Friday 30 March 2018

The Hunt for Elizabeth Doyle

But why do I care about the mysterious PM anyway? (See my previous post if you're confused already.)  If I find out how I'm related to him/her, so what?  He/she is highly unlikely to be willing or able to share any information with me about our common ancestors.  So why am I obsessed with PM?

Well, I'm not.  I'm curious, and I like puzzles, that's all.  That's my story, anyway.  And when I started looking at the Doyle family, I got obsessed with Elizabeth, which is a far more reasonable thing to do, especially because it turns out she's a bit of a puzzle herself.

I spent quite awhile hunting her down, and although I found several records confirming that an Elizabeth Doyle married a John Torongo and had a lot of kids with him, I haven't found any documentary evidence that this is MY Elizabeth Doyle.  There are a few positive signs in her children's names though. People often named their children after their parents or siblings, and there's some suggestion of this in the Torongo family.  Elizabeth's father was Francis; one of her sons was Hilliard Francis.  One of her brothers was Isaac and the other was James; one of her sons was John Isaac and another was Walter James.  This gives me hope - but that's all.

Judging by two censuses, John and Elizabeth got married either in 1870 or 1875 - and since their first child, Albert, was born in January 1871, I'm guessing that the earlier date is correct.  They had four more children - 'Lettie', Walter James, John Isaac and Hilliard Francis - born in Ontario before 1881.  They're all in the 1881 census, in Mt Forest, Ontario, where John was a blacksmith.  And then they all put on their invisibility cloaks and disappeared.

At least, that how it seemed at first.  But in fact they went to the United States - marriage records for some of the children told me that, and when I eventually found some of them in US census records, I learned that they had gone to Michigan in 1881.

So why can't I find any of them there in the 1890 US census or the 1894 Michigan census?   The problem is that most of the 1890 US census was destroyed in a fire in 1921.  And much of the 1894 Michigan census was destroyed too, including the records for Wexford county, where the Torongos lived.  So there's no joy there.  And the problem with looking for Torongos in any census or other record is that their name was spelled and mistranscribed in all sorts of ways, from Trangeau to Lorongs.  So it takes some perseverance (and imagination).

Eventually, I was able to piece the family together from directories, birth, death, marriage and later census records.  And they revealed the puzzle.  After having fourteen children together, most of whom were born in Cadillac, Michigan, John and Elizabeth seem to have parted ways.  In the 1900 census, Elizabeth is the head of the household, which doesn't include John, although Elizabeth is still married.  I finally found John in California that year, working as a blacksmith on a ranch.  He too, said he was married.  Well maybe it was just a temporary separation...

But no, in 1905, John was in Oregon, and in 1907 he was marrying somebody else there!  But poor John, according to the 1910 census, he was divorced and living alone.  His second wife Annette Stark is a complete mystery, who seems only to have existed briefly on the day she married John, then - poof - she was gone.

John died in Oregon in 1912.  Meanwhile, Elizabeth was on the move with some of her children.  In 1907 she was in Montana, and later in Tacoma, Washington.  Was she looking for her missing husband, who wasn't far away in Oregon?  Then she went to Everett, Washington, where she said in the 1910 census that she was still married, although John had already married and divorced somebody else by that time.  That same year, Elizabeth appears in the city directory for Tacoma, Washington, as the widow of John Torongo, who was still very much alive.  She was apparently there until about September 1911, and then she and at least one of her children went back to Michigan, where she died in 1912, a few months before John died.  And her death certificate states that she died a widow.  It names her father as Doyle, with no first name, and according to this record, her mother had a very common name - 'Not Known'.  I hate it when I see that!

Here are bits of some of the documents that contradict each other (click to enlarge them):


Elizabeth Doyle Torongo (known as Tessie) and some of her children in the 1910 census in Washington state, as head of the household, and married.
Elizabeth Doyle Torongo and three of her sons in the 1910 Tacoma City Directory, as the widow of John.


Elizabeth's husband John Torongo in the 1910 census in Oregon, alone and divorced (apparently for the second time), and most certainly, alive.

Elizabeth Doyle Torongo's death certificate showing her date of death as 28th of January 1912, when she was a widow.

John Torongo in the Oregon Death Index, showing his date of death as 29th June 1912, five months after his 'widow' Elizabeth died.

