I’ve been hard at work tracing down my Menzies ancestors. I thought I didn’t have much on this line of the family. Then I found a few things that helped me over a brick wall. So now I’m trying to go slowly and search out these families. For anyone keeping count, though I don’t know why ^.^, my new family-file is up to 270 people. This is all sourced information without me going bonkers on the “allied families”, so this is a big accomplishment for me. It’s so hard for me not to go crazy collecting relatives.
I thought I’d share one of my interesting finds with Mary Menzies-Winters. Mary is the sister of my 3rd Great Grandmother, Jennie T Menzies-Love. She was born around 1840 in Lancashire, England (most likely Liverpool). According to a listing I found on the Love-Menzies Family Outline, she married a man with the surname Winters. So that was my first step in locating her after she disappears from her family household. I found her in 1870 in New York City living with her husband Jacob Winters and their 6 children. By 1880, Jacob was gone and Mary had remarried a man named Theodore Thomas. When I went to the 1900 census, I’ll be honest, I did I quick search for a Mary Thomas, but nothing came up. So I just set out to find her children. My reasoning was, if her children were centrally located, most likely that’s where I’d find Mary.
Thanks to FamilySearch’s Manhattan Marriage Index, I had some married names to try for Mary’s girls. Girls can be so difficult if you don’t have any clues about their marriages. I found a marriage record for Mary E Winters and John Thomas Brent. So then I searched for the pair and found them in Putnam County, New York. Everything matches up perfectly. Mary living with the family helps to verify the marriage of her daughter. So then I set about finding the rest of Mary’s children in 1900.
I only found a marriage record for the oldest daughter this morning. So I brought up Ancestry and plugged the information into the search. The only difference from the marriage record is that Elizabeth’s husband is referred to as Tom and not William. That doesn’t bother me too bad because he could go by his middle name. (edit: After reviewing the image more closely, he is listed as Wm but there were numbers written over his name making it hard to read.) Then I noticed that Mary is listed as living with the family. Well, alright. I checked the enumeration dates on both households. Both are listed as June 1, 1900. My only guess is that Mary probably lived with both families during the year. Maybe leaving the crowded city in the summers. I can’t tell which house she was actually at on June 1st. I’m just happy I found her son Frank without too much fuss!
Then I plugged Mary Winters into the 1900 Census search. Just to see if maybe she showed up in her daughter Jane’s house too. Hey, it was worth a shot! Of course, I kick myself for not trying her first married name before moving onto her children, but it all worked out in the end.
