The Marriage of John Kennedy and Hanora (Collins) Wallace

 One of the pieces of information that I have spent years looking for is the location of the marriage of my second-great-grandparents (pamamapa and pamamama) John Kennedy and Hanora (Collins) Wallace. I had the following information from the 1879 book of Clinton County biographies:

JOHN KENNEDY farmer Sec 29 P O Lyons he was born June 2 1826 in Ireland in 1848 came to New York in 1849 to Wisconsin in 1854 he came to Clinton Co he owns 160 acres of land Has been School Director and Township Treasurer Married Honora Collins Nov 10 1854 she was born in March 1830 in Ireland had five children four living Michael Julia Maggie and John lost one child in infancy (1)

I had an unconfirmed date of their marriage but no location. Based on census records, I knew that this was Hanora's second marriage. Her first marriage was to a John Wallace in Ireland where they had one daughter, Ellen. Their other daughter, Hanora/Nora, was born, according to the census records, in Illinois, Iowa, or, the most-often-cited Wisconsin.

I considered Nora's birthplace important because she was born in 1853 and her mother remarried in 1854. I thought that it was possible that the two events would have happened close to each other. I have an 1850 census record for a John Kennedy in Kenosha County, Wisconsin that might be my John Kennedy. I eventually obtained Nora's death record which lists her birthplace as Beloit, Wisconsin. I could not find any record of a Wisconsin marriage in either county in 1854 or any other year. I also looked in Illinois and Iowa and found nothing. 

I had stopped looking for the information when one day I was doing some research for my wife on her Chicago Irish ancestors. I was looking through unindexed Family Search images of the records for Old St. Mary's Catholic Church, the first Catholic church in Chicago. My wife's great-grandmother was baptized there in 1840. As I scanned through the records the following entry from 1854 caught my eye.

I recognized the names John Kennedy and Nora Collins. But could it really be my John Kennedy and Nora Collins? I went and found the marriage date I had from  the county book. The dates matched! I had stumbled across the information I had been looking for purely by chance. The genealogy gods had smiled upon me! I did a very happy genealogy dance, right then and there. 

Further evidence that this was the right marriage came from the last name of the witness Johanna Lawler. John had a probable sister, Mary Kennedy, who was married to a Stephen Lawler at the time of this wedding. The Lawlers were living in Chicago in 1860, so they were probably also at the wedding. 

And that is the story of how I accidently found the long-sought-after location of the 1854 marriage of my second-great-grandparents. More research is need to explain how they happened to get married in Chicago of all places.

(1) The History of Clinton County, Iowa: Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns &c., Biographical Sketches of Citizens. United States: Western historical Company, 1879.

Was William F. Ogden a US Citizen?

Now that I am retired all of my time is now 100% my time. (Well, some of it does belong to my wife, I suppose.) I need to find interesting ways to fill up all that time. Especially with the pandemic keeping us isolated at home. 

I like doing research, which is why I took to genealogy and family history. I have more time for that now.  I also recently realized that I like stories. I like reading them. I like making them up. I like writing them down. That is why I am returning to my family history blog. Here I can share the stories of my ancestors and distant relatives. I can also share the stories of how I discovered those family history stories. Some of these stories will be mysteries, both solved and unsolved. There are lots of unsolved ones unfortunately.

One of the unsolved mysteries has to do with my great-grandfather, William Frederick Ogden, and his citizenship status. He was born in Walkerton, Ontario in 1871. In about 1879, at the age of 8, his father moved the family to Hutchison County in the Dakota Territory  A few years ago I came across his 1945 Petition for Naturalization in the Ancestry collection "California, Federal Naturalization Records, 1843-1999." He filed on 8 February 1945.

There is a lot of information here: birth date, birth place, when he came to the US and where, info on his second marriage, info on his children. But this also brings up some new questions. 

I had previously found his first papers in a SD Archives on-line index and then the digitized image on-line in Family Search. He filed his intention on 29 October 1892, shortly after turning 21. I was never ever to find his second papers. I was able to find JR Ogden, his father's first (26 June 1889)  and second papers (6 April 1894) though. 

What happened to William's second papers? I have a couple theories: they were not indexed or digitized; he thought he became a citizen when his father did. I think he filed for the papers in California in 1945 because he needed security clearance for a job in the war-time shipyards. That's just a guess. 

What is interesting is that he appears not to have followed up on the application. At the bottom of the second page it states "Petition denied dis [sic] List No. List 1968 Oct 22-1945 Lack of presentation." It looks like he didn't show up to take the oath and become a citizen almost nine months later.

What else is interesting is that in the 1900 US Census his birthplace is Canada but there is no Naturalization info. In 1910 it says he arrived in 1879 and is Naturalized! In 1920 it says he came in 1884 and is Naturalized. In 1930 it says he arrived in 1879 and is Naturalized. In 1940 it also says he is Naturalized. If was naturalized, why did he need to file in 1945? If he wasn't naturalized, why did he keep saying he was?

So many possibilities; so many questions! Maybe he couldn't prove he was naturalized in 1945, filed the application and then found the proof. If he found the proof, where is it and why can't I find it? Maybe something happened with the job and he didn't need to go through with becoming a citizen and had been lying all those years. 

So much more research to do. Is he listed on any voting records over the years? Where else might he have filed before or after the 1945 filing? It's a real head-scratcher.