By Denise Foley
Anita Sheahan Coraluzzi goes the extra mile—and then some—to find ancestors. Her Web site, “Indigents, Miscreants, Madams and Madmen,” contains transcribed records from 19th century almshouses, asylums, courts, and prisons in Philadelphia. Here are some tips and resources from Anita:
- Read historian Dennis Clark’s book, Irish In Philadelphia: 10 Generations of Urban Experience. “ It’s the ultimate in understanding the Irish in the city, how they got there, how they lived, how they survived,” she says.
- Get rid of your 21st century mindset. “People did what they had to do to survive back then,” Coraluzzi says. “There was no welfare or food stamps. People created their own social services among themselves. It may sound shocking to you, but if a woman’s husband died, she might turn around and marry his brother or cousin. She had 3 kids, he had 3 kids, it was the Brady Bunch, but they had to do that to survive. And a lot of women who identified themselves as widowed were actually abandoned by their husbands. Sometimes when you’re digging into the records, you find him out in Nebraska with some other family.”
- Don’t expect to locate your ancestor’s naturalization records. Though the Irish were eager to become citizens so they could vote, getting naturalized was a two-step process and they often didn’t follow through after step one. “At one time Philadelphia had 11 courts—county, state, and federal—doing the naturalization process so records are extremely frustrating to locate, if they exist at all,” Coraluzzi says. And don’t look for your great-great grandmother. Since women didn’t have the right to vote before the 1920s, they didn’t need to become naturalized.
- Keep an open mind about variant spellings of your ancestor’s name. While searching unsuccessfully for marriage records for a man named McKay, Coraluzzi decided to look for him under “M” instead of “Mc”—two different books. He was listed as Mackey. “If your ancestor was called Eugene, look for Owen. It’s the same name in Irish,” she says. “Also, the Irish pronounce Maurice the way we pronounce Morris.”
- Been searching for a long time? Go back over some of the earliest records you collected. You may see something you missed the first time. “I came across a bunch of papers I hadn’t looked at in seven years and with the more experience I had, it led to other discoveries because I was able to follow clues that I didn’t know were clues before,” she says.
- Don’t overlook probate indexes as a source of valuable information. Available at Philadelphia’s City Hall, wills and letters of administration “can really help you when you’re looking for someone who has a common name,” says Coraluzzi. “You can determine if you have the right person by who is named executor or who things are bequeathed to.” And don’t think that, just because your Irish ancestor didn’t have a penny saved to leave to anyone, you won’t get lucky here. “If you have poor Irish ancestors there’s a good chance they didn’t leave a will, but the Irish were so into owning property that there’s a very good chance they had some kind of house or land that had to be divvied up after they died, so you’re likely to find a letter of administration on file.”
- Don’t be put off by the state of the city archives (Suite 150, 3101 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104). There’s a gold mine of information there. “You just have to be patient and have a good sense of humor,” says Coraluzzi. “They have a really bad reputation and that’s a shame. It’s not a bad place to do research once you get used to it. My biggest frustration with the place is they don’t take care of the equipment. They have three copiers and you’re lucky if one works. The microfilm reels are often damaged or broken and when they are they’re pulled out of circulation and there they sit. But if you rent a microfilm of city records from the Family History Center (2076 Red Lion Road, Philadelphia, part of the of the Church of Latter Day Saints) and it’s illegible, you can go to the city archives and ask for the original book. Now, they would really rather the public not use this material, but they won’t keep you from it.”
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