on 3 January 1944 and she turned out to be a champion.

By 21 July 1958, Chris was such a star swimmer that she became the youngest person ever to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated.  In the 1960 Olympic trials, she set the first of her world records in the 400m freestyle.  In the Rome Olympic games, at 16 years-old, she won the gold medal in that event and a silver in the 100m freestyle (second only to the great Dawn Fraser) as well as golds and world records in two relay events.  She is a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Chris’ older sister, Karen, tempted fate by announcing her engagement to James C. Small at Chris’ 19th birthday party.  Stealing someone else’s limelight is never a good thing and that was proven true again.  A little over a month after Karen and James were married, James, also a competitive swimmer, was practicing with his senior team in the open waters of San Francisco Bay near Alcatraz.  Sadly, a boat ran over him and the propeller severed his leg.  Doctors were unable to save him because of the massive loss of blood.

That’s a sad ending to my story but the good news is that Karen re-married, both sisters have large families and are still alive to enjoy them.  Also, I am still looking to find out what happened to my good friend Katherine.  To be continued…

Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh
Sojourner Truth
Augustus Albert Hardenbergh
Philip von Saltza
Chris von Saltza
Pancho Villa Expedition
Meuse-Argonne Offensive
New Amsterdam

Girl Who Had The Marrying Habit

My Granddad Smith had a younger sister, Emma L. Smith (1894 – 1990) who lived a long and interesting life, but not one without some troubles. This is the story of one of those troubles and where it lead me to.

I remember my father speaking about his cousins, Joe and Bud Scholz, Emma’s two children. I surely had also met them at family reunions back in the 1960s but I would have been too interested in the pickup softball game or in finding some appropriate sticks to roast marshmallows over the grill. I did not know much about their family situation though until I started researching the family tree. Today, I see that things were a little more complicated than I expected and they led to an unusual story.

At 19 years old, Emma married a Virginian in the local parish church in Baltimore. Walter August Scholz (1890 – 1960) was the eldest son of a German immigrant so he should have been a good fit with Emma whose grandfather had also emigrated from Germany only 40 years before she was born.

Emma was also half Irish and a good Catholic so there was no surprise when nine and a half months after the wedding, Joseph Walter Scholz (1915 – 1971) was born to start the new branch of the family. Exactly three years later, the second child was born. Amazingly, both Joseph and Louis August “Bud” Scholz (1918 – 2011) were born on the same date, May 10th. For some reason, Joe always wrote that his birthday was on 9 May instead of the date on his birth certificate. Perhaps he just wanted his own birthday. Who knows? That is not, however, the reason for this story.

All was not well in the family though. Emma & Walter divorced around the time of Bud’s birth. By the end of 1919, Walter was living in a boarding house in Terre Haute, Indiana and recorded as a macaroni salesman on the January 1920 census. He went on to marry a woman named Yetta Huney in Missouri, in December 1922. They must have tolerated each other enough to stay married but I note that when Walter passed away in 1960, his gravestone also had Yetta’s name already engraved on it as well as the dates “1887 – 19___”. Yetta said “the heck with that” and when she passed away in 1986, she was buried alone in New Mexico. Again though, that has little to do with the story.

After Walter left town, Emma met Joseph Edward Griffith (1895 – 1963) and married him around 1925. By all accounts, Joe was a good husband to Emma and a good step-father to young Joe and Bud. They were a typical American family living in west Baltimore. When Walter passed away, Emma was still a very young 69 years old. It must have been hard on her, once again on her own after so long. Like many widows, she probably kept an eye out for eligible bachelors but I am sure her friends were fixing her up with potential husbands in a pre-eHarmony world. By the way, I’m almost to the story – don’t worry.

Emma did find love! I only discovered this though when I saw her son, Joe’s, 1971 obituary. That obit mentioned that he was survived by, among other people, his mother, “Emma Fuentable” [sic]! Huh? I had already seen her 1990 death notice and that said that her name was “Emma S. Griffith, the wife of the late Joseph E Griffith”. Who was this “Fuentalba”?