I can only assume that John left Elizabeth sometime before 1900 (their last child - as far as I can tell - was born in 1895, when Elizabeth was 47!  She must have been worn out).  Elizabeth continued to call herself married, but at some point, they got divorced, after which, she called herself a widow, perhaps to avoid the shame of a divorce.  Or maybe they were never divorced, and John was a bigamist, and his second wife discovered that and left him right after the wedding.

Or maybe I've been looking at two Elizabeth Doyles and/or two John Torongos.  Groan.....

Sunday 25 March 2018

Bright Shiny Objects


If you're wondering where I've been, so am I.  As far as genealogy goes, I've spent so much time grasping at BSOs (the Bright Shiny Objects that are always popping up when you're looking for something else entirely) I got completely sidetracked from what I was intending to do, and I've achieved hardly anything - but it's been very interesting!

One of the BSOs is a reasonably close autosomal and X DNA match called PM, who I can't pin down.  He/she has no tree anywhere, doesn't match any of my known DNA matches, doesn't answer emails and doesn't even reveal his/her gender.  But a clue led me to his/her surname, and using the DNA evidence, I think I've narrowed him/her down to the Doyle branch of my father's family tree - or it could be Wanamaker...

So I'm having another look at the Doyles.  One of my paternal great grandfathers was Isaac Francis Doyle, who had eight siblings who I've never paid much attention to before.  I'm now getting to know Isaac's eldest sister, Elizabeth Doyle, in hopes of tracing her descendants and finding somebody with the same surname as PM.  If I succeed, that will only be Step One.  The next steps, to find PM's parents or grandparents, will probably be much harder.  And if I fail on Step One, I'll move on to another of Isaac's siblings.

Was the mysterious PM descended from any of these people?


It turns out that Elizabeth Doyle is one of my family mysteries.  Interesting to have one of those on my father's side of the family for a change.  Elizabeth was the daughter of Francis Doyle and Mary Croskery.  She was born in about 1848 in Ontario, Canada (or according to one census, in Ireland, but I'm pretty sure that's rubbish, or the wrong person).

I do wonder just how many Elizabeth Doyles were born at the same time in Ontario.  Various ones pop up in early census records, but birth and marriage records are harder to come by.  So looking for 'my' Elizabeth as she goes through her life, I need to be very skeptical of everything I find, until I can prove it.

At least I can be sure that the Elizabeth in the 1851 and 1861 Canada censuses are the right person, because I know who her parents and siblings were.

The next time she pops up is in the 1871 census - twice.  In one, she's 22 years old, married to John Torongo, has a 3 month old child and is living in Carrick, Bruce county, Ontario.  In the other, taken about a week later, she's also 22 years old, probably single* and with her parents in Mount Forest, Wellington county, Ontario, which is about 50kms from Carrick.  I know this second one is my Elizabeth because of the other people in the family.  And it's not hard to imagine that she was recorded first at her home, and recorded again a week later because she happened to be at her parents' house on the day the census taker knocked on the door there - or for that matter, even if she wasn't there, whoever answered the census taker's questions might have named her as a member of the family, perhaps referring to her as 'my daughter Elizabeth' or 'my sister Elizabeth', leaving the census taker to assume Elizabeth's surname was Doyle.  It's possible... isn't it?  Or are these two different Elizabeths?

Why do I think these are both my Elizabeth?  Because many other records show that an Elizabeth Doyle, born in 1848 married a John Torongo born in 1846/7, and both of them were from Ontario.  I can't find any records of a likely Elizabeth Doyle marrying anybody else.  Well, let's face it, I can't find a record of any likely marriage for Elizabeth, which would include her parents' names and put me out of my misery. As I've found before, Ontario marriage records are notoriously frustrating to find.

I've considered the possibility that Elizabeth Torongo is the wrong person, and that my Elizabeth never married - but if not, why doesn't she show up in any more records as Elizabeth Doyle?  Possibly because she married somebody else altogether, and since I have no idea what his name was, and can't find any likely marriage records...  I'm doomed.

Naturally I've looked at other people's family trees, but there don't seem to be many people researching these Doyles.  And those who are all have my Elizabeth married to John Torongo - but is that just because they're all copying each other?  Not one of them has any solid evidence.

I'm on a mission to find some.

* On this page of the census, in the Marital Status column, there's an M for married people, W for widowed people, and nothing at all for single people.  There's nothing beside Elizabeth's name, which is not exactly a definite indication that she was single.