A Decade Coming-The Legacy of Sarah Corr, part 1

I finished all my finals for my online classes yesterday and I rewarded myself by playing with ancestry.com

I started getting interested in genealogy when I was in 7th grade (1991-1992) after having a school assignment.  This was a year after my Grandpa Sullivan passed away.  I can't help but wonder how much more information I would have about my family had I only I had a couple more years with my grandfather.

I did know a little bit about my Great Grandfather Sullivan, who passed away in 1950 but my great grandmother, Sarah Corr was born in Ireland and died in March 1919.  Her death certificate said a problem with her kidneys though my grandfather always swore that they flu killed her (the epidemic of 1918 which was the same strain as last years Swine flu.)  That was all I knew.

When I was just out of college in 2001-2003, I was living in Southern Maine and would routinely go to Massachusetts (Boston area, about a two hour drive)  to chip away at my family history.  I would take what I could get, an obituary here, a census record there. I went to the Archdiocese Archives (the record is currently at my parents in Maine so dates are appoximate) and learned my great grandparents married in April 1899 at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Cambridge, MA and that Sarah Corr lived at 11 Dana St in Cambridge.  There was also a Corr listed as a witness.  Sarah was listed as a domestic.

I went to the Cambridge Public Library and picked up the city directory of 1899.  Don't know why I thought I could find any clues but on the first page there was listed Rev. Edward Abbott, 11 Dana St.  I think found articles about her employer.

I asked my grandmother (who met my grandfather in 1944 and obviously never met her mother-in-law) and all she could tell me was that we were related to the former police chief of Lexington, MA.  So I knew we had cousins out there.

Then a decade later, I find them on ancestry.com!