Mystery Monday - Mabel Frances Downey - Part 2

Last Monday I wrote a post detailing my 2011 discovery of a mystery (presumed) relation and the brick wall I hit when trying to figure out who she was.  Aside from that one census record and the not-really-a-match directory record from the same year, I could find no trace of a Mabel Frances Downey.  You know the saying about how you only find something you're missing when you're not looking for it?  That proved to be the case here when I accidentally stumbled across Mabel again just a few weeks ago.

Here's a quick overview of the family involved: Mary Ann Keegan had a child, Mary E. Showler, by her first husband.  Mary Ann later married John Mullett.  Mary E. Showler married John Francis Downey.  After John Downey's death, Mary E. married George Tootill.

Ancestry.com

In September of this year, I was tracking George Tootill through the U.S. census records and picked up one record I hadn't seen before, 1910 (above).  I found a George Tootill, born in Connecticut, living in Springfield, Massachusetts with Carlton R. Merry, his wife Mabel F., and their children.  The name Mabel F. stuck out; maybe Mabel F. Downey from 1900 had gotten married and that's why I hadn't been able to find her!  The Merrys were listed in 1910 as being married for only 10 years, so Mabel F. Downey could have gotten married sometime after the 1900 census was taken.

Looking more closely at the record, other pieces fell into place (besides approximate ages).  Mabel F. Merry was born in Massachusetts, like Mabel F. Downey.  George Tootill's listed relationship to the head of household, Carlton R. Merry, was father-in-law.  If Mabel F. Downey was in fact one of Mary E. Showler and John Francis Downey's children, George Tootill would have been her step-father and probably recorded in a census as the father-in-law of her husband if they were living together.

Furthermore, Mabel F. Merry's father was listed in 1910 as born in Maine, and her mother was listed as born in England.  As discussed in my previous post, John Francis Downey was born in New Brunswick, Canada, and Mary E. Showler was usually recorded with the birthplace England.  So the mother's birthplace matched.  Although Mabel Merry's father's place of birth was listed as Maine and not New Brunswick, a few things kept my hopes up that this was the mystery Mabel from 1900.  Census records are notoriously unreliable because only one person in the household provides all of the detail for everyone else.  So, there are often errors.  I normally wouldn't try to force a connection with such a glaring difference  in locations, but

FamilySearch.org

I had one other piece of critical information up my sleeve; the marriage record for Mary E. Showler and John Francis Downey, who were married in Springfield (above), listed John Downey's residence at the time of the marriage as Portland, Maine.  I thus had a plausible explanation for that particular error in the 1910 census record.

Armed with this new find and feeling like this connection was more than a hunch, I added Mabel F. Downey to my family tree as the daughter of Mary E. Showler and John Francis Downey, with Carlton R. Merry as her husband, noting that this was all still theory.  I still couldn't find any record of her birth or marriage on Ancestry or FamilySearch.  However, Ancestry started shaking a little green leaf at me, and for once, the hint it had for me cracked the case.  When I clicked the hint, I got a "California Death Index, 1940-1997" record for Mabel F. Merry.  California?!  Not likely.  I read the record anyway.  This Mabel's birthday was January 31, 1878, and her birthplace was Massachusetts.  Actually, this looked like my mystery Mabel so far.  This woman died on June 4, 1965 in Los Angeles.  Unlikely for my family, but there was one more line to the index record: "Mother's Maiden Name: Schoular."  Say "Showler" out loud; now say "Schoular" (with a little bit of a German twist on the "ou" part-- the marriage record indicates Mary E. was born in Bremen, Germany, not England).  BINGO!!  Not only was this my Mabel F. Downey, but I have my first piece of unambiguous evidence that she was in fact the previously unheard-of daughter of Mary E. Showler and John Francis Downey.

