New York City Municipal Archives – Good Egg Award

I have been waiting since September for the death certificate of Kate Nunn Preiss (or letter stating “Not Found”) from the New York City Municipal Archives. My check of late July had been cashed, so I know they had received the request form and SASE.

This week I decided enough additional time had gone by that I should contact them to see where my request was in the queue.  To my surprise, my email was answered the very next day. The note implied that something had been sent, though further communication revealed that my request was probably lost. 

In spite of this I am giving the New York City Municipal Archives the Good Egg Award, because they not only answered my query, they immediately searched through the April 1928 deaths for Kate.  

Alas, Kate was not found.  But the archives informed me of the newly updated German Genealogy (and Italian Genealogy) databases that I could search for vital records myself from home. I have used these databases for years through SteveMorse.org, but the links the archives gave me sends me to the updated sites.  I was told if I found Kate listed, let them know and they would send the certificate.  Needless to say I am impressed by the customer service, not something I expected.

I searched the updated database, expanding the boroughs, expanding the years and found nothing for Kate or Carl Preiss. Sigh. Not surprising this family continues to give problems.  I thank the archives for alerting me to the updated website and for honoring my check for a future search for Kate. 

I hope the database will prove useful in searching more of my German relatives.

Rightmires to Darraghs to Wixoms

Delia, Elmer and Shirley Wixom abt 1927

While working on my Tucker family line this morning I came upon this photo that for years rested in a box in the corner of my great-grandmother’s barn. The box of photos was rescued by my cousin and delivered to our home in Newtown, Connecticut.

The photo was damaged, so I decided to scan and put it in its rightful place within the Tucker genealogy document.  And that is what brought me back to the Rightmire family, which then lead me to the family of John Darragh.

John Rightmire (who married my great-grandmother’s sister Olive B. Tucker) was born in 1867.  John and Olive had one daughter, Delia born June 1896.  Currently my research goes right to Delia who married Elmer Wixom. The photo shows this couple with their baby daughter Shirley.

As I started to fill in the Enfield, New York family of Delia’s father, John Rightmire, I found that at three years of age, John was living with his mother, Rachel, his sister Ann age 4 and brother Charles, age 1. Where is the father?  By 1880 these three children are living with their grandparents, John and Rachel Kennedy Darragh, Where is the mother?

In the local Rolfe Cemetery I found three children of John and Rachel Darragh that all died in 1858.  To what disease did they succumb?

If I thought this was going to be a quick and easy fleshing out of the Rightmire family, I was way off the mark! I do look forward to solving these mysteries.