Family Tree Part I

On March 17, I found out that my father's fathers father - my great grandfather, Thomas C. Brown immigrated from Ireland in 1857 at the age of 2.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

With many thanks to my mother-in-law, Betty, who does genealogy as a hobby, a hobby with a passion; she showed me the US Census from 1920 showing my grandfather living at home with his parents and in 1930, employed as a New York State Trooper and married to my grandmother.  On this document it lists his father's birthplace as Northern Ireland.

In a strange coincidence, every generation of Browns since 1857 has had a Thomas Brown.  Thomas C. Brown had several children, one named Thomas who may have died in World War I and who may have been a twin brother to my grandfather.  Then there is Thomas, my dad; Thomas Andrew, my brother who goes by the name Andy; and then my son, Thomas Jacob, who we call, TJ.  Every generation might have intnetionally used the name within the next generation never realizing that they were extending the use of the name five times.   

For some odd reason, knowing this information about my past and where I come from seems to be very interesting to me right now.  Andy seems interested too, to the point where we are talking about traveling to Ireland if we can pinpoint where the family might be from.

I know that my grandmother was born in the United States to parents who emigrated from Germany - possibly near Garmish, Germany. Mimi, as she was called by the grandchildren, worked as a gift-shop saleslady in 1930 - before she had children.

My mom's family goes way, way back to some of the first families who came to America.  We go even farther back than Cotton Mather (a distant relative) to 1635 when his grandfather and some of the first Puritans came to escape religious persecution. 

With my parents gone, a lot of these chapters of the Family Journal need to be uncovered one document at a time.  I hope to uncover more of this story in the months and years to come.