John and Mae (Conlon) Harrington of the Bronx, New York

On 24 March 2011 and 4 January 2013 I wrote blog posts about this couple. Mae is my grandmother’s cousin. In the past I’ve found very little about her and her family. Yesterday I decided to try again.

Thanks to Reclaim the Records, the books listing New York City marriages have been posted online. In 1930 Mae lived with my grandparents Harry and Mary (Doyle) Nunn in the Bronx. In 1940 Mae and her husband John Harrington were living in the Bronx, and stated they were at that same address in 1935. That cut the window for their marriage to five years. Their marriage date was found to be 25 March 1932. (Note my first blog post about Mae was a day after her 25 March wedding date-coincidence?)

My main goal is to connect Mae’s father, Edward Conlon, with my great-grandmother, Margaret (Conlon) Doyle. That I did not accomplish. But I’m getting close. There are other mysteries surrounding this family. I believe the mother Mary (O’Donnell?) Conlon died between 1905 and before the 1910 census as Edward listed himself as widower. I need to find her death date and cause of death. Then what happened to her husband, Edward? Mae and Anna disappear for a few years, until Mae is seen living with the Doyles. Where’s Anna? Mae’s brothers are in an orphanage, until they, too, are living with the Doyles in the 1920s.

I found an Ancestry.com family tree that had Mae’s brother Edward married to Elizabeth “Lil” E. Graham (1892-1973). Earlier I’d found from a census document that Edward had a wife named Elizabeth, but had no maiden name. Now I do. Unfortunately, the woman who posted this tree on Ancestry has not been active for over a year. I sent her an email anyway, but we know what that tells us – sigh.

The other problem with this family is most did not marry, and the ones that did produced one or no children. There might not be much more information to be found, but their story deserves to be told and I intend to do that.