The Irish Immigrants, continued: James Markham and Hannah Hennessy

In conversing via Skype with Anne Lucia (Lufkin) Haley today, we found a bit of information.
Some of it has been incorporated into corrections on the previous two posts. But we did find a link to a plan of the ship that James Markham sailed on (as a steerage passenger) from Liverpool to NYC.

And I had a lovely conversation last week with an Irish friend: The Rev. Joseph Bergin is a retired priest in the Episcopal Church whom I have known for the 20 years I've been in this diocese. Joe was raised in Ireland and lived and worked there until his 40s, I think. Joe studied Gaelic in school (it was a required course, but he really loved it,) and tells me that he sees Markham as an Irish name. He pronounced it for me as it would be in Gaelic, with the 'k' as a German 'ch' is pronounced in High German. Joe also said that it would have been very common for Irish persons to ship out from Liverpool, as there is a great deal of coming and going between Ireland and Liverpool, and many Irish living in Liverpool. So it was no surprise to Joe that James would have shipped out from Liverpool.
Here's a photo entitled: The Embarkation: Waterloo Docks, Liverpool 1850. I imagine both James and Hannah making their way through the clamor.

So we know more about James Markham (father of James Edwin Markham, who was my great-grandfather). But what about Hannah? Anne has for many years thought of James Markham's wife as Hannah Hogan, because that is the name on James Edwin Markham's death certificate. But it seems that my research has pointed in the correct direction by identifying her as Hannah Hennessey. Thus the link in the previous post to the list of names in Holy Cross cemetery. But that still leaves the problem of when Hannah crossed over from Ireland, and that mystery is not solved.

Anne and I looked up Irish emigrants on line, and found five Hannah Hennessys (Hannahs Hennessy?) on ship manifests from the era. Two of them arrived a few years before Hannah and James married, and before their first child was born. But the ages of the two Hannahs is not quite right. So often, the handwritten ledgers of the time have been mis-read by transcribers that perhaps the Hannah who is listed as 30 years old was actually 20 years old (so easy to misread a 2 for a 3). In that case, she arrived May 13, 1850, having sailed from Liverpool to New York on the Masonic. That is my current favorite possibility.

However, it is also possible that her name was misspelled on the ship manifest, or, again, mis-transcribed. In which case we probably can't find her.

So for you descendants of James Markham Lufkin, Hennessy and Markham are your Irish antecedents. Go have a Guinness! Or a Hennessy!

James Edwin Markham born in Rochester, NY

I have finally found some useful information, by using a free trial membership of Ancestry.com. As you would expect, James Markham (father of James Edwin Markham, who was my dad's maternal grandfather) shows up in a number of other people's family trees, and at least one of them shows records that he arrived in New York in 1848 on a boat from Liverpool. My sister, Anne L. Haley, says that this was right smack dab in the middle of the great Irish famine (1845-1852).

This is news. The same family tree has James Edwin Markham born in Rochester, NY. So there might not be a lot of point in visiting Belfast, NY, where James and Hannah (Hennessy) Markham settled. But we should do it, anyway.

Anne Haley has found Hannah Hennessy Markham, born 1830 in Ireland, buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Belfast, NY in 1898. She was married to James Markham.

Other news: Leila's middle name was Browning, so I share that with her. I also found her mother Katherine Browning listed in other family trees as "Katherine J. Browning." Thus, even though the 1910 census has Katherine J. Markham listed as having both parents from Ireland, she could still be Katherine Browning Markham, rather than James E. Markham's widowed sister-in-law. Confusing info, however.

I'll keep looking for more info on the Irish connection. Though we have the name of the boat he came over on, we still don't know where James Markham really came from. I'll check out Hannah Hennessy, next.

Great-grandma found, as well

I was named for my father's mother's mother: Katherine Browning. She married James E. Markham on June 4, 1889 in St. Paul, Minnesota. I do not know where they met, but it is recorded in several places that she was born in Illinois in about 1868, that her mother (maiden name Harlow) was born in Massachusetts, and her father was born in Pennsylvania (or New York -- not clear). Apparently she had limited education: Katherine went to school through the 10th grade, and her sister graduated from high school.

