The Hagan Irish connection?

In my last blog entry, I wrote about John Van Hagan.  His father was John A. Hagan, who was our Irish immigrant.  

 How do we know he was from Ireland?  We know this from several sources:

•    The 1875 Kansas census indicates John’s place of birth as Ireland. (this info could have come from Hannah, John, or even a neighbor).

•  The 1880 federal census indicates John’s place of birth as Ireland. Parent’s place of birth indicated as Scotland.  (Again, this info could have come from anyone, not necessarily John).

•   The 1882 obituary of John.  Clues in the article:

1.       He was a native of Ireland;

2.       Emigrated to this country when quite young;

3.       Has a mother and sister yet in Ireland;

4.       Has a brother in New York;

• The 1882 death record of John indicates his place of birth as Ireland and the place of birth of his parents as Ireland.

All these records are possibly secondary (versus primary).  It’s possible that John himself gave the information about his nativity, but the census records do not name the informant.  So I was at a dead end.  

 An important genealogical research tool is that when you are at a dead end for your own ancestor, always do research on their siblings.  So I looked more carefully at some letters that my Grandad had.  One in particular was from 1898 (before John Van married Mabel) and talks about a trip that John Van Hagan took to Brooklyn New York to see his cousins Daisy, Lulu and Annie Hagan.  When you take this in consideration of the earlier newspaper article that speaks about John A Hagan's brother in New York, I now had some information to do some research.  The results of that research will be in my next blog post.

But for now, here's a family tree of John A Hagan's family:

Hagan Triplets (Part 2)

There's a couple more interesting facts about the Hagan triplets that I wrote about in my previous posts.

In 1902, John Van Hagan and Mabel Deal were married and living in Chicago, Illinois.  Cora Deal (Mabel's mother) was a scrapbooker, in the victorian days around the turn of the century.  She had clipped and kept many newspaper articles about their family.   

So in January 1902, there's a short clip (see article below) about Cora and Clarence Deal (Mabel's parents) returning from visiting John and Mabel in Chicago (probably for Christmas).

The next clipping I have is from July 1902 (see article below) about Mabel staying with her parents in Three Rivers for a time.   Note that they would have been making all these trips by train between Chicago Illinois and Three Rivers Michigan.

The next clipping I have (see article below) is from Sept 13, 1902.  This is about John coming to visit his family.  Note that it doesn't say  "Mr. and Mrs".  So perhaps when Mabel came in July, she stayed with her parents and never went back to Chicago.   We know that Mabel was pregnant at this time.  Perhaps she was having trouble with her pregnancy (as would be the case if she were carrying triplets) and needed to stay with her parents.

The next event is, of course, the birth of John Gerald Hagan, as I mentioned previously.  The birth record in Three Rivers indicates that he was born Sept 15, 1902.  (see record below)

Birth records at this time were NOT recorded at the time of the event.  (That apparently did not happen until 1906).  Before that,  a supervisor/assessor went around once a year asking households for births or deaths.  So it's probable that if there were triplets, they would have only given the supervisor/assessor the birth record for the one living child.  There's a really good blog post about how they collected Michigan birth records. http://kalamazoogenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/02/why-early-michigan-birth-records-are.html

 I mentioned that there was a photo taken of the 3 babies at the time of their birth (as evidenced by the letter from William Hagan to John Van Hagan in 1903 - see picture below)

The next newspaper article is from September 26, 1902 (see below)

Then the next newspaper article is from October 15, 1902 (see below) Now it mentions that there is (one) little child.  So sometime between September 15 and October 15, two of the little babies had died.

The last related newspaper article I have is dated January 1903.  Where we find that John and Mabel and child have moved from Chicago, back to Three Rivers with her parents.  He takes a position (as a draughtsman) with Sheffield Car Company.  This is the same company that John Van's father, John A Hagan, had been the chief draughtsman for some 25 years earlier  - but that's a story for another day.........

So, here's a possible scenario for the whole thing:
*  John and Mabel get married, lives in Chicago, and after 2 years, she is pregnant;
*  She starts having trouble with her pregnancy and so goes to stay with her parents in Three Rivers Michigan;
*  The babies are born early in September 1902.
*  Three (probably premature) babies are born.

*  Photograph taken of the three babies and sent to John's uncle in New York.
*  Two of the babies die.
*  Mabel and baby go back to Chicago to their home in October 1902.
*  John and Mabel move from Chicago to Three Rivers to be near her parents in January 1903.

I cannot imagine how heart wrenching and tragic it would have been to loose 2 of your 3 babies. Because of that, it was one of those family events that wasn't ever really talked about.   And so we really have no record of the event, other than that one letter from an uncle and a mention by another uncle at a reunion that there were twins.

Who are these Hagan triplets? (part 1)

One of the topics that came up at a family reunion this weekend was that John Gerald (Jerry) Hagan had a twin who died as an infant.  Interesting fact - I believe that there were actually triplets!  Here's the story:

John Van Hagan (1875 - 1911) married Mabel Deal (1880-1965) in 1899 in Three Rivers, Michigan.

We had always known that their first child was John Gerald Hagan, who was born in 1902.  Jerry, as he was known to most people, was my grandfather's brother.  Below is a copy of his actual birth record from St. Joseph County Michigan. 