It took some digging because of the spelling error but I eventually found Manuel Lagos Fuentealbe (1892 – 1980). Manuel was an immigrant from Chile who came to the United Sates in 1916. In those pre-Trump Wall days, he married a German immigrant and started raising a family of three children before bothering to apply for citizenship in 1927. They too seemed to be the typical first-generation American family and everything was good until Manuel’s wife died in 1961. Somehow, somewhere, Manuel met Emma. Cupid smiled and on Thursday, 26 November 1964 (Thanksgiving Day!), Manuel and Emma were married. My Granddad was probably a witness to the wedding of these two lovebirds, only 72 and 70 years-old. But that’s not yet the story.

Something happened between 1964 and 1973. Not all was well in the Fuentealba home. Manuel and Emma obviously divorced during that period but why? I can only guess but I think I know. There was apparently a third wheel on the bike in the form of a wanton trollop, a gold-digger, a marriage wrecking-ball, a 73 year-old licentious, promiscuous slut.

On 21 May 1973, Manuel married a “lady” named Carrie Emma Frohn. Then again, she may have given him one of her several other names. Who knows? To make a long story short, let me summarize some of Carrie’s exploits:

16 February 1915 – married Walter William Lanahan (1896 – ?), a 19 year old Baltimore boy getting ready to go to fight in the Great War. On Walter’s 1917 military registration card, he mentioned that he was the sole provider for his young wife. Maybe he was pleading to the army: “don’t take me”.

29 November 1917 – married Virgil W. Hiller (1890 – 1924), a Wisconsin infantry man who trained to fight in the Great War in Maryland. During a pre-deployment furlough in Annapolis, he married the love of his life, Carrie Emma Frohn. She obviously never mentioned the name Lanahan because she was still married to her first husband. During their brief courtship, Virgil had to divorce from his first wife, Marie Pavey, whom he married in 1909. She was left back on the cheese farm alone in Wisconsin.

25 November 1918 – convicted on bigamy and fraud and sentenced to 18 months in the penitentiary. During the war, the US government paid part of the soldier’s salary to the soldier but also paid a part directly to their parents or, if they were married, to their spouse. Young Carrie was double dipping.

22 June 1920 – just after Carrie’s release from prison, the final divorce decree was granted to Walter Lanahan. He left her on 17 May 1918, the day he bailed her out of jail and took her to a relative's house to stay. It is not known when Carrie’s marriage to Virgil Hiller was annulled but that would have taken much less time.

About 1925 – married Samuel Gelrud (1890 – ?), a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant stationed on bases in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Carrie had her military pay once again. It appears that she married this New Jersey native just after he divorced his Dominican wife and left her with the two children. Did Carrie precipitate that? It also appears that she continued to live in Baltimore while her newest husband continued to serve in Puerto Rico. That didn’t last long though. By the time of the 1930 census, Carrie was back living with her parents and she reported as being divorced. Trying to live on one soldier’s salary isn’t fun when you are used to twice that amount.

About 1939 – (I am being generous here with the estimated date) – married Thomas Frost (1881 – 1963), a manual laborer who was himself a serial groom. He managed three previous marriages, spacing them about 10 years apart. Thomas had two children from his 1907 marriage to Marie Amelia Miller. After a divorce, Thomas married Rose Marylee Herold in In May, 1917. I don’t know if Rose died or divorced him but Thomas married Anna E. Brown (after her own divorce) in about 1925. I see no evidence of a divorce so I will be generous and assume that it was Anna’s 1938 death that allowed our old friend, Carrie Frohn, to slip into a comfortable pension-earning marriage. Carrie & Thomas were married by the time of the April 1940 census. Despite the series of modest homes in the Clifton Park area of Baltimore, Carrie (now Frost) hosted all the family funerals for her parents and siblings. Interestingly, I note that Carrie was living about a block away from Thomas before they married. Maybe they both hung out at the neighborhood bar or they met while walking their dogs. Who know? It’s of interest though.