Dad used to tell us that her father was a big-wig on the railroad and owned his own Pullman car. I have no idea which railroad, though of course St. Paul was the home of J.J. Hill, whose Great Northern railroad went through St. Paul. Owning a Pullman Car spoke of wealth, status and luxury far beyond our humble existence. I've been told by other people with the last name of Browning that all the Brownings in the USA are related, somehow. I'm sure it's true; it's true of the Lufkins, as well. But the connections are not close.

Katherine had two daughters: Arline (1890) and Leila (1892). Though by 1910 her marriage to James E. Markham had ended (whether in divorce or simply separation, I could not tell from the records), she kept the Markham name. I never met her, and she died on Feb 9, 1955, shortly after I was born. But for some years into my childhood I and my two sisters regularly received gifts from "Aunt Jessie" in mysterious California. It turns out that Katherine B. Markham had spent the end of her life with her (apparently never-married) sister Jessie Browning in Laguna Beach, California. They show up together on the 1940 Census. I vividly remember three black lacquer jewelry boxes we received one year. [Correction: My older sister Anne and Suzi say that those jewelry boxes were actually from Leila B. Markham.] Those were wonderful gifts, and I'm sure our mother thanked her very nicely for them. But I wish I could do so myself, now. Jessie was taking an interest in her closest relatives: her nephew James (named for her former brother-in-law), his wife Rosemarie (called "Friday") and three -- soon to be five -- children.

Because she is my namesake, I wish I could find out more about Katherine Browning Markham. Perhaps I can find her and her larger family in another family tree on Ancestry.com. I can see Dad making his French "that's too much money" gesture as I write this.

Lost Grandmothers

Leila B. Markham was James M. Lufkin's mother. My paternal grandmother. And yet, I saw her only once in my life, on a family trip to Concord, California when I was about 5. I know very little about her, but now I know a tad more, thanks to Archives.

Dad loved his mom, but she was famously difficult. She and his dad divorced (scandal!) in 1921; Dad was then about 18 months old.

Leila was born in St. Paul MN, the daughter of James E. Markham and Katherine B. (Browning) Markham, and grew up in St. Paul. James was assistant City Attorney for the City of St. Paul. I'm amused that in the census records, his area of work is transcribed as "Girl Preacher." Looking at the original document as preserved on Archive, I certainly had trouble deciphering the handwriting, but I'm quite sure the real word was "Jurisprudence." The census taker apparently didn't know the word or how to spell it: he made it into two words. And the transcriber could make nothing of the handwriting. A similar problem led the household to be listed as "Marsham" in the transcription of the 1900 census.

Leila shows up in the 1990 Census as a 7 year old in her father's household at 642 Goodrich Ave, St. Paul, a residence listed as rented, not owned. She lives with her mother and father and older sister Arline (b. 1890) and a female servant: Lena Rudley, born in Sweden in 1880, and immigrated in 1892.

In the 1910 Census, Leila is not living with her father, who is now divorced and living as a boarder at 494 Ashland Ave. in St. Paul. With him are now apparently James's widowed sister-in-law, Katherine J. Markham. I say she is his sister, not his wife of a similar name because 1) her parents are both listed as born in Ireland, as are James'; and 2) James is listed as divorced. And with Katherine J. Markham there were two Markham girls, possibly her two children: Caroline Markham, age 24; Manne B. Markham, age 27. Edith's older sister, Arline Markham, age 19, is part of the household, but Leila is not. Was she living with her mother, Katherine B. Markham? The family servant has disappeared, as well.

Years later, Leila is found in the 1940 census at age 48 living as a tenant/boarder in St. Paul at 301 Clayton Ave, with one Clara Lucking, seamstress. In the next door apartment, apparently, is Lena Larson. Lena is listed as having been born in 1880, and having moved here from Sweden. The age difference between the two women is the same as that between Lena Rudley (then 19) and Leila Markham (then 7) back in the 1900 census. Was Leila living next door to her former nanny? Or were there just that many Lenas from Sweden in St. Paul at the time? In any case, Leila was working as a typist at a law firm at that time. She had two years of college.

I haven't found the date of her marriage, to Myron Tandy, whom we all knew as "Chief," but the records show that by 1947, she is listed as Leila B. Tandy. Still living in St. Paul at that time, I believe.

This is what I've found messing around with Archives. I was able to establish Leila's death date and place: 10 Nov 1962 at Contra Costa, California. I owe as much to her, at least genetically, as I do to my maternal grandmother, but I never knew Leila, and she has been a mystery to me most of my life.