The text says John G Hagan, born Sept 15, 1902 in Three Rivers.

An interesting bit of information came up.  I found a letter among my grandfather's papers.  Basically, it is a letter from William Hagan (John Van Hagan's uncle in New York) to John living in Three Rivers.  It's dated July 28, 1903.  William congratulates John on the birth of his "triplets". 

Here is the text of the letter:
 New York, July 28th, 1903
Dear John:
Your triplets picture arrived all right.
They are fine looking boys, very much alike, altho, I think I like the one on the right the best.
The middle one is very cunning.
Their mother will have her hands full in bringing them up.  I don't believe she will be able to tell them apart, unless she dresses them differently.
One you call John, one Gerald, and what is the third ones name?
Congratulating you both on the large increase to the population of "Thrivers" (Three RIvers).
Affectionately yours,
Wm. Hagan

You'll see he refers to the triplets as one is called John, one is called Gerald and what is the name of the third one?   There is no indication that there were triplets - not in the official birth records of St. Joseph County Michigan.  The triplets couldn't have died at birth - because obviously a picture was taken of the triplets and sent to his uncle in New York.

Another interesting note is that the letter is dated July 28, 1903, which would be 10 months after their birth.  But there is no documentation that I can find whatsoever about triplets - not in official records or any family records, except the letter above.

For more detailed information on this family, please click here: John Van Hagan

I'm back!

Hello Family and Friends and other Interested Genealogists:

After an absence of 8 years, I'm back to blogging on this genealogy site.  I've been raising kids, leading a Precepts Bible Study (2009 - present), learned to quilt in 2009, started my own quilting business in 2011 (- present).  I've been doing some genealogy, but it's somewhat limited right now.

We had a family reunion of the Hagans and Cregos this weekend and questions came up about our family.  It occurred to me that I have so many interesting stories and facts about our family and I'm just not able to update my static genealogy website on a regular basis.  So it occurred to me that I'll start posting on a regular basis an interesting story or fact about one of our ancestors.  Enjoy!

new research

Today I received the death certificate of William Hagan, who was the brother of John A Hagan, our Ireland immigrant ancestor. It indicated his father's name as John and William's birthplace only as Ireland. However, it states that he was buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery in New York. I googled the name of the cemetery and it turns out that Cypress Hills is a national cemetery. It was opened to receive Civil War soldiers who died during the war. In 1873, the cemetery was opened up to burials of soldiers of the Civil War who did not die during the war, but were honorably discharged. So it appears that William was a Civil War Veteran and now I have civil war records to track down, which might be helpful

unidentified pictures

In 2002, another VanFrank researcher, John S (a descendant of Charles P. Van Frank), sent me a digital image of the photos of Charles P. & Harriet (Bickel) Van Frank.

Just last week (Jan 2008), I looked through my unidentified photos and realized that I had these same photos.

I love it when researchers can collaborate together

irish ancestors

Here's an update on my latest research for our Irish ancestors:

1) Our Ireland immigrant ancestor was John A. Hagan. (For a refresher on him and his family, go to http://members.toast.net/jan.monnin/hagan/Hagan,JohnA/hagan,johna.htm

2) All documentation that I have found for John A. Hagan have not mentioned his Irish birthplace, other than just indicating he was from Ireland.

3) I have been able to uncover that John had a brother named William Hagan and apparently they immigrated from Ireland together in 1853.
(source: John's obituary and William's 1900 census record)

4) They left a mother and sister in Ireland.
(source: John's obituary)

5) Gerald Hagan (Hubert's brother) wrote in a letter to me once that the Hagans were from County Cork. (unconfirmed as of yet).

6) William Hagan lived in Brooklyn New York. He married Annie and they had 3 daughters: Daisy, Lulu and Annie Agnes.
(source: 1870, 1880 and 1900 census records and letters written from the girls to John Van and Mabel Hagan.
Note: I do have a photograph of John Van Hagan and William's 3 daughters. I've attached it.)

7) John Van Hagan (Hubert's father) went and visited them in Nov. 1898 (about a year before he married Mabel Deal).
(source: letter written from Annie to John Van with directions to their house)

8) Recently I also found a record of death record for William Hagan on 02 May 1905 and for Anne, his wife on 01 June 1906 in Kings County, New York.
(source: http://www.italiangen.org/NYCDeathresults.asp?kind=exact&Esurname=hagan&Efirst=&StartYear=1905&EndYear=1906&County=K&B1=Submit)
I have requested copies of their death records. If we're lucky, William's death record will have his parents name and possibly his birth place in Ireland.

9) Just today I found William's passport application from 08 June 1872. I know that this is "our" William, because his signature on the passport application exactly matches the signature on a letter he wrote to John Van Hagan in 1903. I've attached a copy of the application. It does not listed his place of birth or have a photo, but it does list his description at the bottom. I wonder if he got a passport for the death of a family member in Ireland?

10) I know that Annie (and probably William) were buried at the Greenwood Cemetery in Kings County, New York.

11) Since I now know exact death dates, I am writing to the library in Brooklyn to locate an obituary.