10 August 1963 – Carrie’s most recent meal ticket passed away and she was on the hunt once again. After 24 years of somewhat normal marital existence, Carrie was looking for husband #5 (and maybe lining up #6 too) and she would have had a four month head start over Great-aunt Emma. Emma was obviously quicker, more beautiful (due to excellent familial genes) and a better catch as about a year after Joe Griffith died, Emma married Manuel on 26 November 1964.

12 June 1973 – that was the fateful day that Manuel Fuentealba married Carrie Emma Frohn Lanahan Hiller Gelrud Frost, a shameless hussy. What could have happened? Why did Emma and Manuel divorce?

10 April 1971 – Emma’s son’s obituary mentioned his mother last name as Fuentealba so Emma and Manuel were likely still married then. Sometime between this date and June 1973, they divorced. I note that when Manuel’s first wife died in 1961, he was living in a modest Baltimore rowhouse at 2849 Chesterfield Avenue, facing Herring Run Park. He still owned the house when he married Emma. A block down the alley, at 2734 Pelham Avenue, was the home of the recently widowed Carrie. I am guessing that Great-aunt Emma had a new neighbor who may have been borrowing more than a cup of sugar.

Finally, I note that after Carrie and Manuel married in 1973, they continued to live in the Herring Park neighborhood. After Manuel died in 1980 at 88 years-old, I see that his 83 year-old widow finally moved out of a Baltimore rowhouse for the first time in her life (excluding the 18 months she was in prison). Somehow, with no children of her own to support her, with apparently never working herself, she took a bold step for an octogenarian and bought a lovely sprawling 3 bedroom, 2 ½ bath rancher on an acre of land out in the exclusive Baldwin neighborhood of Baltimore County. Impressive. She had hit the lottery.

Resources:
http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2013/11/carrie-lanahan-first-fake-war-bride-to.html

Did I just stumble onto something useful? The McGovern Family

I was looking at the McGovern family tree this past week and trying to figure out if some of the people who I did not have death dates for were buried in New Cathedral Cemetery.  That cemetery has an on-line search function that sort of helps find relatives.  You have to search by the exact first and last name that they have in their database and their database seems to have quite a few errors too.  On Granddad Smith’s mother’s side of the family, there were many relatives buried in New Cathedral including Granddad’s grandparents, James McGovern and Catherine Dixon.

Now I have only been looking for James & Catherine’s descendants so I was excited to find two plots (K16 and E46) that seemed to contain the remains of several Driscolls, Clancys, Morrisons and Porters – all descendants.  Between those two plots, I knew of 13 people from the tree who are in residence.  James & Catherine’s oldest child was Anna McGovern who married Dennis Driscoll on 5/23/1871.  They had nine children, two boys who died unmarried and young, three other boys and four girls who married a Porter, Carroll, Morrison, and Burroughs.  The Morrison’s eldest daughter married a Clancy.

Judging from the individual grave numbers of the 13 people I knew, I figured that there were many more people resting there.  Who were they?

I sent off an e-mail to my good friends at New Cathedral and within a couple of days they replied with a list of everyone in those two plots along with their burial dates.  It turns out that not a single one of the other 12 people buried there were on my tree despite several more Driscolls, Clancys, Porters as well as a couple of Tierneys, an Ewing, a Leary and three Dixons.  Wait!, What?!?! Dixon?

So far, I have not figured out who Catherine Dixon’s parents were.  She was born in Ireland sometime around 1826 and emigrated to America sometime between then and when she married James in Philadelphia’s St. Michael’s Church on 1/1/1849.  But here, in a plot with four of Anna's children, I’m told that in side-by-side graves are Joseph Dixon (buried 7/15/1880) and Anna Dixon (buried 9/22/1890).  One the other side of the plot, there was also a Mary Dixon (buried 10/5/1878).  Could these be Catherine’s parents and sister?

I don’t know the answer yet but maybe if there are gravestone with birth dates and relationships, it may help.  I haven’t found anything in Ancestry.com or Maryland death indexes but I’ll keep working on it and visit the cemetery in December.

