HelPeR - BYU Idaho Special Collections and Family History

Breaking Through
Archives of Ireland, and having no luck finding
any of the wills that appeared so tantalizingly in
indexes, so I waited my turn and had a consultation
with one of the wonderful Irish Genealogy experts
who are there for all the patrons. She was so
kind. She did a quick family tree, and I mentioned
Anson’s name as my direct link with the Kellys of
Kildare. She assured me that there were no wills
left, and I thanked her, and returned to the main
room. Not five minutes later she appeared behind
me, exclaiming that she had found Anson’s Baptismal
certificate. We rushed back to her office, and she
showed me the entry in Irish Origins. She couldn’t
pull up the entire entry, but if I went online and paid
five Euro, I could get it. I just about ran across town,
headed to the hotel basement, put my two Euros into
the slot for my minutes of computer use, my credit
card number into Irish Origins, and there it was
“Baptized on September 20, 1844… twin brother of
Thomas Gifford.” Twin Twin! Thirty-nine years after
I found his discharge, I found his Baptismal certificate
and his twin brother. Anson really wanted
to be found.
There is one last odd thing about the revealing
of Anson Kelly. Recalling the blank in the “cause of
Death” space on the New Jersey death certificate,
Everton’s Genealogical Helper
Online Edition
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I decided to investigate, and while doing other research
in Trenton, I got the index for Camden, for
1898, and confidently scrolled to where Anson’s certificate
number must be. Nothing! “Can’t be. It must
be here!” Nothing! I checked the year before and
the year after. Nothing! I approached the research
assistant, told her that I must be ‘microfilm mad,’
and asked her to find the certificate in the index. She
could not. This made no sense. I had a copy of the
certificate at home. I had gotten it by mail from Trenton
seven years before. This was getting surreal.
Determined, I abandoned the index, went to the
drawer, and pulled the reel of certificates where I
hoped Anson’s might be, and started going through
them, one by one. It didn’t take long. There it was.
Cause of death, exposure. I again called my helpful
assistant to show her what I had found. She was
amazed, rechecked the index, and found nothing.
How the original researcher ever found it remains a
mystery. He or she must have gone beyond the index
and searched the same way that I did. How wonderful
and diligent a public servant! Without that certificate
I would never have known the name of the first,
long gone cemetery, and so the second, etc. Perhaps
the lesson in all of this is that indexes are imperfect;
perhaps it is that the books should never be closed;
perhaps that vital records don’t tell the whole story.
Or perhaps it says that Anson Kelly was just a man
who would be found. I wonder if twin Thomas Gifford
Kelly is also such a man.
Nancy Ronning, a resident of
Mahwah, New Jersey holds
Masters Degrees in Library
Science from Columbia
University and in Education
and English Literature from
Hunter College, CUNY. An
active genealogist for ten years,
Nancy’s specialty is going
beyond the vital statistics, to find our ancestors
in the historic, political, and social events that
formed and colored their lives. She lectures on that
topic, and on the route to finding that information.
Her own family reaches back eight generations,
and forward to daughters and grandchildren.
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without a magazine subscription! That is
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phone 1-800-443-6325.
58 © Ev e r t o n’s Ge n e a l o g i c a l He l p e r Ja n ua ry/Fe b r u a r y 2009