Sarah Fox Hickey

My great-great-grandmother, Sarah Fox Hickey, was the daughter of John Fox and Mary Livezey. Most of the documents I have which refer to Sarah give her name as Sarah N. Fox (or Hickey). One of my third cousins had theorized that Sarah's middle name was Nice, after her mother's sister (Sarah Livezey Nice). This seemed like a good theory, since it was a common practice in Mary Livezey's family to name daughters after married sisters. For instance, Sarah's youngest sister was named Tacy Hallowell Fox after her mother's sister (Tacy Livezey Hallowell).

Although I thought my cousin was probably right about Sarah's middle name, I had never come across any documents to confirm or refute this theory; that is, of course, until yesterday. My husband and I made a trip to the Maryland State Archives yesterday to do some genealogy research. We spent most of the time looking at microfilmed copies of death certificates. One of the death certificates I looked at was for James and Sarah Hickey's youngest daughter, Agnes Matilda ("Tillie"), who died in 1965.

I was mostly trying to fill in some gaps in my research, such as where and how Tillie died. I did find that information, but Tillie's death certificate also provided me with an unexpected bonus.

Later death certificates list the names of the deceased's parents. There is a place on the certificate for the mother's maiden name. However, sometimes the person supplying the information about the deceased did not know the maiden name and would just give the mother's first name or her first name and married name. At first glance I thought this was the case with Tillie's death certificate. The name on the certificate was pretty faint, and when I first looked at it I thought the name was Sarah Hickey.

When I took a closer look at the name, though, I realized that the last name was not Hickey at all. Tillie's son had given her mother's name as Sarah Nice Fox. So I finally had confirmation for Sarah's middle name, when I wasn't even looking for it.

Detective work

As I said in my first blog, genealogy is much like detective work. Like a good detective, a genealogist must be persistent, looking for clues and drawing conclusions. She must then find evidence to support those conclusions. While a police detective works to uncover criminals, a genealogist uses some of the same methods to uncover relationships and dead relatives. (Of course in some cases the results are the same. Many a genealogist, in the search for relatives, has uncovered a criminal or two in her family!)

Modern detectives use physical evidence (like fingerprints and DNA) and the testimony of witnesses to solve crimes. Genealogists, on the other hand, must rely on written records (the census, newspaper articles, city directories, etc.)

Unfortunately, some genealogists don't go far enough in their research. It is important to look at more than one source. If a detective showed up in court with only one piece of evidence, he would not have a very strong case.

The favorite source for many genealogists is the federal census returns, which can be very informative. However, information found in the census should be verified in other sources.

In my research of the Wolf family, for instance, I had drawn some conclusions about Andrew Francis Wolf, but I needed to find evidence to prove my conclusions. I had already proved that Andrew F. Wolf (from the 1930 census) and Frank Andrew Wolf (from the draft registrations) were one and the same person. I next wanted to prove that Andrew F. Wolf, who was listed as the son of Joseph and Barbara Wolf in the 1900 census, was also the same person.

I was able to do this by checking the 1910 and 1920 census and verifying that the address was the same as for Frank Andrew in the World War I draft registration. This was pretty good evidence that Andrew Francis was the son of Joseph and Barbara Wolf. I still plan to verify this fact by checking the church records. A marriage record for Andrew Francis and Elizabeth Buchinger should give the names of their parents.

Once I knew who Andrew Francis's parents were, I wanted to find out more about them. First I wanted to prove that Joseph Wolf was really the son of Matthias Wolf of Landshausen. To do this, I searched the Baltimore City Directories. Fortunately for me, many of the directories have been digitized and put online, so it was fairly easy to locate Joseph and his family.

I knew from the census that Joseph and Barbara were married about 1892, so I started searching the directory about 1890. Sure enough, I came across Joseph W. Wolf, candymaker, living at 564 Union in 1890 and 1891. At the same address were Matthew (listed as Matthias in 1891) and Charles Wolf. I already knew from my previous research that Matthias Wolf's youngest son was Charles, so this was pretty good evidence that this was Matthias Wolf of Landshausen and his two youngest sons.

I was also able to use the city directory to find an approximate date of death for Matthias Wolf. He was listed in the directory through 1901, but not in 1902. I then searched the Baltimore Sun (also available online) for a death notice for Matthias, which showed that he died in September 1901.