The rest of the people in those New Cathedral plots were:

K16 5 NANNIE I CARROLL 10/3/1916 (Anna & Dennis Driscoll’s 4^th child, married to James Carroll)

K16 6 JOSEPH DIXON 7/15/1880 (possibly our great-great-great-grandfather?)
K16 7 ANNA DIXON 9/22/1890 (possibly our great-great-great-grandmother?)
K16 8 JOSEPH S DRISCOLL 10/4/1910 (Anna & Dennis Driscoll’s 7^th child, unmarried)
K16 8 THOMAS CLANCY 11/8/1941 (possibly a son of Hazel’s or brother of James Clancy?)
K16 13 MARY G MORRISON 8/31/1923 (Anna & Dennis Driscoll’s 6^th child, married to Daniel Morrison)
K16 13 MARGARET P CLANCY 6/27/1931 (possibly a daughter of Hazel’s or sister of James Clancy?)
K16 13 HAZEL C CLANCY 10/29/1945 (Mary & Daniel Morrison’s eldest daughter married James Clancy)
K16 14 DANIEL L MORRISON 2/18/1935 (married to Mary G. Driscoll)
K16 14 HELEN J CLANCY 7/29/1939 (possibly a daughter of Hazel’s or sister of James Clancy?)
K16 15 MARY DIXON 10/5/1878 (possible sister to Catherine?)
K16 16 CATHERINE I PORTER 12/6/1910 (Anna & Dennis Driscoll’s 2^nd child, married to Robert Porter)

E46 1 MARY A EWING 3/18/1924 – who?

E46 1 TERESA BURROUGHS 8/4/1950 (Anna & Dennis Driscoll’s 8^th child, married Joseph Burroughs)
E46 2 JOHN T TIERNEY 3/18/1898 – who?
E46 3 PATRICK LEARY 9/12/1882 – who?
E46 4 HANNAH TIERNEY 1/14/1929 – who?
E46 5 DENNIS M DRISCOLL 2/27/1893 (Anna & Dennis Driscoll’s 3^rd child, unmarried)
E46 5 ANNE DRISCOLL 12/15/1933 (eldest child of James & Catherine McGovern)
E46 5 ETHEL DRISCOLL 3/5/1974 (married Leo Driscoll, Anna & Dennis Driscoll’s 9^th child)
E46 7 HAZEL M PORTER 1/12/1897 (I believe Myrtle’s twin died at 4 months old)
E46 7 MYRTLE E PORTER 12/11/1906 (Catherine & Robert Porter’s 1^st child, died at 10 years old)
E46 8 CATH DRISCOLL 11/3/1884  – who?
E46 8 DENNIS M DRISCOLL 8/25/1906 (son-in-law of James & Catherine McGovern)
E46 8 LEO J DRISCOLL 9/7/1938 (Anna & Dennis Driscoll’s 9^th child, married Ethel Marck)

Just how small were the Gentrys?

As many family members may know, I have been trying to discover and document all the descendants of my great-great-grandparents. I chose that generation as a start point because I already had names and at least estimated dates for all 16 of them. Also, most of this generation were born in Europe and were the ones who emigrated to America. The data that I have tried to collect include full names, birth / marriage / death dates, relationships and burial sites.

Today I had an “Oh wow!” moment involving the next older generation.

Previously I had used the New Cathedral Cemetery’s (NCC) website to determine that the following family members were in plot T 285:

• Edward T. Levelle - my great-great-grandfather (it should be “Edward F.” but I quote NCC’s data)
• Haden Gentry - my great-grandfather and husband of Mary Ellen (Levelle) Gentry
• Mary Ellen (Levelle) Gentry - my great-grandmother, 2^nd wife of Haden and daughter of Edward “T.”
• Mary Gentry - Haden & Mary Ellen's third child who died in infancy
• Alfred St. John Gentry - Haden's son from his 1^st wife and husband of Rose (Levelle) Gentry
• Rose (Levelle) Gentry – Alfred’s wife AND Mary Ellen's SISTER / Edward T.'s daughter (it's complicated!)
• Edward F. Levelle Jr. - Edward's third child