I can't answer why Mabel Frances Downey's siblings have Massachusetts birth records on FamilySearch while she doesn't.  I can't answer why she previously was unknown to my family (although later finding that she was already in Los Angeles in the 1930 U.S. Census as "Frances M. Merry" indicates she wasn't close to the rest of the family who stayed in southern Connecticut).  What I do know, however, is that her son's Massachusetts birth record says she was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, where one of her other siblings was born.  I also know that one of her sisters, Margaret Ann Downey, used the surname Downing in her own marriage record, which would explain finding "Mabel F. Downing" in the 1900 Springfield City Directory.  Lastly, there are just way too many connections for this to be a mistake.  After more than a year of wondering who this mystery Mabel was, I finally uncovered a new sibling, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew to my great-grandfather.  An entire branch of the family had moved away and been forgotten, and I found them.

Mystery Monday - Mabel Frances Downey - Part 1

Whenever I'm researching an individual, I try to lay his or her entry foundation with census records.  Doing so, I not only get some idea of birth/death dates and locations, but I can also connect the person to other family members who may not otherwise pop up in my research.

About a year and a half ago, I was "tracking" John W. Mullett in the U.S. Census records and stumbled across an unknown individual with a familiar surname living with him.  John was the second husband of my third great-grandmother, Mary Ann Keegan (spelling debatable).  Mary Ann had one living child with her first husband, Mary E. Showler (sometimes Scholes or Scholer).  Mary E. Showler, my second great-grandmother, was born on March 4, 1858, in Manchester, England according to most records.  On September 21, 1874, she married John Francis Downey, who was born about 1854 in Saint John, New Brunswick.  As far as I was concerned, they had five children together in Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts, before John F. Downey died in 1885.  Mary E. Showler eventually remarried George Tootill, who was born about 1856 in Suffield, Connecticut.  They had two surviving children together before Mary died on March 15, 1914 in Springfield.

According to the 1900 U.S. Census record (below), John Mullett was living on Franklin Street in Springfield with his and Mary Ann's daughter, Ellen Mullett.  I already knew about Ellen.  With them, however, the census also lists a "Mable F. Downey."  Since John Mullett's step-daughter, Mary E. Showler, married a man with the surname Downey, this immediately caught my attention.

Ancestry.com

Mable [sic] F. Downey is listed as being John Mullett's niece in the census.  I knew this was unlikely by today's definition of niece because she appeared to be related to his late wife's first husband, and the census states she was born in January 1879.  While still possible, the age gap bordered on large for an uncle and niece.  So I assumed the term "niece" was used broadly while keeping the possibility open that John Mullett could be related to some Downeys.

Furthermore, this record lists Mabel's father's place of birth as English Canada (of which New Brunswick is a part), and her mother's birthplace as England.  There is only one couple matching these birthplace descriptions in my family tree who could be Mabel Downey's parents, John Francis Downey and Mary E. Showler.  However, this is not nearly proof enough that Mabel was their daughter, especially since I had been able to find so many other records of Mary's children.  Why would all traces of just one child be missing?

A quick search on both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org came up with nothing for this mysterious Mabel.  I then went to the Springfield City Directory for 1900 for clues.  I found John Mullett, the career shoemaker, living at 116 Franklin with his daughter, Ellen A. Mullett.  There was no one named Mabel Downey in the directory, and none of the Springfield Downeys by any given name lived on Franklin Street.  There was one Mabel F. Downing listed as boarding at 32 York, so I made a note of that in my research log, scanned the other Downings for anyone living near the Mulletts or this Mabel F. Downing, and, after finding none, called it a day.

My father has separately been researching our family history for over a decade now, so he has more knowledge about individuals and families than I do.  He personally knew his grandmother, a daughter of Mary E. Showler and John Francis Downey, as well as other older relatives I never had the chance to meet. Yet when I asked him about mystery Mabel, he only knew as much as I did from that one census record.  He had never heard of her, thus begging the question, who is Mabel F. Downey?

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a new lead that enabled me to answer that question and add an entire branch to my family tree.  For the sake of not writing a book instead of a post, I'll conclude next Monday with my findings.