Next I searched the Baltimore City marriage index to see if there was a record for Joseph and Barbara Wolf's marriage. I discovered that Joseph Wolf married Barbara Hasselberger on October 6, 1891, at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Baltimore.

I was pretty sure this was the right marriage, since they had been married about 8 years in 1900. Also, Joseph had moved out of his father's house between 1891 and 1892. In the 1892 directory Joseph was living at 1225 Patapsco Street, which is just a few blocks from Holy Cross Church. I also remembered that, in 1920, a cousin named Ernest Hasselberger had been living with Joseph and Barbara. Again, I will try to confirm this by looking at the marriage records at Holy Cross.

I next turned my attention to Barbara Hasselberger, to see if I could find her in the census. I was able to find her in the 1880 census as Barbary Hazelberger. Her parents were Sigmund and Maggie, who were born in Germany. I was not able to locate Sigmund in any other censuses, so I once again turned to the city directories.

I was able to locate Sigmund Hasselberger, off and on, in the city directory from 1879 to 1892. From about 1890 to 1892, Sigmund was living at 1225 Patapsco Street, the same address as Joseph Wolf in 1892! So I'm pretty sure that Barbara Wolf was the daughter of Sigmund Hasselberger, but I'll check the church records to be sure.

Kissing cousins

Last week one of my cousins asked me to help her with her family tree. I already had plenty of information for her mother's side of the family (our common ancestors), so I decided to do some research on her father's family. One of her father's ancestors was a man named Andrew Francis Wolf. The only info I had for him was his name, but no dates of birth or death. Since Andrew, Francis, and Wolf are all very common names I didn't have much hope of finding him.

I did have one piece of information about Andrew, though, that was very helpful. I knew that his wife's name was Elizabeth Buchinger. Since that was a rather unusual surname, I decided to start with her. Searching through the census on Ancestry, I was able to find her pretty quickly. In 1900 she was living in Baltimore City with her parents, Vincent and Mary Buchinger.

Once I had found Elizabeth Buchinger, I turned my attention to Andrew. I did a search on Ancestry and checked the results for the 1930 census. There were 5 Andrew Wolfs living in Maryland at that time. One of them caught my eye: Andrew F. Wolf and his wife Elizabeth. When I viewed the image of the census record for this Andrew Wolf, I discovered 3 other people living with Andrew and his wife and daughter: Mary Buchinger and her 2 daughters! So I knew that I had the correct family.

According to the census, Andrew was born about 1896. I next turned my attention to the World War I and World War II draft registrations on Ancestry. I discovered a Frank Andrew Wolf, who was born in August 1895 or 1896. Fortunately for me, Andrew had not moved between 1930 and 1942, so I was able to confirm that Frank Andrew and Andrew Francis were one and the same person.

Once I had some more information about Andrew, I checked the earlier census records to see what I could find out about his parents and family. I found an Andrew F. Wolf in the 1900 census, who was born in August 1895 and was the son of Joseph and Barbara Wolf.

I did not have any luck finding an Andrew Wolf in 1910 or 1920, so I decided to search for a Frank Wolf born about 1895. Sure enough I was able to find Andrew again, living with Joseph and Barbara. His address in 1910 and 1920 was the same as that for Frank Andrew Wolf in the first draft registration, so I was able to confirm that Joseph and Barbara Wolf were Andrew's parents.

In the midst of all this, I remembered that years ago I had researched another family named Wolf. I decided to go back and look at my previous research, on the off chance that there might be some connection between the two families.

My grandfather's grandfather, Johann Georg Imhof, came to Baltimore in 1850 from a village in Baden called Landshausen. Several of his relatives immigrated to Maryland about the same time. Among those were three brothers named Joseph, Matthias, and George Wolf.

Matthias Wolf was born in Landshausen in 1824 and was married in Elsenz, Baden, in 1845. He and his wife had 11 children. Their ninth child was Johann Joseph Wolf, who was born in Baltimore in December 1864.

I checked my family tree database and discovered that this Johann Joseph Wolf had a wife named Barbara and 7 children. I was shocked when I saw the name of their third child: Andrew F. Wolf, born in August 1895!

So it turns out that my cousin's father and mother were actually related, though I'm sure they had no idea. My genealogy software has a tool for calculating the relationship between two individuals, so I was able to determine that her parents were seventh cousins!