I could not seem to find Edward T. Levelle's wife, Mary Jane Loughran in the database because I needed to have the exact spelling that NCC used and the NCC staff don't always spell so well. When in Baltimore earlier this month, I went to the cemetery to look for Mary Jane’s and the other gravestones. It actually took me four trips over there to find the location and I’ll tell you why in a moment. First, for posterity’s sake, here is the GPS coordinates: 39.291559 -76.683921

When I finally found the plot, the reason for my previous difficulties became obvious. With at least seven, and probably eight, people in the plot, I was looking for a large grave and a grand marker like there is at the family plots of the Galvins, Cummings and O’Conors. At the first viewing, the Levelle / Gentry plot was actually very small and unmarked. In this photo, it is the area between the Kilmer/Smith and Stack gravestones.

I assumed the plot contained the cremated remains as seven or eight coffins would not fit. Looking more closely though, I realized that those two older looking gravestones in the center of the photo were for Michael and James Loughran. Wasn’t Michael Loughran the father of Mary Jane? I had seen that in Corrine’s work although I haven’t personally looked for or found any supporting documents. Unfortunately, the gravestones are very hard to read so I promised myself to return in December to get a better look.

In the meantime, I wrote to the researcher at NCC and asked for a printout of everyone who was buried in T 285. This morning, I opened my e-mail and found her reply. Oh wow.

In addition to the seven people I knew about, the other five are:

• Mary Levell (Levelle) – Edward’s wife, Mary Jane Loughran Levelle.  I expected this. 
• James Laughran (Loughran) – I assume Michael’s older brother.  James is the plot owner 
• Michael Laughran (Loughran) – my assumed great-great-great-grandfather 
• Bridget Russalott (definitely misspelled) – my great-great-great-grandmother! (see below) 
• Alice McAllister – Bridget’s daughter with her 2^nd husband, Charles Rousselot 

Oh wow. I had never seen anything documenting who Mary Jane’s father was but I had seen the 1860 Baltimore census where Mary Jane Loughran and her younger brother Henry were living in the boardinghome of Charles A. and Bridget Rousselet [sic] along with younger half-siblings Frank & Alice C. Rousselet and nine boarders. It appeared to me as if Bridget married a second time after either Michael died or they divorced. Also, in the 1880 census, Bridget was listed as the mother-in-law and living in the house of Edward & Mary Jane.

Regarding Alice, I could not find anything about her after the 1880 census when she was incorrectly recorded as the 18 year old sister-in-law of Edward. By that time, she would have been two months shy of her 21^st birthday. Also, I guess it was too hard to say step-sister-in-law. Now I have a married name for her to look for.

As a bonus, the NCC researcher sent me a copy a page in the book “Burials in Pro-Cathedral and Cathedral Cemeteries, Baltimore, Maryland 1791-1874” compiled by Hans Grogaard and Mary Warfield, which covers the burials that were originally made in the Pro-Cathedral or Cathedral cemeteries. Many of the people buried in those cemeteries before the opening of NCC in 1871 were moved to NCC when those places closed. Guess who was buried in the old Cathedral Cemetery?

Based on the burial dates noted in the NCC system, I am betting that the remains of James & Michael from OCC were re-buried in NCC the same day that they buried Mary Jane (the 31/10/1885 is probably a typo and should also be 13/10/1885). That gives us the birth and death years of our great-great-great grandfather as well as our great-great-great-great-uncle. It also tells us that Uncle James probably drank too much. :p With Michael dying in 1853, it helps explain why Bridget married again, probably between 1853 & 1856.

This is fun.

The next steps: 

1. Go to the New Cathedral Cemetery and check the hand-written burial dates for James, Michael and Mary Jane.
2. Use paper and charcoal to get a rubbing of the two gravestones.
3. Set up a lemonade stand to raise money for a proper gravestone for the dozen family members including six direct ancestors.